Icebreakers, Fillers y Warmersactividades breves para la clase de inglés

Resum

In this paper, we are going to present a number of short activities that have been used in the English class in order to give students extra speaking practice. These activities were given different names depending on the role they play in the class: icebreakers, fillers and warmers. Icebreakers are fluency practice exercises produced to defuse the tension that the first sessions of every new activity imply: i.e. the first lesson of English. When talking about fillers, we refer to short independent activities that are used when the projected exercises have taken less time than expected. Warmers are also fluency practice activities devised to put students back in touch with the language they are learning after a vacational period: after holidays, or even after a long weekend. The aim of the exercises proposed in this paper is to develop the students' ability to use spoken English, focusing more on their fluency than on their accuracy. These free-practice activities will also help the teacher create bonds between the students in the classroom.