A selection of English ESL warmup printables

Culture, intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication

Adjectives to describe feelings, emotions

Adjectives to describe personality and character

Adjectives: Gradable / Non-gradable adjectives

Articles: Definite or indefinite article (a, an or the)

BE + infinitive structures (e.g. he was to become famous)

Clauses of contrast (e.g.  although, while)

Clauses of purpose (e.g. in order to, so that, so as to)

Clauses of reason (e.g. because, because of, due to, as, since)

Cleft sentences (e.g. It's Joey we're looking for)

Comparison: Comparative adjectives and structures

Comparison: Superlative adjectives and structures

Conditional 2 (second conditional) - would

Conditionals: Conditional phrases (e.g. unless, provided that, as long as)

Conjunctions (aka connectives, e.g. and, but, or, so, then)

Contractions (shortened forms, e.g. don't, aren't, etc.)

Determiners (words that can come before nouns)

Formal and informal English (politeness or colloquial language)

Future perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Future perfect simple and continuous (progressive) tense

Future phrases (e.g. be about to, bound to, likely to, due to, set to + INF)

Homonyms (two words with the same pronunciation - homophones and homographs)

It as preparatory subject (e.g. it's raining, it's nice of you to)

Linking verbs (aka copulas, e.g. I am a student)

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how to accuse somebody of something in English

how to apologize, say sorry, forgive and express regret in English

how to ask for information and make inquiries in English

how to ask for something, make requests in English

how to blame somebody for something in English

how to defend yourself from criticism in English

how to deny or admit something in English

how to describe things or people in English

how to emphasize important things in English

how to encourage or discourage people in English

how to evaluate people or progress in English

how to express agreement /disagreement in English

how to express approval and disapproval  in English

how to express cause and effect in English

how to express interest in something in English

how to express likelihood, probability in English

how to express likes and dislikes in English

how to express sequence and chronology in English

how to express shock and disbelief in English

how to express sympathy and condolences in English

how to give permission, authorization in English

how to inform somebody about some news in English

how to interpret what was said in English

how to keep a conversation going in English

how to make guesses about something in English

how to make, accept and refuse offers in English

how to order or make a booking in English

how to persuade, convince people in English

how to praise people and express appreciation in English

how to reassure somebody of something in English

how to refuse and object to something in English

how to remind people of something in English

how to rephrase, paraphrase what was said in English

how to say thank you, express gratitude in English

Nouns: Collective nouns (team, class, family, committee)

Nouns: Proper nouns (names of people, cities, companies)

Oxymorons (phrases with words of contradictory meaning, e.g. living dead)

Participles: Past participle (e.g. HAVING DONE)

Participles: Present participle (e.g. DOING)

Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Past perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Phonetics (pronunciation, IPA, phonetic symbols)

Plural nouns: regular plurals with S ending

Prefixes (e.g. A, UN, IM, DIS, MIS, EN, etc. )

Prepositions vs adverbs (e.g. before me, saw him before.)

Prepositions: Double prepositions (e.g. out of)

Prepositions: Participle prepositions (e.g. pending, concerning)

Prepositions: Phrase prepositions (e.g. by means of)

Present perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Present perfect simple or present continuous tense

Present simple tense: S for third person singular verbs

Present simple vs continuous (progressive) tense

Pronouns: EACH OTHER, ONE ANOTHER (reciprocal pronouns)

Pronouns: Possessive pronouns (e.g. my, mine)

Pronouns: Reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, yourself))

Pronouns: SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, EVERYBODY, NO ONE, NOTHING, etc.

Pronouns: THIS, THAT, THESE, THOSE (demonstratives)

Pronouns: YOU and THEY to talk about people in general

Quantifiers (e.g. some, many, much, any, few, little)

Questions: WH questions (open-ended questions)

Reported speech: reported questions (indirect questions)

There is / there are / there was / there were / there will be, etc.

Verbs: Transitive or intransitive verbs (words that can or cannot stand with objects)

Working with Paragraphs: ordering, titling

Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game

Pictionary (picture dictionary) or picture matching

Writing an opinion essay (persuasive essay)

Learners who are Pre-A1 have just begun learning English and will first learn how to:<ul><li>Say the letters in the alphabet and numbers</li><li>Say hello, talk about names and age</li><li>Name the colors and dates, express likes and dislikes</li></ul>

Absolute beginners who have begun to learn the letters and numbers

Learners taking the A1 Elementary exam should be able to:<ul><li>Introduce themselves and ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, things he/she has, people he/she knows.</li><li>Communicate using very basic phrases as long as the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: common adjectives & adverbs of frequency, going to, how much/how many, imperatives, I'd like, 's – possessive, common prepositions of place and time, present simple & continuous, there is/are</li></ul>

A very basic tourist level, which is enough for buying food and a bus ticket

Learners taking the A2 Pre-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand sentences and frequently used expressions (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).</li><li>Complete tasks that are routine and exchange information about familiar matters.</li><li>Describe matters of immediate need in simple terms.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: countable/uncountable nouns, adverbs of frequency, future will/going to, much/many, present perfect, past simple, past continuous, common phrasal verbs, common modals: can/should</li></ul>

A tourist who can do basic conversations about the past, present and future

Learners taking the B1 Intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand points regarding family, work, school or leisure-related topics.</li><li>Deal with most travel situations in areas where the language is spoken.</li><li>Create simple texts on topics of personal interest.</li><li>Describe experiences, events, dreams, and ambitions, as well as opinions or plans in brief.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: question tags, intensifiers: too/enough, future tenses, past tenses, modals, conditionals, wh-questions in the past</li></ul>

Learners who can deal with both familiar and routine situations, in friendly and work contexts

