Building a positive and collaborative learning environment is crucial for any training session, and icebreaker activities are a great way to break the ice and get participants interacting. Here are some fun and engaging getting-to-know-you activities you can use with primary English teachers:

1. Two Truths and a Lie:

• This classic icebreaker is always a hit. Participants write down three statements about themselves, two truths and one lie. Then, they take turns sharing their statements and the group has to guess which one is the lie. This is a great way to encourage listening, critical thinking, and laughter.

2. Find Your Match:

• Prepare cards with prompts about interests, hobbies, or teaching philosophies. For example, "I love using technology in the classroom," or "I'm passionate about children's literature." Participants mingle and find others who share their interests based on the prompts on their cards. This is a great way to spark conversations and find common ground.

3. Human Bingo:

• Create a bingo grid with squares containing prompts like "Has taught abroad," "Plays a musical instrument," or "Can speak another language." Participants mingle and ask each other questions to find someone who matches each prompt. The first person to get a bingo wins!

4. Photo Scavenger Hunt:

• Give participants a list of photo prompts related to teaching English, such as "a picture of your favorite children's book," or "a classroom object that brings you joy." They have to take pictures of these items around the training venue or in their own time. Then, they share their photos and the stories behind them.

5. Collaborative Story Writing:

• Divide participants into small groups and give them each the first sentence of a story. Each group takes turns adding a sentence to the story, building on what the previous group has written. This is a fun way to encourage creativity, collaboration, and communication.

Bonus:

• Name Games: There are many fun name games you can play, such as "My Name is..." where participants say their name and an adjective that starts with the same letter, or "Find Someone Who..." where participants mingle and find someone who matches a given criteria.

Remember to choose activities that are appropriate for the age and interests of your participants and to keep the atmosphere light and fun. The goal is to help everyone feel comfortable and connected, so they can get the most out of the training session.

I hope these ideas help you plan a successful and engaging getting-to-know-you activity for your primary English teacher training!.

Regards,

Tor

Objective:

The activity is to encourage the participants to know each other actively.These combined games can be applied to promote their writing and speaking skills.

Steps of Activity:

1.     Provide a piece of paper

2.     Participants write their information (Preferred name/ School / Levels they teach / Anything to tell that it is easy to find you or etc.)

3.     Roll a paper as a snowball

4.     Throw it away (using a fun song as a sign)

5.     Once the song stops, they have to pick one and open it

6.     Read the written information

7.     Use the game "Find Someone Who" to find the writer

8.     Use Wh- questions or Yes ot No questions to find a writer

9.     They can take a seat if they find their partners.

Materials

1.     a piece of A4 paper

2.     a pen

3.     fun songs

Evaluation:

Oberving from the participants participation from how they write information (writing skill) and how they ask each other (speaking skill)

Miss Nanthawan Boonlue

HCEC manager

Takpittayakhom School

1.      Tell students you are going to draw some pictures and talk to your friends and get to know them.

2.      Show the example picture – tell students these pictures are about yourself.

3.      Give students one paper each and a certain time to draw.

4. The teacher demonstrates the activity by asking a volunteer to join the demonstration.

-          Show your picture to your partner.

-          Let your partner guess about you by asking Yes/No questions related to your picture eg. Were you born in 1983?

Do you like elephants?

Do you like birds?

Are you studying at Ubonratchatani University?

Did you study at Cambridge?

Your partner can give more information after answering yes/no questions.

-          Take turns asking and answering questions.

-          Then tell students to mingle around and talk to 10 people.

5. The teacher checks understanding by asking ICQs for example

-          How many questions are you going to ask?

-          Are you going to start with Yes/No or information questions?

-          Is it a mingle or group work?

6.      Students do mingle activity.

HCEC Buriram Pitthayakhom

- Divide the participants into small groups

- Instruct each participant to come up with two true statements about themselves and one false statement.

- Each participant takes turns sharing their statements, and the rest of the group must guess which statement is the lie.

- This activity will help teachers get to know each other in a fun and engaging way.

"Teaching Experiences" (20 minutes)

- Ask the participants to gather in a large group.

- Facilitate a discussion where each teacher shares their most memorable teaching experience.

- Encourage them to discuss the challenges they faced, what they learned from it, and how it impacted their teaching approaches.

- This activity will foster collaboration and encourage teachers to reflect on their teaching practices.

Personalized Questions (15 minutes)

- Provide a list of questions related to teaching and personal experiences.

- Ask participants to choose a question and share their responses with a partner.

- After a few minutes, ask some volunteers to share their partner's response with the large group.

- This activity will build rapport among teachers and allow them to find common ground.

Reflective Writing (10 minutes)

- Distribute paper and pens to each participant.

- Instruct them to write a short reflection on what they hope to gain from the training session and how they plan to apply it in their classrooms.

- Encourage teachers to be specific and set realistic goals for themselves.

