Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking

in a Second Language
Hayriye Kayi
http://unr.edu/homepage/hayriyek
kayih[at]unr.nevada.edu
University of Nevada (Nevada,USA)

Introduction
Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and
non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p. 13). Speaking is a
crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many
years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have
continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues.
However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve
students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express
themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each
communicative circumstance. In order to teach second language learners how to speak
in the best way possible, some speaking activities are provided below, that can be
applied to ESL and EFL classroom settings, together with suggestions for teachers who
teach oral language.

What Is "Teaching Speaking"?

What is meant by "teaching speaking" is to teach ESL learners to:

 Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns

 Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second
language.
 Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting,
audience, situation and subject matter.
 Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.
 Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.
 Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called
as fluency. (Nunan, 2003)

How To Teach Speaking

Now many linguistics and ESL teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the
second language by "interacting". Communicative language teaching and collaborative
learning serve best for this aim. Communicative language teaching is based on real-life
situations that require communication. By using this method in ESL classes, students
will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in the target language. In
brief, ESL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-
life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral
language. This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to
complete a task.

Activities To Promote Speaking

Discussions

After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The
students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions
in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the
discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant
to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about
irrelevant things. For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree
discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students,
preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like “people learn
best when they read vs. people learn best when they travel”. Then each group works on
their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. It is essential
that the speaking should be equally divided among group members. At the end, the
class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way. This activity
fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express
and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others. For efficient
group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups, because quiet students
may avoid contributing in large groups. The group members can be either assigned by
the teacher or the students may determine it by themselves, but groups should be
rearranged in every discussion activity so that students can work with various people
and learn to be open to different ideas. Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever
the aim is, the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase
ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on.

Role Play

One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they are in
various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the
teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or
feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and
tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)

Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role
plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the
class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer,
she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and simulations have many
advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students. Second, as
Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant students,
because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and do not
have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the same
responsibility.

Information Gap

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the
information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their
information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem
or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task
cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need.
These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively
in the target language.

Brainstorming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the
context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas
quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not
criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.

Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand,
or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative
thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development,
and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have. Students also can
tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the
teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way,
not only will the teacher address students’ speaking ability, but also get the attention of
the class.

Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good
idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of
questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own
interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to
practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them
becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the
class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to
the class.

Story Completion

This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in a
circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or
she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the
previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences.
Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.

Reporting

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in
class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students
can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in
their daily lives before class.

Playing Cards

In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic. For
instance:

 Diamonds: Earning money

 Hearts: Love and relationships
 Spades: An unforgettable memory
 Clubs: Best teacher
Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5 questions
about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example:

If the topic "Diamonds: Earning Money" is selected, here are some possible questions:

 Is money important in your life? Why?

 What is the easiest way of earning money?
 What do you think about lottery? Etc.
However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students are
not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no students get little
practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask open-ended questions to
each other so that they reply in complete sentences.
Picture Narrating

This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story
taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the
teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use
while narrating.

Picture Describing

Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one
picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity students can
form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture
with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the
whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as
their public speaking skills.

Find the Difference

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different
pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing
tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures.

Suggestions For Teachers in Teaching Speaking

Here are some suggestions for English language teachers while teaching oral language:

 Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing

a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks,
and shared knowledge.
 Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practice different
ways of student participation.
 Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time.
Step back and observe students.
 Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.
 Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that
conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.
 Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good job.
I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your
voice…"
 Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are speaking.
Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
 Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contact parents
and other people who can help.
 Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see
whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
 Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
 Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing themselves
in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the spoken
language.

Conclusion
Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability to
communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of
the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore, it is essential
that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking. Rather than leading
students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful
communication takes place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as
those listed above can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive
skills necessary for life. These activities make students more active in the learning
process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.

References
 Celce-Murcia. M. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language
(3rd ed). USA: Heinle&Heinle.
 Chaney, A.L., and T.L. Burk. 1998. Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8.
Boston: Allyn&Bacon.
 Baruah, T.C. 1991. The English Teacher's Handbook. Delhi: Sterling Publishing
House.
 Brown, G. and G. Yule. 1983. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Harmer, J. 1984. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London: Longman.
 McDonough, J. and C. Shaw. 2003. Materials and Methods in ELT: a
teacher’s guide. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell.
 Nunan, D., 2003. Practical English Language Teaching. NY:McGraw-Hill.
 Staab, C. 1992. Oral language for today's classroom. Markham, ON: Pippin
Publishing.

