Not Alone (an idea to help shy kids) any grades.

Usually in a stand up, walk around, talk to your friends kind of communication activity, the tendency is for the outgoing kids to talk to a lot of people and for the shy kids to talk to either a very few number of people or sometimes even with nobody. To help those shy kids, I thought about a rotation system.

The idea is pretty simple.
You can use any kind of communication activity.
First, sitting down, the students will do the activity in pairs.
Give them a few minutes or only a minute to finish talking to their partners. (the time will depend on the level of the activity)(also, would be a good idea to set a timer).
When the timer goes off they have to play rock, paper, scissors.
The winners don't move, but the losers have to stand up and go find another empty seat and do the communication activity with a new partner. (don't allow them to sit on the same place twice).
Continue rotating as long as you want. This way there will always be a kid sitting next to the shy kids talking to them, and the shy kids won't be left alone.
I hope that by doing this and talking to some friends the shy kids will build enough confidance to talk to more people eventually.

Also "the rock, paper, scissors go find another seat kind of thing" make it looks like a game. They are learning English, helping their friends but they feel like that they are playing a game instead of studying.

I would only use this activity if there are great number of kids who are shy in the same room. But if the class already has a good relationship and they are also helping the kids who are shy, in that case I would stick with the traditional walk around kind of system.