- This activity will help teachers focus their learning and set intentions for the training session.

HCEC Singsamut

GTKY Activity/ Mingle Activity/ Ice breaking activity

1. Hot potato

Materials : A ball, music, personal questions

How to :

1. Set a classroom as a circle

2. Students sit in a circle

3. Teacher plays music and students pass a ball around.

4. When the music stops, the student who holds the ball has to answer the personal questions.

The questions can be adapted to any information.

2. Broken Basket

   Materials : A basket, vocab flash cards

   How to :

   1. Students sit in a circle and each one holds one vocabulary card

   2. Teacher demonstrates how to play the games for the 1st round ;

      the teacher holds a basket, and says; "I am going to a market. I want to buy................" Then walk around and say....." I want to buy an apple." The student who holds the word "apple" has to get up and walks with the player.

   3. Then go to another student with different vocabulary

   4. When there are at least 10 students walking after you, you will say " Ohhh, the basket is broken!!? Then the students have to run back to the seat, the one who can not reach the seat, he/she has to be in the middle of the class.

   5. The one who loses the games has to start another round of the games.

- Introduce their names using the adjectives to describe themselves with their nicknames. Participants might need to think about one adjective that can describe themselves and combine with their nicknames such as Tidy Terry, Wonderful Wadee etc.

   Participants think about their favorite people, food and lucky numbers and have them write the information in a piece of paper. Tell them these information will be their names, family names and ages. Then let them introduce the information with their pairs.

Mingling Activities

Hot Potato

   Cps will use the information the have written in the papers. Then the trainers can useuse the following script (or modify to suit your needs):

- We are going to play a game to help you get to know each other.”

• It’s called the Hot Potato Name Game, and it works like this.”  (Hold up one of the “hot potatoes.”)

• This is a ‘hot potato.’” “Because it’s hot, you don’t want to hold onto it too long, or it will burn your fingers.”

• So, if the ‘hot potato’ is passed to you, you should pass it to someone else in your group.”

• But the tricky part is, you can’t pass it until you say the name of the person you are passing it to.”

• If you can’t remember anyone’s name, you have to keep holding the ‘hot potato’ until you do.”

• And if you have the ‘hot potato’ when I ring this bell (or make a noise with the noisemaker), you just got burned, and you are out of the game.”

• I will ring the bell at different times each round, so you better be fast at getting rid of your ‘hot potato.’”

• To get us started, I am going to put you into groups in small circles and have you go around your circle and introduce yourself.”  (Cps tell their names, family name and their ages)

• (Ask the group if they have any questions.  Then, put them in their small groups (about 8-10 people each), and let them do their introductions.)

• (After about five minutes, give them their ‘hot potatoes’ and let them start passing.)

• (After a few minutes, ring the bell, and have the person with the ‘potato’ step out of the circle.)

• (Then, passing begins again.  This continues until you have only 2-3 people left in each group.)

Find Someone Who

This is an oral interaction activity to help participants get to know each other. Cps are prompted to walk around the meeting room and introduce themselves to their colleagues before asking them questions to find who matches the traits for each statement the trainers gave them.

Objective: These activities aim to encourage participants to get to know each other and feel more comfortable to work together in later stages.

1. Memory name game

Steps of Activity:

1. Each participant thinks of an adjective which begins with the same letter as their initials.

2. Explain the rules as follows. The first person says the adjective and his/her name. After the first person has finished, he/she must set the timer using a smartphone. The second person, standing on the left of the first person, has to repeat the adjective and name of player one, and adds his/her adjective and name too. This continues and adds up until a player misses someone’s name or adjective, then the first person will have to start again. Ask the ICQs. Does the last person stand on the left or right of the first person? If someone misses, will you continue or start again?

3. Call for five participants to demonstrate.

4. Divide participants into groups of ten and stand in a circle.

5. The first person says the adjective and his/her name. After the first person has finished, he/she must set the timer using a smartphone.

6. The second person, standing on the left of the first person, has to repeat the adjective and name of player one, and adds his/her adjective and name too. This continues and adds up until a player misses someone’s name or adjective, then the first person will have to start again. 

7. Once the last person finishes, the first person stops the timer and run to the front.

Materials: A smartphone used as a timer

Evaluation: Observing how the participants participate in the activities.

2. Five cool things about me

Steps of Activity:

1. Present a slideshow consisting of five drawings (2 numbers and 3 pictures) relating to the trainer.

2. Let the participants ask the trainers some yes/no questions to guess how each drawing relates to the trainer.

3. Participants draw five things relating to themselves.

4. Let participants talk with their partners for 2-3 minutes.

5. Get the whole class mingling for 5-7 minutes. When someone can guess an item correctly, cross that out and that person gets one point. The owner of the drawing signs on his/her sheet as a mark. Then change to talk with another person.

Materials

1. a piece of A4 paper

2. a pen

Evaluation: Observing how the participants participate in the activities.