Learners taking the B2 Upper-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.</li><li>Interact with fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without difficulty for either party.</li><li>Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain an opinion on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: perfect tenses, mixed conditionals, modals in the present, phrasal verbs, reported speech, wish, relative clauses</li></ul>

The level where you can be a tour guide for your foreign friends and talk about a lot of topics, even abstract ones, with ease and fluency

Learners taking the C1 Advanced exam should be able to: Express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts. Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, using linking phrases (=words that connect ideas between sentences). Main grammar points to know: inversion, mixed conditionals, modals in the past, all passive forms, phrasal verbs (all patterns), wish/if only for regrets

Learners who can smoothly communicate in every walk of life, read long texts and write well

Learners taking the C2 Proficient exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand almost everything read or heard with ease.</li><li>Summarize information from a variety of sources into a coherent presentation.</li><li>Express themselves using precise meaning in complex scenarios.</li><li>Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations</li></ul>

Get here and you are ready to study in English at university

A nice warm up or end of class speaking/writing activity. Talking about people's professions. Lots of adjectives and nouns. You can get the whole class involved in talking about each person described, and then lead onto getting them thinking about other professions and how to talk about them. 

What Is My Job?

A sheet for students to read, and then put into practice. Great warm up speaking activity. Teaching students to say how they feel with the rule that they cannot use the word 'fine'. 

Adjectives - How Are You?

A warm up activity to use at the beginning of a class. Students choose from the list of 5 "wh" questions and fill in the blanks. They can then ask their classmates some of the questions. 

WH Questions

Basic, no-frills WS:) Commonly used adjectives defined by their antonyms - may be used as a review or a warm up (individually or in small group). Depending on the students' level you may turn it into a race or allow the use of dictionaries.

Adjectives by antonyms

Warm up activity

Cut along the lines and distribute among your students.

The activity will move your students from their seats and everybody will have fun. Trust me, it works. They may perform the activity twice after redistribution. You may need to pre-teach some phrases before.

Follow the instructions

This can be a quick ESL warmup activity in 2x3 minutes or you can devote more time to it if it fits your lesson aims, since it is an activity that sparks students' imagination and is guaranteed to keep them engaged.



Recommended for highschool students and adults, as the activity presupposes ability for abstract thought and working with symbols. 



How to do this warmer activity:



1.	Put students in pairs, then tell them about the activity: "You’re going to act out psychologist and client. The client is supposed to tell the the psychologist about his/her dream. You will interpret the dream together. You will take turns in being the psychologist and the client."



2.	The psychologists need to close their eyes. You then show the clients one of the three “dream scenes”. 



3.	Next, they should describe the dream to their partners by adding some more events to the dream scene depicted in the photo. 



4.	Finally, they should interpret the dream and the symbols in it together. 





Follow-up:



1. You can check the meaning of the various symbols in the dream scenes and discuss it with students:

http://dreammoods.com

Warmer: Interpreting dreams #2

I made this fun team quiz for the last English lessons of term. It could also be used as a first lesson warmup for students above beginner level, or used multiple times with fresh questions. Students can work in small teams and make funny team names.



My original questions are:



Round one (Spelling):

How do you spell~?

1: kitchen

2: musician

3: restaurant

4: international

5: omelet

6: professional



Round two (Mystery Pictures):

I showed the students warped or very zoomed in pictures of objects and animals and they simply have to write down what they see. Prepare to get some funny answers!

I took the pictures from this website of solutions for a mobile phone game: https://game-solver.com/zoomed-in-answers/



Round three (What's wrong?):

Students have to listen to and read the sentences and find the grammar mistake in each one. They then write down the correct word or grammar.

1: Do you want somewhere to drink? - something

2: Andy Murray is a man which plays tennis. - who / that

3: This is an book I like. - a

4: I’ve saw that movie last week. - I

5: Mrs. Rios has already prepare dinner. - prepared

6: I’ve just coming back from a trip to Australia. - come



Round four (Shiritori):

Shiritori is a Japanese game where you have to write down as many words as possible in a certain time (2 minutes is good). Each new word has to start with the last letter of the previous word. Choose a category which all words must fit into, such as, animals, foods, or verbs.



Round five (Q & A):

The students listen to the question and write down an answer.

1: What is the biggest man-made structure on Earth? The Great Wall of China (it’s over 4000 miles long!).

2: Which is the smallest prefecture of Japan? Kagawa.

3: What is the 20th letter of the English alphabet? T

4: What is the second largest country in the world? Canada (Russia – 17,075,000sq.km / Canada – 9,985,000sq.km / USA – 9,827,000sq.km).

5: What letter is between ‘Y’ and ‘I’ on a computer keyboard? U

6: How do you say thank you in Spanish? Gracias.

(By all means, change the questions if you want to)



Award prizes such as stickers to the winning team of each round, or simply award the team with the biggest total score at the end.



The BIG English Quiz

Just some pictures I found to help students ask 2nd conditional questions to each other - e.g. What would you do if you found someone's wallet in the street? or If you could travel in time, would you go into the past or the future? A good warmup is to just let the students create any questions from the pictures and ask each other, then guide them towards forming 2nd conditional questions specifically.

Second Conditional - picture prompts

A journal warmup for reflection over the weekend. Good class starter.

Journal Writing Sentences

Students ask each other the question and answer, and see how many times they can complete it within three minutes.

Three Minute Challenge

A simple warmup activity to introduce some vocabulary relating to the topic of vehicles. It usually takes elementary-aged students about 10-15mins to complete..

Vehicles Word Search

authentic material adapted from the Poke, office slang (expressions), a more light-hearted approach to business English. Can be used as a warmup exercise.

23 Warmup English ESL worksheets pdf & doc