Icebreakers, Needs Assessment

Icebreakers

  • Secrets: [Genevieve]: everyone writes on a strip of paper something that few people know about them and hands them to teacher. Everyone picks one and tries to guess who the person is. Keeps guessing till they find the right person.
  • Collocations (can show a whole bunch of the assessment things, below)
  • Two truths and a lie: Everyone writes their name and three things. They can get posted on the board. Class goes around and guesses. [Genevieve]
  • “Speed dating”: hours of clock face, find dates for all the hours, meet at the appointed “time” and discuss a teacher-posed question. Can use that later as a way to pair up: Go with your 2:00 partner.” Variation: two concentric circles that rotate and answer/discuss on thing (to get to know each other, to practice a grammar point, etc.) [Kim, Hilary]
  • Scavenger hunt— in teams? points? [Christine]
  • Say your name and a word that begins with same letter. e.g. “My name is Jess and I like to jump.” Helps people remember names cuz of the action, and it’s animated. [Jess]
  • There’s a shiteload of icebreakers if you google it. Time capsule is a common idea for the beginning of the year. [Elka]

And the more of the language objectives you can get, the better: question-posing, strategic competence, pronunciation, vocabulary, collocations, mnenomics, needs assessment, etc.

Needs Assessment

What are we assessing?

  • Knowledge: productive and comprehensive ability (linguistic competence and gaps)
  • Language-learning goals
  • Student background: culture, context
  • Learning styles
  • Linguistic background
  • Perception of target language
  • “Soft” skills e.g. interpersonal skills
  • Interests

Mind maps have many functions: schema-activating, brainstorming … and even icebreakers: even a quick brainstorm can reveal a range of vocabulary, mindset, pronunciation, schema-building, turn-taking, confidence… If they’re writing, spelling is revealed as well. And then you can have them write a paragraph about one of those things. She highly recommends them as early activities. She used “food” as an example.

Other Session Notes

Recommended textbooks (all have different levels in the series)

  • Grammar in Context (*)
  • Grammar Dimensions
  • Grammar Links

Icebreakers can be needs assessments, as teachers mill about monitoring discussion looking for stuff to discuss afterwards.

Other Recommended Books

  • Recycle Your English series
  • Practical English Usage (I think I have that)
  • Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (Celce-Murcia et al; now in its 3rd edition, it is a frequently updated anthology with writings on the latest thinking by big-time names in the field.)
  • Grammar Practice Activities

LAP Procedure

From Learned Needs Analysis through Picures by E. Edmundson and S. Fitzpatrick. Chapter 10 in “Classroom Decision Making.” Edited by M. Breen and A. Littlejohn. Cambridge 2000. [in a handout from Bev]

One idea is to present them with a list of topics and ask them to rank their interest. That is one aspect of the “LAP procedure” which is designed [this is all a quote]:

  • to begin to involve the learners in the decision-making process of constructing the syllabus;
  • to prompt an understanding of the value of learning co-operatively from each other;
  • to identify activities which in the students’ view promote learning;
  • to identify areas of weakness (group and individual);
  • to introduce the notion of the communicative purposes of grammar;
  • to initiate the learners in recognising the importance of process during task work, as well as product;
  • to introduce evaluation sessions and explain their purpose;
  • to foster ‘study competencies’ (Waters and Waters, 1992) such as ‘self-confidence’ and ‘the ability to think critically and creatively’.

The authors suggest having visual aids to help Ss rank themselves on a number of learning factors. I did one that I may use for ranking which of the four skills they want to focus on.

  1. What is most difficult for you [4 skills].
  2. “Communicative acts”: Expressing feelings, talking in front of people
  3. “Looking for correspondences”: Between the two sets of cards above: which personality factor might make learning a particular skill difficult for them.
  4. They asked how Ss prefer to study: alone, in pairs, etc. (learning preferences).

So that in the end they could write on the BB a matrix.

Skills (priorities) Communicative Acts Reasons for Difficulties Learning Preferences
1.

2.

3.

4.

[four skills ranked in order of priority and/or interest]

Expressing feelings vocabulary; shyness; fear of making mistakes, pronunciation, translation drama

dictation

games

video

jigsaw reading

music

Forming questions auxiliary verbs, prepositions, shyness, word order
Giving instructions modal verbs, prepositions, vocabulary, pronunciation
Narrating prepositions, shyness, word order, pronunciation
Describing characteristics vocabulary, prepositions, pronunciation
Informal writing word order, propositions

A chart the authors use in the LAP procedure (this refers to tutoring situations, btw):

Name of activity What I did, what I practiced What I learned Remaining difficulties How I felt about the activity
1.
2.
3.
4.

Another icebreaker/needs assessment exercise (from an unidentified handout from Bev, which references Chris Conley’s “Find Someone Who…” activity for intermediate adult learners.

This is all quoted, with some questions deleted:

Find Someone Who

Ask other students the questions. When someone says “yes,” write his or her name on the line. Use a name only once.

1. Plays a musical instrument   _________________
Question: Do you play… ?

2. Likes spicy food  _________________
Question: Do you like… ?

3. Lived in a small town   _________________
Question: Did you live… ?

4. Felt angry recently  _________________
Question: Did you feel…?

5. Can cook well   _________________
Question: Can you… ?

6. Is happy today   _________________
Question: Are you… ?

7. Is NOT younger than 25 years old  _________________
Question: Are you… ?

8. Was in town last week    _________________
Question: Were you… ?

9. Has learned a new skill recently   _________________
Question: Have you… ?

10. Had a scary dream recently  _________________
Question: Did you have… ?

11. Has an interesting job  _________________
Question: _____ ?

12. Enjoys working alone  _________________

Question: ______ ?

And they can also make up questions.

General needs assessment principles

  • Keep it simple and focused
  • Use it to identify some gaps, but don’t try to deal with them all

You can give them or elicit a list of topics and get them to rank their level of interest. I think I already said that.