7 Superb Speaking Activities That’ll Get Your

ESL Students Chatting
“All right everyone, pair up!”

This sentence can be met in many ways.

Blank stares. Two class troublemakers reaching for each other’s hands.
The shy kid in the class trying very hard to become invisible.
It’s no secret, getting students to work well in pairs can be hard, and it doesn’t stop with just
having them pair up.

ESL students doing pair activities can often try to skive off doing the activity at hand. Shyer
students can be tempted to let their partner do all the work.

As far as the teacher is concerned, it can be tough making sure that the students who are actually
working are speaking correctly.

Well, it’s time for all those problems to be ancient history. Here, you’ll find the ultimate guide to
perfect pair work.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take
anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Techniques for ESL Pair Work

The first mistake many teachers make when assigning pair work is letting students choose their
pairs.

While that may be fun for those in the class who are already friends, your job as the teacher is to
assess each student’s strengths and weaknesses and put them with someone they can work with
well. In other words: you make the pairs.
If you know that two students are particularly good at conjugation, it might be interesting to put
them together so that they have a real challenge. If one student is exceptionally shy, don’t stick
them with the class loudmouth; they’ll only be overshadowed.

The best way to set up pair work in the classroom is to allow no expectations amongst students
that they’ll be picking their own partners.

“We’re going to go about this activity in pairs! Sasha with Kevin. Lucy with Mary.”

By making it obvious that you’ll be the one deciding who works with whom, no one will get
upset or try to fuss.

Once the pairs have been established, it’s time for your most important role: monitoring pair
work.

While most pair work should finish with a group discussion or individual evaluation, the purpose
of the pair work is lost if you aren’t listening and gently correcting. While you should be wary of
over-correcting and silencing a student, do wander the room, listening for errors that you know a
student can correct him or herself. Then you can gently remind the student how to properly use
that language.

This serves two purposes: not only does it reinforce correct use of English, but it also ensures
that students know you’re listening. This way, they’re sure to give the pair work activity their
all.
7 ESL Pair Work Speaking Activities to Get Those Lips
Flapping
Not all classroom activities are designed for pair work. The best time to use pair work is during
oral activities, as these activities allow students to get more speaking time than they would in a
class setting.
But you can’t just ask students to talk to each other for two minutes—you need a bit
more structure than that!
Here are 7 great ESL pair work activities that you can use in a variety of ways to get your
students talking.
1. Investigative Journalist

Investigative journalist is a classic pair work activity for a reason: it works!

It can be used in a variety of scenarios and tailored according to specific grammar or vocabulary
points that you’ve been reviewing in class.

The basis of investigative journalist is for students to interview one another in pairs and present
their findings. It can be used for groups at all skill levels from beginning to advanced, as long as
you tailor it to their levels.

Beginners may do a simple version, asking their partners about their family structure, favorite
colors and foods, pets and hobbies. Intermediate students could use investigative journalist to
practice past tense structures by asking about their interlocutor’s childhood. Advanced students
might benefit from a murder mystery version of the game, where each student is assigned a
character to play and the game concludes with the “murderer” being sussed out as a result of the
questions.

A great way to prepare students for this versatile activity, no matter their level, is with authentic
videos of English conversations. Tools like FluentU offer fun, real-world English videos they
can watch either once you’ve paired them up, or ahead of class for homework.

The FluentU videos are all organized by level and come with interactive captions, flashcards and
exercises to help students pick up new words as they watch. Through these supercharged English
dialogues, news reports, interviews, movie clips and more, they’ll get comfortable with the types
of basic English conversations investigative journalist requires.
Have fun with this game, and remember: if you give your students the tools to succeed, they’ll
surprise you!
2. Debate

Debate is another classic that can incorporate pair or group work, depending on the size of your
class. Create groups and assign each group or pair a side of an argument. Use pair work time to
allow students to develop their argument and conclude with a class-wide debate.
Debate is made even more interesting when you present students with authentic materials to use
as support for their claims.
3. What’s Your Secret?

