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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It can work as an icebreaker, it's called "number 7". Students stand forming a circle, they have to say a number 1, 2 ,3 , 4, 5, 6 ... (clap) - tell them that they must clap not saying numbers ...
Select five or six 'Be careful ...' warning sentences, e.g. 'If you eat that, it'll poison you'. Ask students to decide where the main stresses are in each sentence. Then offer a strong model of i ...
Write 'warnings, threats, promises' on the board. Check that students know what each heading means. Say some IF sentences aloud with appropriate (slightly exaggerated) intonation. Learners must de ...
Say that you have a million pounds to give someone (You can show them a few 'pretend' banknotes) and you will give it to the person who persuades you the best. Teach them the sentence structure: ' ...
Ask the class to work in groups. Each group thinks of a famous story they all know - e.g. a fairy story such as Red Riding Hood or a film such as Star Wars. Ask each group to think through the sto ...
Give one student a warning about some small, insignificant action, e.g. 'If you drop your pen it'll break'. Invite learners to continue by taking the second half of your warning and creating a new ...
Ask the student to write you a letter or an email. Provide him/her with a subject for the letter or email. For example, ask him/her to tell you about their family, job, children or an event that h ...
At each lesson, have the student fill in the log, looking up the date, noting the time and the work accomplished, and sometimes choosing rhe work for the next lesson. Alternatively, have the stud ...
Personal information. This is a good activity to use at the beginning of the course or school year when, especially if the class is large, they may not know one another well. Draw this form on the ...
You and your students may choose to keep a journal that focuses on the students' ideas about various topics of interest. At the beginning, the teacher may have to do the writing while the student ...
Make photo stories using a Polaroid camera. The tutor and student develop a story idea then take a sequence of photos dramatizing the events. Back at home they paste one picture per blank page. Th ...
If your student is a beginning writer, it might be appropriate to begin by making lists ol many kinds - days of the week, months, groceries, family names, likes and dislikes — the possibilit ...
Think ol some personality characteristics of a friend, husband, tutor, or neighbor and use the friends name as the root for a new word describing that quality. Add prefixes and suffixes and think ...
Word cards, or flash cards, help develop sight vocabulary.
Flash cards are available commercially, but you and your student can make your own too. If you do, be sure to put a picture of the word ...
This is a variation ol Scrabblc and can be played without a board. The first player writes down a word. The longer the word, the easier it is for other player(s). The next player writes a word usi ...
Purchase a magic wand and bingo chips and store them in a 3-hole pencil case with a sign-out library card inside. Divide a lightweight piece of cardboard into squares and print a word in each squa ...
Discuss with the class how words can express or describe emotions.
Brainstorm vocabulary of emotions and feelings, and ask each student to write down words or expressions that he or she feels con ...
Divide the class into groups of three.
One of the persons in each group is the questioner, another is the answerer, and the third is the umpire or referee.
Tell the questioner to write on a slip ...
Method One. Tell a short anecdote which may either be true or be a complete fabrication. Have the group ask you questions about it. Give additional information as necessary to generate more questi ...
Have the students form pairs. (If this activity is done at the beginning of the course as suggested, you may wish to assign the pairs yourself, since the students may not know one another and may ...
Give each student a piece of paper.
Tell the students that each one is to draw a house on his or her paper. They are to work alone. When the houses are drawn, they are to fold the papers in two s ...
Tell the class that they are to imagine another life.
In this new life they can take the form of an animal, a plant, or an object. The one form they cannot take is that of a human being. Give the ...
To revise story language and vocabulary from the coursebook.
Divide the class into groups of two or three. Assign each group a unit from the Pupils’ Book.
Pupils copy the story from that u ...
To revise the past simple. Draw a noughts and crosses grid on the board. Write the present tense of a verb in each grid space, for example see, go, meet, have, play, visit, eat, read and do. Divid ...
• To revise prepositions and there is/are. • Draw two empty rooms, with a table in the middle of each. Label these pictures ‘A’ and ‘B’. Make a photocopy for eac ...
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