Students entering a communication-based L2 classroom must navigate the transition between two linguistic and cultural worlds. They must move from an environment with which they’re familiar into one where the object of study — the L2 — is simultaneously the medium of communication. The first few minutes of the class are a critical opportunity to ease students through this transition, drawing them in with meaning-based conversation, reminding them implicitly of useful vocabulary and syntax structures, and establishing a positive immersive environment.
In a 50-minute class session, there may be relatively little time for this, but long or short, the warm-up period is an important space for enhancing students’ motivation and success in the course.
A few ideas for warm-up activities in a remote L2 environment:
- Open up the remote session 5-10 minutes earlier than the scheduled starting time, and chat (in the L2 if possible) about familiar small-talk topics. Addressing them one-on-one allows you to pitch your conversation at a linguistically appropriate level for individual students as they arrive.
- “Small talk” is likely to be more authentically communicative in a remote teaching environment than in an F2F classroom. Each student participating remotely will have unique things to say, as opposed to asking students sitting together in a F2F classroom how the weather is — which everyone already knows. You can bring up topics of appropriate difficulty and interest that are relevant to the current cultural topic; or use conventional small-talk topics, approximating “real” conversational discourse as closely as possible, at a language level that welcomes all levels of proficiency and interest:
- weather
- recent activities
- local food / sports / politics / community events
- “Have you heard about …?”
- What’s up? What’s new?
- What is everyone reading / watching on Netflix right now?
- What’s your stress level right now?
- (Friday) How was the week?
- (Monday) How was the weekend?
- [linking to something previously mentioned] Has anyone else done that / read that / heard about that / seen that?
- Share Screen: Show a few headlines from L2 media (using Share Screen) and ask if students are familiar with the topic or event. Point out (or ask for) differences of approach to the topic/event in the L2 cultural context, and elicit reactions.
- Encourage group reactions to a personalized anecdote pertaining to the chapter or cultural topic. If the topic is “travel,” for example, tell a story of a trip you've taken, and ask general questions about any trips students have taken, improvising on whatever responses emerge.
- Give students a few authentic L2 chunks/phrases for small talk, both questions and responses, e.g., Hey, have you heard about …? / No, really? / You’ve gotta be kidding! / So, what’s up? / You won’t believe what I just saw/read/heard … — and have them engage in small talk with each other in Breakout Rooms, using these linguistic chunks.
- Show a picture from your locale (pertaining to the chapter/cultural topic, if possible), explain it, and encourage questions and reactions.
- Introduce a song (on YouTube, using the Share Screen feature), explain why you like it, and show the lyrics via a document file on Chat.
- Send students by two’s into Breakout Rooms right away, and let them chat in the L2 on any topic they wish – or suggest some topics (and provide relevant vocabulary help).
Vocabulary warm-up ideas:
- Have students brainstorm all the words they associate with another word or topic.
- Give students a short list of new words (or words for review) and send them to Breakout Rooms to chat conversationally with each other — but with instructions to working all of the words on the list, or as many as possible, into their conversation.
- Novice level: Create a word chain by saying a word, asking someone to say a word beginning with the last letter of your word, and continue the pattern with either oral responses or written responses in the Chat field.
- Novice level: Ask for words of one syllable; then two syllables; then three syllables ... and have students respond orally or in writing in the Chat field.
Depending on proficiency levels, warm-up activities can approximate authentic conversation, or they can be structured to take the form of games; they may lead into more extended activities, and in fact may seem identical to standard classroom L2 tasks. But they should be perceived as warm-ups, i.e., something short and easy to start off with, related to the current topic perhaps, but separate from the “real” classroom work to follow in that the tone should be light and casual, with minimal corrective feedback.
NB: Be sensitive to topics and comments that may be unwelcome, or perceived as evaluative, or simply too repetitive; and avoid topics that may be interesting to a few students but clearly not to all.