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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Start the class off with a sentence, for example - 'I lost my wallet at the shops but fortunately ...'. Then point to a student to finish the sentence. Then continue: 'But unfortunately ...' (get ...
It's a warm-up activity which will undoubtedly wake your students up! I use it very often and in always engage students and makes them ask for the next round. This activity is open to your creativ ...
This ice-breaker is suggested for the first class of the course. You need a yarn of thread. All students have to stand up and make a circle. The instructions are to hold the thread of the yarn and ...
Create a number of instruction cards along the following lines: the word must be a past tense form, the word mustn't have more than one syllable, it must be something you can find in a supermarket ...
Just take a small ball and throw it to a pupil. Ask him or her to catch it saying "catch the ball". Then once he or she has it they can start talking about themselves -if it's for very beginning ...
This is a warm-up activity to revise wishes and regrets. Teacher writes the beginning of the sentence "I wish..." and passes a ball or another object (you can make the ball from a sheet of paper - ...
The game is called unchained words. Student A has to say a word in English, and the following one has to say another word beggining with the ending letter. This is a nice way of practicing your pr ...
Pupils make a circle or a chain. They should name the letters one by one very quick. pupil who doesn't name right letter must go back to his (her) place. the last pupil is the winner.
The game starts with a student saying a word. The following studest should repeat that word and add another one keeping the idea of a sentence in mind. The following student should repeat the fi ...
All players make pairs, then they stand face to face in two lines. One line is Pepsi, another is Coke. When teacher says ""Coke"" they run and sit on the knee of Pepsis. When teacher says "Pepsi" ...
When teaching TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language) I feel it is great whenever I can use some time to exercise vocab. I write the alphabet on the board and then I say I am going on a road ...
This can be as simple or complicated as you wish depending on your class level. It may require some preparation on your part as you want to show your students that the exercises can be completed s ...
Make sure your students learn the days of the week in English with this simple game.
Have Ss sit in a circle around you. First say the days of the week yourself, maybe couple of times. Do not wri ...
All the students are standing. The teacher asks questions: Can you swim? Can you play chess? Can you... ? Those students whose answers are positive (Yes, I can)- are still standing. Those who ans ...
This is like skiing. Divide students into two teams and give each team two blank A4 sheets of paper. It's a race. Students using sheets of paper have to ski same distance and back. In one end of t ...
My warmers are usually connected with English idioms or proverbs. I give them to the students in the beginning of the lesson. They can be written at the blackboard. Let's take idioms for example ...
"You have just found a magic wand that allows you to change three work-related activities. You can change anything you want. How would you change yourself, your job, your boss, co-workers, an impo ...
It's probably been done before - maybe by everybody, I don't know.. When I'm starting the term with a new ESL class, I get everyone to think of an adjective that starts with the same letter of the ...
I started a new topic this week: "My Music", so as warmer I ask them "What does music make you feel?". They've answered very well to the challenge, it's a great topic to talk about and, in fact, e ...
If your teaching ´going to' I like to play the following game: Start by saying that all of us (the class) are friends with Paul (or any name you like), and that we are all going to bring ...
Students are given envelops with strips of paper. There are 2 or 3 proverbs on the strips which are cut into individual words or groups of words. Students should put the words in order to have the ...
The "What's in my bag today?" warmer is started with the teacher's question asking pupils to guess what it could be inside. Pupils are formulating their questions: yes/no or special ones - it's u ...
When I enter a class, the first thing I always do is writing what we are going to do during the session on the whiteboard. Then, I start asking typical questions such as "how are you?", "what's y ...
Ask students to write down 3 words secretely (any words, or the words from the last lesson). Then they have to tell the story with the use of these words, so that others would not guess which word ...
I like to use this one when I practise the Present Perfect tense with my students. It's the same as the game most of you used to play in childhood. First pre-teach the question "Have you ever...? ...
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