What’s your secret? is a pair work activity that truly involves the whole class. In this game,
which is a play on investigative journalist, each student writes a secret down on a piece of paper,
things like: “I play the clarinet.” or “I have a twin.” The papers are placed in a hat and each
student draws one: that’s where the game begins.
What’s your secret? can either be played by allowing students to mill about the classroom freely
or by setting up a speed dating scenario, where each pair has 1 minute to speak before rotating.
Students may ask one another yes/no questions—they may not ask directly if what’s on the piece
of paper is true about them or not.

Students then must guess to whom the secret they drew belongs.

4. It’s Your Turn: Teach a Class!

Teach a class! is a fun activity for advanced ESL students. In this activity, you assign each pair a
grammar, vocab or culture point that they’ll have to teach to the class. The pair works together
to prepare activities and lesson plans and teaches the point to the class.

Unlike many of these other activities, the conclusion portion of this activity is built right in:
when the pair teaches the class, the teacher should play the role of the student, but you
may evaluate the lesson at the end and feel free to correct any mistakes the “teachers” make!

5. Following Directions
Following directions is an interesting game that offers a change from classroom routine.

In this game, each student in the pair draws a picture, keeping their paper shielded from the eyes
of their partner. Ideally, pictures should be fairly geometric. Once the picture is complete, they
explain to their partner, using words only, how to replicate the image.

For example, if a student has drawn the stereotypical square house with a triangle roof, he might
say: “Draw a square in the middle of the paper that’s about a third of the size of the paper. Draw
an equilateral triangle on top of the square, using the top side of the square as the bottom side of
the triangle.”

The goal of this game is for each partner to replicate the other’s drawing going by these spoken
directions.

6. Games! Yes, No
Many pair work activities can feel like games, but sometimes it’s fun to introduce some real
games into the mix.

Yes, no is a game where the only two words that students aren’t allowed to say are yes and no.
Pair students off and play. When a student loses, he or she is out and the winning partner is
paired with another winning partner. In this way, you can create a tournament of yes, no.

Other versions of the game also forbid “maybe” and “I.” Consider these versions when the game
is lasting too long or students need an extra challenge.

7. Games! Guess Who

Guess who is a version of 20 questions that focuses entirely on people.

Students draw the name of a famous person out of a hat (you’ll need to prepare these slips in
advance!) and their partner tries to guess who’s on the paper by asking a series of yes/no
questions.

Like yes, no, guess who can be turned into a tournament-style game.

Concluding a Pair Work Activity

Remember: a pair work activity isn’t a lesson in and of itself.

There should be a brief introduction, letting students know what you expect them to do during
the activity.

There should especially be a conclusion. Be sure to budget it into your class time or the pair
work activity will be useless.
During your conclusion, you should gather the information gleaned during the activity and go
through it as a group. This will allow you to correct errors and it’ll also allow students to learn
from their peers.

Many pair work activities also benefit from being followed up by an individual activity such as a
written response, worksheet for homework or short oral presentation to the group presenting the
student’s findings.

Once you’ve mastered the art of pair work, your students will be speaking up (and correctly!)
before you know i

Another 10 Fun Classroom

Activities to Help Students Practice
Speaking English
Updated on June 9, 2016

Rich
more

This collection of fun games and role play activities for English language teachers should arouse
some enthusiasm after a vocabulary drill or new grammar study. As the sequel to the previous
article 10 Fun Classroom Activities to Help Students Practice Speaking English, these
exercises are aimed at helping your students get to know each other better and practice speaking
with confidence in the ESL classroom. English classes of all sizes and ages can get involved,
meaning adults, children, parents, tutors and school teachers can all participate. The activities can
be used as time allows or if you want to focus on learning a specific skill such as speaking or
practicing new vocabulary.
Source

Face Game
If your students do not know already then first teach them the following parts of the face: forehead,
chin, ear, eye, nose, mouth. Now, ask the students to make fists with both hands and touch their
ears. On the first round, you play the role of the leader and say: ear, ear, ear – forehead (or a
different part of the face from the list above). The third time that you say ear, say it more slowly, so
that other players know that you are about to switch. When the new part is called out (in this
example, forehead), everyone must quickly move both of their fists from ear to forehead at the same
time. If anyone, including the leader, touches any part of the face other than the forehead is the loser
and takes over as the new leader. As punishment, the loser must share their views on any subject of
your choosing with the class.

