Dear ELT aficionados,

I’m Olga Rotko, an English teacher at Southern Federal University, Pedagogical Institute, and a teacher trainer. I’m delighted to greet you from Uludag, Turkey, where we’re enjoying the first British Council Trainer Summer School 2011. We’re trying to accommodate different backgrounds and experiences and will do our best to share what we’ve learnt with you. The tutors’ creativity and resourcefulness are amazing, so I’m pretty sure we could use a lot of the ideas in our local settings. I’d like to focus on different fun activities and games in particular. Using metaphors is always fun, so all the participants have been given these huge sheets of paper with suitcases on them. The suitcases have four sections – experience, expectations, worries / concerns, and interests. If you find someone particularly inspiring and motivating, you can express your admiration by saying, “Wow, you’ve got such a big… suitcase”. :) I wonder if it’s going to be our new in-joke. :)

At the welcome meeting we did some fun ice-breaking activities like Find Someone Who (Bingo!) – you might use that with your students to give them a chance to find out something unusual about each other and just to brush up their grammar. :) Then there was this activity I like to use – you give a list of unusual facts about everyone involved and one random fact, and the students are to guess what is true and / or who this is true about. Who knows, you might discover something quite unexpected about your peers, students or trainees. For instance, we’ve learned that one of our tutors was chased by local mafia with guns, and another one once killed a camel! You could just google around for warmers and ice-breakers and give them a try (or just vary the activities you’re already using) to see how rewarding it is to use them in certain situations.

A friendship game is certainly worth mentioning. Each of us has got a secret friend, and the goal is “to keep your secret friend happy and surprised” with the help of notes, sharing experiences, small gifts, treasure hunts and so on. Whatever works for you! I’ll keep you posted on this one. :)

Besides, we’ve just had a “cultural night”. But that deserves a separate post!

The atmosphere here is extremely exciting. Stay tuned! :)