Take a break

…and have a breather in your lesson. In Let’s Enjoy English you’ll find a new addition: Take a break, especially designed to give your students a breather and allow them time to have a break and get themselves ready for the remainder of the lesson.

Every Take a break is displayed nice and clearly with a steaming pot of tea: a sure invitation that students can relax for a moment. Take a break uses anagrams, numbers or word searches – anything that is a small diversion – and a break from the lesson.

Would you like some other ideas for Take a break?

• Draw it! Draw some of the new vocabulary words on the board and ask students to guess what the words are, for example: cat, dog, house, sandwich, tree. Or you could prepare some words and give one or two to each student and they draw them for their partner.
• Clapping rhythm. Use some of the vocabulary from the lesson, for example colours. Write the words on the board and set up an easy clapping rhythm, just like a simple jazz chant, and say: Brown and yellow and red and green, black and blue and white. Repeat it two or three times – and have students ‘sing’ it in pairs.
• Get moving! A great activity when you learn parts of the body is the children’s song: Heads and shoulders, knees and toes. And it is lots of fun. But you can use it any time - simply to take a break!
• Bring in some instrumental music: classical, pop, jazz or blues. Ask students to close their eyes and relax; play a short piece, perhaps one minute long, and ask students to think about how it made them feel.
• Well, what about actually having a cup of tea? You’ll need a kettle, a teapot, some tea, milk and sugar. (Or you could bring in a Thermos flask, of course.)  Ask each student to bring in a cup for the lesson.

Take a break – either use the ones in Let’s Enjoy English or use the ones explained above. Enjoy the change!