Fast Food Role Play

This role-playing exercise requires two students. Ask for volunteers or select from the class. One
student will act as the manager of a fast food restaurant. The other will act as a student looking for a
part-time job. The restaurant has advertised a part-time vacancy, so the student has come for an
interview. The two should try to develop a lively yet formal conversation of the job duties, employee
benefits, and the student’s qualifications and experience before the manager reaches his/her
decision. Some useful supplementary vocabulary includes: wages, salary, personality, official duties,
and position in a job.
Travel Agency Role Play
This role-playing exercise requires two students. Ask for volunteers or select from the class. One
student will act as an agent in a travel agency. The other student will act as a customer. The
customer wants to take a trip to Australia for two weeks and asks for help from the agent about the
travel route, airplane tickets, hotel rooms, places of interest, etc. The students should try to keep the
conversation lively. Some useful supplementary vocabulary includes: peak season, airlines, double
room, single room, economy, first class, one way ticket, and roundtrip.

TV Discussion Panel Role Play

This role-playing exercise requires any number of students. Ask for volunteers or select from the
class. Each student will select and play the role of a current or historical political figure such as:
Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, the Dalai Lama, John Lennon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. You
will acts as the host of a TV discussion panel in which each of the famous political personalities
participate. Begin the discussion by asking one of the students what they think about the future of
America. After the first student has answered, each of the other students can give their opinions.
The students should try to enliven their answers by using the person’s typical mannerisms and
accent if possible. Some useful supplementary vocabulary includes: improve, capitalism, free market
economy, thoughts, peace, and get along with one another.

Guessing Game
Using vocabulary the students have learned recently, prepare some cards with one word written on
them. During class, select one of the cards without showing the students what is written on it. The
students will try to figure out what the word is by asking questions, which you will answer. They may
only ask “yes-no” or “choice type” questions such as: is it something you can eat? Is it made out of
paper? Is it a thing or a person? Is it an animal? Can it move? Is it something we can use? The
students can guess what is written on the card whenever they think they have enough information.
Anyone who guesses right wins a piece of candy or another reward provided by you. Then go to the
next card.

Source

Company Employees Role Play

This role-playing exercise requires four students who will act as employees who work in the same
company. Ask for volunteers or select from the class. Person A joined the company just two weeks
ago. He/she has an MBA and takes work very seriously. Person B is an average employee who is
fed up with the job after working there for ten years. Person C is an easy going person who has
been working there for four years. The fourth student will act as the director of the office, Person D.
A is working hard to finish a report due today but can’t concentrate because B and C are talking and
laughing loudly. A asks them to keep the noise down and tells them to act more professionally in the
workplace. This causes B to begin arguing with A while C tries to calm the situation. The director will
walk in during the heated argument. Each student should think about what they would say and act in
his or her role. Some useful supplementary vocabulary includes: Master of Business Administration,
be cocky, be serious, quarrel, and lecture somebody for wrongdoing.

Piece Together a Narrative

Copy each sentence below on a card, and give each student one or two cards in random order. The
students must memorize the sentence on their card(s) and then hand the cards back to you. The
students take turns to recite their sentence(s) to the class. After all students have spoken, the whole
class must work out the correct sentence order to make the completed narrative.

 Everyone says exercise is good for your health,

  but I really don’t like doing exercise.
 No matter if it’s basketball or football,
 all types of ball sports are just running around a field.
 Think about it, after every time you run and jump, don’t you feel hot and thirsty?!
 I also don’t understand why so many people like watching sports games.
 Besides, does it really matter who wins and who loses!
 There’s also swimming.
 Of course, you won’t get hot from swimming,
 but as soon as you’re not careful then you could swallow water.
 The conditions aren’t good and you could die!
 Perhaps it’s only dancing that’s good.
 You can listen to a good song and dance at the same time;
 If you want to go fast then go fast,
 if you want to go slow then go slow,
 it’s so much better!
Shorten or lengthen the narrative according to the number of students you have in your class.

