Here are a bunch of ideas for teaching about Greetings and Introductions. Activities are organized under different headings, but some can be used at various stages of a lesson, and adapted to other lessons too. Choose the activities that you feel suit you and, most importantly, your students best. Arrange them in a lesson plan as you see fit alongside your own activities. Be sure to give students as much help with the target expressions/language as they need. Feel free to improve the example handouts as much as you like.

If this is your first lesson with the class, your plan will probably contain more activities aimed at introducing yourself. The following activities are aimed at both introducing you, and at having students practice greetings, introductions and getting to know each other. The ideal lesson plan will include both. Many of the activities can also be used for a lesson on free time or the family. There is little need for vocab activities as most students should not have any problems. It's better to warm them up with your riveting personality!

Warm-ups/Vocab Activities:

Greetings:
Quickly review greetings with the students and perhaps teach them some new ones. You can also use quick and easy games to do this such as 'hangman' and 'telephone'.

Practice Activities:

Guess about the ALT: 

ALT brings some objects and/or pictures related to them into class. Students either try to guess how the objects are related to the ALT. ALT and JTE encourage and help with questions. ALT eventually reveals all. This activity requires students to be more forthcoming and would also benefit from a supportive JTE to help the students with questions and confidence etc.

ALT Intro:
If this is your first lesson with the class, you may need to do a brief self-intro speech, using props etc. You could then also turn this into a True/False quiz.

True/False Bingo:

Give students a 3 by 3 Bingo Grid, or get them to quickly draw one. Tell them to number the squares from 1 to 9 in a random order. Read out 9 T/F questions about you. They write T or F in the box, according to what they think. Afterwards, give them the answers and they circle the boxes they got right. A row of circles is BINGO!!! To make it a comprehension exercise, tell them about you. Then do the quiz.

Personality Profile:
Take some blown up pictures of random individuals (photos or cut-outs from magazines) to class, stick them on the blackboard and number them. Have the students create an imaginary profile for one of them. Then, students work in pairs and use their profile to describe the person to their partner who must try to guess which picture they are talking about. Here is an example handout.

Who am I?:
Have students describe a famous person to their partner who must try to guess who it is. Here is an example handout./li>

ALT Interview:
Students work in groups and are asked to interview the ALT. One by one, the students go to the ALT, ask a question and report the answer back to their group. The group must make a spider chart or a poster about the ALT's school days as the interview proceeds. This means that students are constantly going to the ALT to get more information for their group and the ALT is answering questions to all groups simultaneously (and helping the kids with their questions). Afterwards, groups can present their charts/posters and say what they found out.

Consolidation/Filler Activities:

Journals:
Have the kids write to you introducing themselves and their interests.

Slang:
Teach the students slang greetings from back home.

Advanced Activities:

2-minute Interviews:
Students work in pairs and interview each other. Each student has 2 minutes to find out as much as they can about their partner, relying solely on the English they already know. Students can ask about name, age, hobbies and interests, clubs, housework, part-time jobs, study, friends etc. (you can give them these hints on the blackboard). ALT/JTE picks some students to tell the class about their partner. Obviously, you can make the interviews longer (or shorter), but if each student has 2 minutes, the entire activity from start to finish will take about 10 minutes.

Skits:
Have the kids make some short skits of people introducing themselves to each other. Being quite easy, they might be able to get imaginative with it. You could also perhaps quickly discuss the differences in Japanese and Western styles of meeting and greeting.

Easier Activities:

Nice to Meet You!:
This is a simple interview activity where students move around the class speaking to different partners, using this example handout. Students ask each other questions to get information and fill in the sheet. If your students really find it difficult, help them with the questions first, then have them do the activity.

ALT Interview (see above):
As students do this activity one by one, there is no pressure to perform in front of the class, and each student can ask a question at their own level, as well as getting help from the ALT. As long as they are comfortable with talking one on one with the ALT, this activity is good for lower level schools. You can choose to ask the groups to present or not.

Snakes and Ladders:
Draw a snakes and ladders board and write easy questions in random squares. Students play the game in small groups and when they land on a question, they have to answer it. Alternatively, have the questions refer to the ALT (eg "What is his/her favorite sport") and have the students ask the ALT a question to find out the answer (eg "What is your favorite sport?"). That way, students get to speak with the ALT a lot and you'll know better if the students are doing the activity properly. Download the basic grids here (sorry, you will have to fill in the rest yourself): 36 squares or 49 squares.