Prior to the start of class, I pre-teach myself student names on the roster and review their getting to know you forms student complete at registration.
On the first class I write a guided sentence on the board (Hello, my name is....) to introduce our self. I have a tent card that they practice writing their name and where they are from. They leave this card on their desk each class. We then work in groups to share information and identify their country on a map.
Comments
My personal favorite activity for helping learners get to know each other and build classroom community is to do the Same/Different mingle activity. I give each learner a gird with two columns. The first column is titled "Same". The second column is titled "Different." The learners mingle with their classmates and ask each other questions to find out what is the same between the two of them, and what is different. It prompts a lot of interesting discussions, and pushes them to look for commonalities in their lives.
Thanks Nicole and Andrea for sharing these strategies for helping everyone get acquainted. Andrea, for the same/different grid activity, do you include any questions on the grid or do you allow the learners to generate their own questions?
Members, what getting acquainted activities have you used with success?
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, English Language Acquisition CoP