Musical Chairs Game

Ask your students of they know any songs in English. If not, then teach them a simple pop song,
children’s song, or something suitable for the current holiday season. Make space so that the
students can place their chairs in a circle with one chair less than the total number of students. The
game starts with the students circling around the chairs, singing the song they have just learned.
When you say ‘stop!’ every student should quickly take a seat. The one student left standing is the
loser of this round. As a punishment, he or she must describe some important events in their life to
the class and then he/she is out of the game. Remove one chair and start the game again. Repeat
until only one player is left. Declare him/her as the winner.
 Celebrity Name Game
Before class, prepare cards with names of well-known celebrities on them, one per student. The
names should be easily recognizable to the students. Give each student a card and ask them to
describe the person on his/her card to the class. Ask the students to add humor to their description
by using the celebrity’s mannerisms. Their description may begin with statements such as: I’m male
and over 6 feet tall. I have blonde hair. I recently married a famous singer. The rest of the class will
guess the person’s identity. Split the class into two teams to add some healthy competition. Some
useful supplementary vocabulary includes: bald, belly, blonde-haired and blue eyed, and wear
glasses.

Exchange Student Role Play

This role-playing exercise requires two students. Ask for volunteers or select from the class. One
student will act as a curious young foreign exchange student. The other will act as his or her tutor.
The student saw some advertisements for the upcoming presidential campaign. In class, he/she is
asking the tutor questions such as: How does your country elect a president? Who is allowed to
vote? Can anyone run for election? Some useful supplementary vocabulary includes: family
background, popularity, reputation, record of formal schooling, qualifications, promise to undertake,
and conditions.

Which is the best ESL classroom activity for kids?

 Active Games
 Role Playing Scenarios
 Sorting a Narrative
 Another. I will leave a comment to describe it
 Many ESL teachers find that their students
are timid speakers or reluctant to
participate in class discussions.
It’s only natural. After all, they are trying to talk in a language they
are still working on learning. Still, silence can be deadly in the ESL
classroom for your students and you. When you want to get your
students to speak up, try one of these fun and simple games to get
them talking in class.
Try These 6 Involving Activities for Students to Speak
Up
1. 1

This is How We Roll

You can use this simple game as a get to know you at the
start of school or later as a get to know you better
activity. All you need is one standard die and six questions –
either ice breakers or ones that elicit opinions, experience or
other personal thoughts. Be creative and choose the ones
you’d like to hear your students answer. Give students a list of
the questions, and make sure they are numbered on the
paper. Then, have students take turns rolling the die. Whatever
number they roll, that is the question they must answer. You
could do this activity as a class, in smaller groups or as a public
speaking activity. For the latter, have students prepare answers
 to each question as homework and then have them share in
front of the class after they roll.

2.2

Human Experience Bingo

Your students are probably already familiar with the rules

of Bingo. Simply get five numbers in a line on a chart. You can
use this as a basis for another get to know you game. Work
with your class to compile a list experiences that a person
might have had. For example, gone scuba diving, made a
birthday cake and eaten sushi would all be good expereinces.
Work together on the list until you have about 30-40 different
experiences. (You can also compile the list on your own if you
prefer.) Then, give students a blank bingo board (a 5x5 chart)
and have them write one experience in each of the boxes. On
your word, students mingle and talk to each other to find
someone with each experience they have chosen. If a student
finds someone who, for example, has gone scuba diving, that
student signs the square where your student wrote it on his
Bingo board. The first person to get five in a row yells, “Bingo!”
Another variation is to arrange students speed dating style: two
rows of chairs facing each other. Each pair then gets two
minutes to talk with each other. When time is up, the students
 in one row shift one chair to the right. The game is over once
someone has gotten five spaces in a row on their bingo board.

3.3

Character Trait Roulette

This game works best for students who already know each
other fairly well.Work as a group to come up with a list of
several character traits a person might have. (Try to stick to
positive traits.) You might include adventurous, sympathetic
and generous. Then write these traits on small slips of paper
and put them in a bag. Each person takes a turn drawing one
character trait from the bag in front of the class. The student
must then announce who in class (and you are fair game, too)
possesses that character trait. Of course, a name isn’t enough.
The person must tell a story or give an example of why he
made his particular choice.

