The first day

On the first day of an ESL class (or any class ;) ), the kids may be pretty nervous and shy, since it is a new setting with new people they may not know. So I always take things easy during the first lesson and put more emphasis on getting to know each other rather than teaching any vocabulary consciously - this will come naturally by imitating you etc anyways.

Sitting in a circle is always a good idea. There are different ways that I use to start a lesson. One of them is that I have a box in which I hide a hand puppet (I have a zebra called Marty, like the one from the movie Madagascar). I put the box in the middle of the circle and ask the kids what they think is inside. Then I have Marty appear and have a little dialogue with him. I'm asking him what his name is and he asks me about my name and who I am. Then Marty asks the children what their names are.

Another method I use is the microphone. I used an empty kitchen paper role an formed a ball with aluminium foil which I glued to the top of the kitchen role decorating everything nicely and making it look like a mic.

I then interview the children with the microphone like a reporter or have the children take the mic intro their hands and ask and answer the question "What's your name" by passing the mic on to the student sitting next to them.

If you don't have the time to prepare a microphone, you can also simply use a soft (!) ball. Make sure, it is very soft, because some kids really like throwing that thing! What I always do is to take a stopwatch and stop the time for each round. I then motivate them to do it faster and faster (mostly by telling them "the other class made it in "10 seconds", can you do that too?Or even better?). If they are not able to get close to that time, I sometimes manipulate the stopwatch by pressing start a bit later (for example after the first child answered the question), so that they believe they did it, to motivate them. Even the kids that are shy usually get into the game quite quickly and gain self confidence when they see that they can do it.

What I also love to do on the first day, and then continuously as a routine at the beginning of each lesson ...

Everybody stands up in no special order, just somewhere in the room. I tell them what to do and show them, and they imitate. For example, I tell them "jump" by jumping myself and they repeat. I usually start with "stand up, sit down, jump, turn around". Once they understood everything, in the next lessons I add 1 or 2 more things. That can be anything really, even "walk like a duck" or "play tennis" etc. At the beginning I do the activities with them and after a while do less and less until they understand and are able to do everything alone. It's a great way to start a lesson and even the children that are very energetic can use their energy during this activity and concentrate better later on (this is at least my experience)

Singing songs is always great. Look for easy songs that just teach a couple of words at a time. Using songs that are written for native speakers are not always the best choice.

I usually also always have an activity that they can take home, like name badges. I use velcro to stick the badges to the clothes of the kids. They totally love it.

You can download the badges: here