Start Strong, Finish Stronger: Classroom Warm-Ups as a Bridge to Student’s Learning

Warm-up activities are considered to be an effective way of engaging students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes for enhanced and quality learning. If the class begins with a warm-up activity, the rest of the class time could be utilized to the best of the students’ learning. This paper intends to explore students' perceptions towards the use of warm-up activities in EFL classes and to assess the extent to which warm-up activities are used in the EFL classes of Kandahar University. A quantitative survey design was used to collect data from a randomly selected sample of 136 EFL students at Kandahar University. A questionnaire was used as the primary tool for data collection. The findings revealed that the students perceive warm-up activities as beneficial in the class. It was also found that the lecturers in the EFL classes of Kandahar University do not implement warm-up activities sufficiently. This study contributes to filling the identified research gap and offering specific implications based on the study's findings for educators, lecturers, and curriculum designers regarding integrating warm-up activities as part of the teaching and learning process.