4.4

Story Starter Hot Potato

Put the list of story starters in your writing drawer to

double duty with this silly and fast paced game. Students
 play in small groups of around five members. Students should
arrange their seats in a circle. Give your class a story starter at
the beginning of the round. Starting with the person whose
birthday is closest to today and them moving around the circle,
each person gives his group one sentence of the story. After
one person is done, the person sitting to his left adds a line
where the first person left off. Students continue around the
circle, adding one sentence at a time, until the music stops or
until you give another signal. Whoever is in the middle of his
sentence or is struggling to think of a sentence when the music
stops is out. He must leave the circle. Then students play a
second round either continuing the story or with a new story
starter. When you stop the music, whoever’s turn it is is
eliminated. Play continues until the final round when the person
not speaking when the music stops is the winner.

5.5

Find Your Partner

Prepare a small slip of paper for each student in your

class. Each paper should have one word on it that goes with a
word on another slip of paper. For example, matching pairs
might be fork and spoon, day and night, bat and ball, or table
and chairs. Fold the papers and put them into a hat. Each
person then draws one slip of paper. On your word, students
 must circulate and talk to one another trying to find their
partner. Once two people think they are a match, they come to
you to see if they are right. If they are, they sit down. Play until
everyone has found their partner. Then have those partners
work together to create a new pair of words that go together.
Repeat the game with these student given examples.

6.6

Hide and Speak

To prepare for this energetic and fast paced game, write

several questions each on one index card or post-it
note. These questions can be get to know you questions,
comprehension questions or questions using current
vocabulary words. Before your students arrive, hide these
cards throughout your classroom. At the start of class, break
your students into two teams. Explain that you have hidden
cards throughout the room. On your word, students will search
the room for the cards you have hidden. They can only pick up
one card at a time. When a student finds a card, he must bring
it to you and answer the question on the card. If he answers it
correctly, he earns the card for his team. If he does not answer
it correctly, he must get someone else from his team to help
him find the answer. Once students have correctly answered
the question on their card, they can search for another card. At
 the end of the game (after a certain amount of time or when all
the cards have been found) the team with the most cards in
their possession wins.
Speaking doesn’t have to be forced or boring when it comes to ESL
class. These games are just a few of the fun ways to get your students
speaking up and having a good time while they practice their English.

What games do you use to get your

students talking?
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should follow our Facebook page where we share more about
creative, non-boring ways to teach English.
Definitions lists

This activity is good for activating existing vocabulary or revising vocabulary studied in
previous lessons.

Procedure:

 Choose a vocabulary topic (this can be vocabulary you have recently studied or a topic
you want to introduce). Tell students to write a list of 10 words they associate with this
topic. To make the activity shorter, reduce the number of words.

 Pre-teach / revise structures for definitions e.g. It’s a thing which / that.... You use it
for... You find this in.... It’s an animal / object / place... It’s the opposite of... etc.

 Tell students to look at their lists and give them time to think of how they can define
these words (3 -5 mins).

 Now students work in pairs (or groups of 3) to define their words. Their partner must
guess the word they are defining.

A faster moving, fun alternative to this activity is a team game.

 Change the vocabulary to lists of famous people / books / films / objects.

 Each team writes a list for another team (students can also 3 or 4 words each on strips
of paper to draw out of a hat)
 Pre-teach / revise structures for definitions e.g. It’s a thing which / that.... You use it
for... It’s a film / book / object.... He/ She’s an actor / a politician.... He’s British /
American / Spanish...

 Each team nominates one person to define the words to their team.

 Each team has 1 minute to define as many words as possible.

What were you doing...? (What are you going to do....?)

This activity can be adapted to revise a range of tenses (present simple, past simple,
continuous, future tenses) by changing the time prompts.

Procedure:

 Write a selection of time prompts on the board e.g. yesterday at 6 o´clock, this time
last year, on September 11th 2001 etc

 Tell students to choose some of the prompts and think of what they were doing at these
times. Tell students that they are going to tell a partner / small group.

 Give students time 5 minutes to plan what they are going to say and ask for any
vocabulary they need.

