3Main Part: a brief history of language teaching

3. The significance of the utilization of warming up activities in English class 
The importance of having warming up activities was mentioned at the
beginning of this paper, but a question remains: What is a warming up activity?
Allwright considers that warm up activities are designed to attract students’
attention, to help them put aside distracting thoughts, and to get them ready to focus
individually and as groups on whatever activities that follow. They will cause people
to stop whatever they are doing or thinking and refocus their attention. We could say
a warming up activity is a motivating starting point that will lead students to become
animated to work efficiently in the language class. For the purpose of our study, it
was the activity used to encourage students’ involvement and permeate the
development of the whole lesson, so we avoided looking at them as isolated
activities. These kinds of activities might also be called zealous, enthusiastic or
suggestive activities. How we can include these activities in the process of a class
will be the next focus in our discussion [12.p.77].
The Place of Warm up in the English Lesson
- When preparing lesson plans
for our EFL classes, we must include at least the following parts so that warming up
activities can play a clear and meaningful role in our teaching. Kay describes the
stages of a lesson plan in the following way: Warm up: “It is an effective way to
help the students begin to think in English and to review previously introduced
material. Different types of warm ups help provide variety and interest in the lesson”
(p. vi). A warm up to prepare students for a period of concentration may involve
physical movement with activities that keep them active by standing up, walking,
jumping, matching pictures with sentences or vocabulary, drawing or writing
personal experiences or stories, and singing or listening to familiar songs and chants.
These are, among others, enjoyable and motivating warms ups.
Presentation:
The first part of the presentation often involves pre-teaching to
encourage the flow of information. In this initial stage, we conduct activities to
present the new language by providing a context for each situation.
Practice
: It involves a wide variety of tasks that ensure the practice of the
target language. These activities can range from controlled to less–controlled and

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free expressions. The activities must provide opportunities to work on a particular

skill or to work integrated skill exercises.
Application
: The application provides students with hands-on opportunities to
use what they have learned. This part of the lesson can also be considered part of the
practice –particularly less controlled and free practice.
Assessment:
Some assessment activities like games, tasks or projects let
students carry out the activity while the teacher is circulating in the classroom
monitoring their use of the language, to examine students’ progress and
achievement. Also, a written assessment and a self evaluation section could be
included [13.p.101].
Useful Strategies when Implementing Warming up Activities
- Breaking the
monotony of learning: About this one, Dornyei highlights the importance of the
“motivational flow” when talking about the general rhythm and sequence of events
in class and suggests starting it with a warmer, which can be a short stimulating
game to set the tone. • Making the tasks more interesting: The author claims that
humans are able to produce concentrated effort if they want to. Generating this
interest involves a set of characteristics. Most of them can be adaptable; thus, they
become challenging for students since they have interesting content, novelty, and
intriguing, exotic, fantasy and personal elements; they stimulate competition and
humor. • Increasing the involvement of the students: He considers that it is important
to make students active participants and suggests selecting tasks which require
mental or bodily involvement of each participant and creating specific rules and
personalized assignments for everybody.
Put simply, a lesson warm-up is an activity that helps get students in a learning
frame of mind. Warm-ups, or warmers, are any activity completed at the beginning
of class specifically intended to prepare students for learning, explains British
Council’s TeachingEnglish. Warm-ups should be short, yet dynamic activities.
Warm-ups activities help students shift their frame of mind into the subject they’re
about to learn. ESL educator Kristina Lim says warm-ups are important for an
foreign language classroom to do because students may not have used that language

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at home or at all that day so far. It takes time and mental stimulation to start thinking

about the world in another language, so a warm-up activity effectively supports this
transition. It’s best to complete warm-up activities in the first five minutes of class,
explains the team at Busy Teacher. Warm-ups should also involve participation, as
the goal is to boost student confidence in their own learning. The best warm-ups
involve some form of collaboration and inspire students to either think about a new
topic, or consider a previously-learned topic in a new way.
Lesson warm-ups are also important because they enable students to shift into
the thinking, reasoning and learning frame of mind they need to succeed in school.
Warm-ups are also a great way to spark conversation and discussion, explains
elementary resource designer, Alyssa Roetheli. “These questions or prompts provide
students with the opportunity to explore the content either through research,
conversation with their peers, or a class discussion. It is often these questions that
may spark an interest or passion in students that they want to pursue further”
[14.p.152].
Lesson warm-ups are also important for reiterating previous lessons and
reinforcing important concepts in student minds. Roetheli points out that students
need to hear concepts three to five times before they really stick, so warm-ups
provide another opportunity for these lessons to stick. Another benefit of warm-ups
is that they help ease student anxiety on the day of a big test or project. For example,
teacher Sylvia Cossar suggests a game called bananas, where one student asks
questions at random at the other student can only answer with bananas. The purpose
of the game is to not laugh, as the first one to laugh loses. Of course, this makes the
students laugh that much more, and the result is a reduction of stress and test
anxiety,” she writes. Additionally, warm-ups are important for morning classes
where students may be groggy from sleep, or distracted by the events of the morning.
A warm-up activity helps them ease into the classroom and the expectation of
learning in a low-key way that isn’t stressful. Plus, this helps the non-morning people
catch up to the same level as the early rises, Cossar adds. For older students and
more advanced subjects, warm-up activities are a chance to make math problems

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less abstract so that important concepts are more approachable. It also makes

students more comfortable and confident about asking questions and speaking in the
math classroom, says eighth grade math and science teacher David Gillingham. He
says warm-ups foster “an understanding that math is a collaborative process where
we generate and build on diverse ideas, and where challenges are opportunities to
learn from each other”.
There are many ways you can warm up student minds and introduce them to
the topic. Retired ESL teacher Revel Arroway suggests that your warm-up could
involve physically warming up students through stretching and bending exercises.
This can boost blood flow to their brains, release tension and improve alertness. Or,
you might use music or a game to engage students in a fun, active way. Another idea
is to create a group activity students can engage in together. The point is that there
are many ways to warm up the classroom, and the best activity for your students will
depend on the subject and their learning styles. Here are a few specific activities for
getting students alert and engaged early on [15.p.507].