Looking for a right start...

After all day searching the web for the ideal way of breaking the ice in my classes tomorrow I cannot really say which one fits better with my objectives. I know little about my the children I am meeting... scarcely the number of students per group and the average age of the group.

Many icebreaker games seem to be very interesting and dynamic, but they are not focused to my actual reality. I am not experienced enough and I know little about my students so that I am afraid of being too original and then not being accomplished to the necessities of my students, or even worst not being capable to manage a given situation if the game is too fun or noisy for the school.

I have found some places really interesting and they had been added to the side bar Links, apart from them some proposal via forums I have read can be useful, to wit:

• Some brainstormed ice-breaking ideas to the firs day class by Dani Dias.
• Some ideas and variations on it by several contributors as reply to a query Little Sague shot, asking for ideas to start with on the first day of a brand new class.

I also find it very useful to read the following reflection quoted from Icebreakers for ESL Classes at the web site How-TO&Education on Esquidoo, by acautrell:

Do You Need Icebreakers? | Why use them at all?
Icebreakers are actually pretty important. You want your students to relax and enjoy class time enough that they can attempt communication. Nervousness is a major barrier to learning! And language learners need focus and participation in an English classroom in order to improve their communication skills. Icebreakers can make your students see that your classroom is a safe place to practice, make friends and even make those mistakes that are necessary to learn English.

Icebreakers are a tricky thing. Done properly, they help students to get to know each other and adjust to their new learning partners (you and their other classmates). Icebreakers can also be perceived as a waste of precious class time by students who are accustomed to very different styles of teaching and different levels of classroom formality. Some students may have spent years learning English in formal classes using mostly lecture and the grammar-translation method of teaching. They may lose respect for a teacher who forces them to play childish games when they have the very serious task of improving their English for education or better jobs.

With that in mind, how can you use icebreakers effectively? Your goal in choosing an icebreaker game or activity would be to make the game relevant to what you are learning in the classroom. If your class focuses on conversation and public speaking, you should do speaking games or activities. If you're teaching a reading skills class, have students start using reading skills from the first warm-ups. Writing classes can do written icebreaker games to be shared with the class.

This makes me think whether I really need an amusing icebreaker activity for my first day of class or should I simply arrive trying to be as calmed and relaxed as possible so that I can try to get to my students in a less striking way, but maybe being more self confident.

Finally, I have enjoyed some readings about the TPR or Total Physical Response as a way of making students more relaxed in the classroom, besides its use is recommended in the hand outs with comments and advises I was given in one of the interviews with the director of the school. Since I find it remarkably interesting and useful I created a separated point for TPR on the side bar.

In relation with the last point, to finish this post I will just mention an outstanding children game that may be of much use in our classrooms, Simon Says. It involves uttering commands and selective listening so that children has to obey and perform only those commands preceded by the structure “Simon says” as quick as possible in order not to be eliminated.