 Students tell their partner / small group. Encourage students to ask for more
information. E.g. –I was watching TV yesterday at 6. -What were you watching?

 After speaking, students feedback and tell the class what they learnt. E.g. Marie was
watching TV at 6 o´clock yesterday. She loves chat shows!

Adjectives

This is a variation on the above activity and is great for practising adjectives. Students
personalise the discussion by talking about experiences and feelings.

Procedure:

 Write a selection of adjectives relating to feelings on the board.

 Tell students to choose several adjectives (increase or decrease the number depending
on how long you want the activity to take). Tell them to think of a time when they felt
this way, and that they are going to tell their partner / small group about their
experience.

 Give students time to plan what they are going to say. They can make notes and ask
for vocabulary if they want to.

 Students tell their stories.

 Feedback to the class.

Cartoons, cartoon stories and unusual pictures

There are many copyright-free comic strips, cartoons and unusual images available
online; you can also find cartoon stories in many EFL resource books. These can be
used in class in a number of ways.

Information gap activity: Order the story

Information gap and jigsaw tasks have been shown to be beneficial task types in terms
of promoting obligatory, as opposed to optional information exchange and as a way of
promoting collaborative dialogue in the classroom. In this activity, students work in
pairs and the information, i.e. the pictures are divided equally between them. Students
must work collaboratively to put the story together in the right order. Suitable for
strong Pre-intermediate students and above.

Procedure:

 Before the class, find a cartoon with at least 4 vignettes. The cartoon can be with or
without dialogue. The more vignettes and more elements in the story, the more difficult
the task.

 Print the cartoon and cut up the vignettes. Divide the vignettes equally between
student A and student B.

 Give students time to think about how to describe their pictures and ask for any
vocabulary they need.

 Pre-teach any difficult vocabulary that has not come up as well as phrases for talking
about pictures and sequencing: e.g. In my picture there is... I can see... I think this is
the first / second / last picture... Then.... After that....

 Tell students to work together to put the story in the correct order.

 Optional extension: Tell students to write the story.

Write the dialogue

Procedure:

 Take a comic strip, a cartoon, or unusual image in which there are several people or
characters. If there is dialogue or captions, blank it out.

 Display the comic / cartoon / image and elicit ideas from students about what is
happening in it. Who are the people / characters? What are they doing? What happens
next? What are they saying to each other?

 Put students in pair or small groups. Tell them to work together and write the dialogue
and /or captions for the comic, cartoon or image.
 Students practice their dialogues and read their version out to the class.

What’s the question?

This activity is good for practising questions and for fluency practice on a range of
topics.

Procedure:

 Write a list of questions (one per student in your class) relating to your chosen topic.
For example, if your topic is music, you could think of questions like: Who is your
favourite singer? What is your favourite music to dance to? What’s the best concert you
have ever been to? Who is a singer / group you hate? etc. Adapt the questions to the
level of your class.

 Give each student a question. Tell students to write the answer to their question (not
the question itself) on a piece of paper or a sticky label. Tell them not to show anyone
their answer yet.

 Tell the class the topic (e.g. music). Give students 5 minutes with a partner to
brainstorm possible questions related to this topic.

 Now tell students to stand up and stick their label on their chest or hold their paper
with their answer in front of them. Students move around the room and ask each other
questions to try to discover the questions that the other students were originally asked.

 Encourage students to ask follow up questions and try to have a conversation. -What’s
the best concert you’ve ever been to? -Michael Jackson -When was the concert? -Why
was it good?

 Feedback and ask students what they found out.

At this age, the learners aren't motivated by new language, they're motivated by an
activity. It can be very difficult to get them to speak if they really don't see the point.
You can approach this by focussing on the following.

1. The function of the language and using an authentic or near authentic task (e.g. get
them to sit back-to-back to practise speaking on the telephone).
2. A motivating task, which uses the language you want them to practise (e.g. students
write questions on small squares of paper using the target language, then form the
papers into a board game to be played using dice and counters).

Here are some possible examples, which apply to one or a combination of the above.

