I spent the whole of July teaching at a summer school in Southampton. I taught roughly a hundred and eighty kids over four weeks so I had to think of a way to know them and remember their names. It is ridiculous how much of a difference remembering your students' names can make and will make. I always try to use their names not only when I am directly speaking with them, but also when I am mentioning them to the others: casually, familiarly.
I also course-directed for the last two weeks of the summer school and whenever I had to stand in for one of the teachers, even briefly, I would start by learning the students' names. The activity has got almost everything you would want for a summer school lesson: it requires virtually no preparation on your part, it is quick and gives you heaps of opportunities for spinn-offs and it involves you in a performance.
Here is how it goes down:
You tell your students what your name is, without writing it up on the board, then you go through some stuff you need to take care of, like taking attendence, filling in students' forms etc. After all that is done you ask your students if they remember what your name is. Most likely at least half of them won't remember it, so you act concerned and tell them that you need to think of a way to help them remember your name. At this point you jerk your hand in the air and pretend you have just had the idea: you are going to give them a method to remember your name. Don't forget, the method should be easy, preferably funny, and should involve a part of your body or physical appearance or anything that can serve as a permanent reference to your students. My own mnemonic technique (I introduced myself as Emile) went something like this:
T: What's this? (Pointint at his hair)
Ss: Hair!
T: But what's it called when your hair drops on your forehead like this? (Pointing at his fringe)
S1: What??
S2: Dunno.
S3: Hair!
T: It's called a fringe.
Ss: Aaaah! (Sounding smug — fringe in Italian is frangia, and my students were all Italian)
T: Do you think fringes are typically British?
Ss: No!
T: Typically Italian?
Ss: No!
T: Typically French?
Ss: Yes!
T: So here is how you can remember my name: I have a fringe, fringes are typically French, my name sounds French (here using a mocking French accent helped a lot), so: Emile.
I drew all this on the board and by the time I was finished I gave the students a few seconds to copy stuff down or just take it in, then I rubbed the whiteboard clean and asked them what my name was. This time of course they all did remember and so looking quite pleased I elicited the whole mnemonic technique from them. At this point I asked students to create their own methods to help me remember their names. Have them work in pairs. First I would give a few examples myself. You can get pretty good at this if you practise for a bit, so do practise before you use this activity, especially if you know what country your students are from and what names are more likely to come up. The more idiotic the techniques the more memorable they are. Here is one off the top of my head:
Riccardo
T: Right, so your name is Riccardo, which in English is Richard, Richard sounds like Rich, you're wearing a T-shirt with California written on it. If I had to go to California I'd need to be rich to pay for my flight and stay there, so there you go: California > Rich > Richard > Riccardo.
You might find that you need to help some students out, but you will get a few very creative ones. What you can do is try and figure out who will be able to help you before you even introduce the activity, and make sure they are paired up sensibly. Having two very creative students work together might be very engaging for them but will not help other students and will not help you in the end.
You are basically sifting the most creative out-going students from the shyer and less motivated ones and the cool thing is that it does not really matter whether your students can't think of a technique: you can help them. And you will help those who would naturally have less of a chance to talk to you anyway. So seize this chance and ask them questions about themselves to help you create a mnemonic technique. The cool thing is that this does not feel forced at all, whereas usual Getting to know you type of activities do, and you are asking the very same questions.
Once this is all over you have them present their techniques and you try and remember them all. What I do then is I throw a ball to one of the students and try and remember their name. If I am correct they throw the ball to a different student, if on the contrary I am wrong they win the right to throw the ball at me (of course get hold of a spongy type of ball, not a leather one). I generally do pretty well and get a round of applause, but do try and make a few mistakes so students, especially the naughty ones, get a chance to throw the ball at the teacher. When this is over you can even have the students come centre-stage and play the same game. Just remember to have them repeat the technique every time they remember somebody's name.
