The Effects of Warm up in Learning Second Language

The Effects of Warm up in Learning Second Language

Abstract

One of the ways to learn the language better is having a good warm up activity. This paper aims to investigate the effects of warm up as a class room activity in learning second language. It is going to have a critical study, and over view of some books and essays about this activity. This paper attends to provide the definition of warm up as an activity before the lesson. Then, it is going to discover that how could warm up affect the learning process? It is probably going to find that having a good warm up activity helps students to set for the new lesson.

Key words: Warm up activity, second language, learning process

Introduction

Warm up is one of the good methods for ESL students to learn the second language better. This paper introduces the concept of warm up as an activity which attracts student’s attention and helps them to focus on the topic.

Literary review

An interesting way of starting a lesson could be using activities called warm-up activities or ice-breakers (Robertson & Acklam, 2000). Teacher could start warm up activity by using some games, asking questions and having discussions which all should be related to the topic or lesson.

A warm up activity could help a teacher to recognize the different types of student’s learning style. According to Cárdenas (2001), “Students learn best when they can address knowledge in ways that they trust. They will learn best through doing rather than reflecting”. Therefore, teacher could use different styles like play, demonstration, discussion, and totally we could say by action.

A warm up activity helps students to put aside any distractions which are in their mind and focus on topic, and it helps ESL students to think in target language. According to Peterson (2010), “Beginning your lesson plans with a five minute warm up can serve to focus your students on the topic, open up creative thinking and help to apply the learning in new ways”.

Purpose of the study

This paper assesses the impact of warm up on ESL students and aims to examine the effects of this activity on the learning process. It is going to examine these questions: 1) what are the effects of warm up activity? , and 2) how could warm up affect the learning process? Which offers two hypotheses: 1) this activity may helps ESL students to think in target language (English) and focus on the language,2) this activity may just helps ESL students to put aside any distractions and maybe after awhile they will forget whatever they learned. Therefore, this paper is going to explore the answers of these two questions and then it will discover which hypotheses are right.

Method

In advance this paper mentions two questions which are going to explain in this section. This paper by using critical review about warm up provides the following answers to these questions;

1) What are the effects of warm up activity?

This paper propounds five important effects for warm up which are explained below.

1) Create a friendly environment.

A brief warm up activity can build a relationship between the students and the learning materials (Hasan & Akhand, 2013).Warm up works as an ice breaker; it helps students to be comfortable with the environment and their classmates.

2) Attract student’s attention.

Walqui (2006) states, “by focusing student’s attention on the main ideas, teacher first prepares the students for engaging them in interactive tasks to practice” (p.169). A five or ten minute warm up attracts the student’s attention toward the lesson and besides being physically in the class it helps them being mentally in the classroom, too.

3) Activate the student’s background knowledge.

Rumelhart (1980) states, “we comprehend something only when we can relate it to something we already know-only when we can relate the new experience to an existing knowledge structure” (as cited in Carrell, 1983, p.82). Students might forget the things which they have learned from the last class or session. Hence, a warm up activity could activate their background knowledge; things they already know or learned.

4) Think in English and focus on the topic.

Kay (1995) claims that warm ups are different types of activities which help the students begin to think in English, review previously introduced materials and become interested in the lesson (as cited in Velandia, 2008, p. 11). A warm up activity could help ESL students to start thinking in second language and forget any distractions and focus on the new topic or lesson.

5) Increase student’s participation.

Warm-up activities like joke, game, and puzzle establish a positive learning environment and make the students comfortable to participate in the classroom (Joshi, 2006). When a teacher uses warm up, because of its enjoyable and interesting feature, students attends to participate or take place in that activity. Students like to be involved in such an amazing warm up activity; it builds a sense of community inside them.

Now this paper answers the second question which is:

2) How could warm up affect the learning process?

Learning process is facilitated through building a positive relationship with the students. A fun or interesting class largely depends on the teachers as their personality and teaching method motivate the students to raise a positive attitude towards learning (Krishnan & Hoon, 2002).

Because of all those effects that warm up activity has on ESL students, it is obvious that warm up task could affect the learning process, too.

Following is a diagram which displays the effects of warm up task briefly.

Diagram: effects of warm up activity

Discussion/conclusion

This paper, in the purpose of the study, states two hypotheses: 1) this activity may helps ESL students to think in target language (English) and focus on the language,2) this activity may just helps ESL students to put aside any distractions and maybe after awhile they will forget whatever they learned.

The first one is acceptable because it is correct and actual, but the second one is reject able because it could help students to put away any distractions but when we use warm up activity, it is a review of what they learned. Hence, they could not forget whatever they learned.

In sum up, this paper gets to the point that warm up activity is the best way for thinking in target language, setting for the new lesson, focusing on the topic, and attracting the attention. Therefore, it should be short, interesting, related to the topic, and be at the students level or slightly above (i+1) to have their effect in learning the second language.

References

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Hasan, M. K., & Akhand, M. M. (2013). Strategies for Enhancing the Use of Textbooks in Language Classrooms at the Tertiary Level. ABAC Journal, 33 (2), 1-14. Retrieved from

Pakdel Estaikhbijari, Z. & Khodareza, M. (2012). The Effects of Warm-up Tasks on the Iranian EFL Students’ Writing Ability. Retrieved from

Peterson, D. (2010). Warm-Up Exercises. [Online] Available: http:// (September 17, 2010)

Velandia, R. (2008). The Role of Warming Up Activities in Adolescent Students’ Involvement During the English Class. Profile Journal, 10, 9-26. Retrieved from

Walqui, A. (2006). Scaffolding Instruction for English Language Learners: A Conceptual Framework. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9 (2), 159- 180. Retrieved from

Joshi, M. (2006). Diversity in Lecture-Delivery. Journal of NELTA, 11 (1-2), 1-151. Retrieved from

Krishnan, L. A., & Hoon, L. H. (2002). Diaries: listening to ‘voices’ from the multicultural classroom. ELT Journal, 56 (3), 227-239. Retrieved from 819c-78335f7f594a

Cárdenas, M. L. (2001). Responding to Children’s Learning Styles. How, 8, 17-22.

Robertson, C., & Acklam, R. (2000). Action Plan for Teachers a guide to teaching English. London, UK: BBC World Service.

Kay, C. (1995). Scott Foresman English series. Baltimore, Maryland: Scott Foresman.

Carrell, P. L. (1983). Some Issues in Studying the Role of Schemata, or Background Knowledge, in Second Language Comprehension. Reading in a foreign language, 1 (2), 81-92. Retrieved from