Planning a lesson is no easy task, especially if you're about to introduce a difficult topic. Sometimes, you need a little bit of something extra to really make your lesson flow. For this reason, ESL teachers usually use warmers and fillers. Warmers are used in lessons to ease the students into the topic you're going to present. Along the same lines, fillers are used to reinforce topics or follow up with extra practice for students. BusyTeacher.org has 363 warmer and filler worksheets to make your lesson run smoothly without skipping a beat.
The beauty of using warmers and fillers is that very little planning goes into using them. That’s great because it cuts your planning time by a lot, and also cuts out any awkward downtime in the classroom. These worksheets are helpful when it comes to grammar, vocabulary, writing, or even listening and speaking practice.
These warmer and filler worksheets can be used in several ways. Some can be used as discussion topics to get your students speaking. Some can be used to review grammar topics you have covered in the past. Another great warmer is a writing practice worksheet, which gives students sentences like “This morning I…” and students write down what they did that morning. There are endless possibilities to what you can do in your classroom with these worksheets.
Another great feature of these warmer/filler worksheets is that most can be used for all levels. However, if you need a worksheet for a specific level, the descriptions of all worksheets on BusyTeacher.org show the levels for which they're appropriate . You can even reuse them for your other classes of different levels. Not sure if a certain worksheet is right for your lesson? No problem! Just click on the thumbnail to preview the worksheet and see if it’s right for your class.
Don’t worry about registering or subscribing, since all worksheets on BusyTeacher.org are free to download, and there's no limit to how many you can download! You can use one or two of our worksheets for your lessons every day. All worksheets on BusyTeacher.org were created and submitted by fellow ESL teachers from all over the world. They've been used in classrooms, too - so rest assured that these worksheets are tried and true.
If you have some worksheets of your own that you've found useful in your lessons, why not share them with other ESL teachers to use in their lessons as well? Upload your worksheets to BusyTeacher.org by clicking the link at the bottom of this page titled “Submit a worksheet,” and join the hundreds of thousands of ESL teachers who already use BusyTeacher.org for their lesson planning needs.
Make BusyTeacher.org your number one online resource for worksheets by bookmarking us today. With 363 warmers and fillers, lesson planning will be a breeze. Get started by checking out our most popular warmers and fillers below.
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Hand each student an index card, and tell them to write down a sentence that includes an error they have made this week, along with the correct version of the sentence. Next, tape all of the index ...
Have students come to the board one by one, draw a poster for an English language movie (without the title) they think the other students have seen, and let the other students guess which movie it is.
Invite your students to stand up and explore the classroom from new angles (look in drawers, under desks, behind posters, on top of cabinets). Then have students report their findings.
Just a few minutes before the bell rings, call on your students to choose the ten most useful words they came in contact with during this class period, then have them narrow it down to the three m ...
T reads aloud and makes mistakes. SS correct.
After a while you can modify the activity slightly by inviting a student to read out some sentences with mistakes, so that the class can correct.
SS guess a nonsense word by using the context of the sentence.
Examples:
Can you turn the zong on, it’s cold in here?
This food can’t be re-zonged?
My wibble’s not working, s ...
Tell the SS that your Dad’s come to the school, and he’s going to answer questions for ten minutes. Get them to write down any questions they’d like too ask him about you. T chec ...
Use this fun warmer to review 'because' and to practice listening skills.
Begin by telling the class something you did yesterday.
eg: I went to the market.
Choose a student and have them repeat ...
This is an individual, to pair, to group exercise. This exercise can be adapted to fit the teacher's or student's needs, depending on what needs to be practiced. 1- One student must write dow ...
SS complete a dialogue in pairs using their imagination. Then they act it out in front of the class. Which dialogue was the best? (vote)
E.g.1)
Ann: ...
Ben: My God!
Ann: ...
Ben:... ...
Give SS a profession on a slip of paper (or get them to think of one).
Either in the Hot Seat (open class), or in pairs, SS try to guess the profession without asking more than twenty questions. ...
Divide the board into four.
In one section draw a picture of your favourite food (or just write it!), in another your favourite country, in the third your favourite book, and the last your favour ...
SS are given a long, thin strip of paper, and write a sentence (12 to 16 words?) describing how they feel at the moment.
Give out scissors so that they cut up the strips into individual words. SS ...
Two teams. One S from each team stands at the board with a board pen.
T holds up a piece of paper with a word on, so that the two SS at the board can’t see it. The teams shout the spelling ...
Story-inventing is not only a nice way to improve speaking and writing skills but also is useful for revision of word stock and grammatical basis especially after a long break. One of the simplest ...
Each S writes five things beginning with ‘F’.
SS are put in pairs to define their words as quickly as possible.
First pair to finish wins. Give them another letter.
Give SS slips of paper with conversation gambits written on them.
Here is an example list, but we’re really looking for conversational expressions which wouldn’t normally be found in ...
SS in pairs. One sitting with pen and paper, while the other runs to the opposite wall, reads a few words, and runs back to dictate (and spell) to his/her partner.
Which pair can finish first wit ...
A S is in the ‘Hot Seat’ and talking about his/her favourite subject, hobby, last weekend or what they did during the holiday.
S has his/her back to the board and must not turn around ...
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