Why do Students Need Warming up Before Starting the Lesson?

Before starting exercise or doing sport, we need to warm up our body. As well doing sport, students also need warming up before starting the lesson. Why do students need warming up before starting the lesson?

Warming up is kind of activity to increase learners' motivation to study. This term is known as sport first activity i.e. warming up is used to prepare students for the exercise and to avoid from injury.

In learning English, warming up is very useful to make students ready to learn new language. This warming up is identically the same us having fun before the lesson. If we make them happy before starting the lesson, it means, we succeed in the first step of teaching English as a foreign language.

What kind of warming up activities should the teachers apply in the classroom?

There are many warming up activities e.g. tic tac toe game, take the odd one out, jumble letters, memory game, guessing game. Those activities can be applied by teachers as the warming up. Something that the teachers should remember is the activity should be fun and easy so that the students feel fun and comfortable.

Here is some reasons why warming up is important before the English lesson begins:

1. Increasing learners' motivation

Motivation comes from inside and outside the learners. Fun activity before the class begins can increase students level energy so that their motivation may be up to the higher level.

2 Paying students attention

Schools in Indonesia have large number of students. There are around 40 students for each class. Sometimes a teacher who comes into a classroom finds their students are being crowded after the previous lesson. Students need several minutes to be in normal condition. The warming up activity will pay the students attention. Teachers can make it 5 or 10 minutes until they look ready to learn new language.