A popular, well-known type of activity is the information gap. In this type of activity,
one group has half of the information required to complete the task and the other group
has the other half (or pairs of students). The two groups need to exchange information
to complete the task. Possible examples of tasks are:
 Making an arrangement: Each group has a diary, with appointments already filled in.
They need to exchange information in order to agree when they can meet.

 Giving/receiving directions: Two sets of maps, each with information missing, and
two sets of directions for these missing places. The students again need to exchange
information in order to complete their maps.

 Crosswords: Each group has some of the answers. They need to make up appropriate
questions and then exchange, or ask appropriate questions. Hopefully, the students will
be more concerned about completing the crossword, rather than worrying about
speaking.

 For a listening text, in which the students would normally listen to a tape in order to fill
in the gaps, why not give each group half of the answers? They are then given the
opportunity to exchange information. They can listen to the tape afterwards as a final
check.

Here are some examples of other activities I use with my younger learners:

 Secretly put an object in a paper bag (or hide it behind me, or write the word, or draw
a picture). I then get the students to guess what's in the bag, by asking an appropriate
question. The student who guesses correctly takes over from me. Do this a couple of
times, and then let the students take over. Group vs group, or in pairs.

 Find your partner. Information is written on slips of paper, which can be matched in
some way. Each student receives a paper, then the class mingle and exchange
information in order to find their partner. E.g. for a group of ten students, to practise
colours, colour in five slips of paper and write the words for these colours on the other
slips. Students ask each other, 'What colour have you got?' in order to find their
partner. (The point of this activity from the students' perspective is finding their
partner, not necessarily the practice of the language.)

 The following example may be appropriate for more advanced students. I call this
activity 'Find someone who'. Each student writes the end of the sentence on their own
piece of paper. The students then mingle and hopefully conversations are started. (The
students can also use questions for this activity e.g. 'When was the last time you….?')

I hope that the suggestions and examples given are useful and practical for your
situation, or inspire you to invent others.

What Are The 15 Fun Public Speaking Activities?

I truly believe that making public speaking fun is one of the things that are
going to take an average public speaker and give then enough practice to turn
them into a good or great public speaker.
1. My Friend’s Fictional Life
In this activity, what you do is you get up in front of people (you can do it
home by yourself as well) and you take one of your friends and you introduce
them. However, instead of introducing them in the normal way you make up a
fictional life for them.

So you say, hi this is Jane Smith, and she actually moonlights as a jazz
pianist for the underground mafia. And you talk about her life, whatever it may
be.

So this is fun because it makes you been creative, it’s very easy to think of
these things on the spot and just roll with it. It’s generally pretty funny as well.

2. Impromtu Game
You basically just get up in front of people and somebody gives you
something impromptu to run with.

It might be a topic, it might be a sentence or it might just be a single word or

anything like that. But generally we run with just a certain topic.

For example: They need to talk about climate change or they need to talk
about what makes a great teacher, or they need to talk about social media
changes or whatever. So that the impromptu game.

3. Funny Image Game

This is similar to the impromptu game, but basically what you do is you give
the speaker a funny image; you can find these easily just searching through
Google and you get them to talk about that image.

You can pretend it’s their life experience and how this impacted my life or they
can talk about why this image is important and what this image means or
what’s the story behind this image.

4. Continuous Story
This is best done with a group of people. Each person gets up and might
speak for anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute and they start telling a story.

And when their time is up, the next person has to get up and they have to
continue the story.

So, obviously each person doesn’t know what the person before them is going
to say and so they have to continue the story.

The goal of this is to make the story make sense. This game helps people
engage in listening and learn to be creative enough to make the story
continue on and make sense.

5. Something In My Wallet
You can use your own wallet or (if people are comfortable enough and happy
to do it) you can get the person sitting next to you’s wallet.

Take an item out of the wallet and discuss what this item is and why its
important and obviously you are trying to elaborate and make it funny as
much as possible.

6. Action Story
This can be done in 2 ways.

A) You tell a story that has a whole great of actions in it and as a speaker you
have to do these actions yourself whilst speaking.

B) Or the audience has to do the actions themselves while the speaker is

giving their speech.

So you could say; I did a big stretch when I woke up in the morning. And
everybody has to stretch. And then you say, I put on my hat, and everybody
has to do the actions in line with that.

7. Make A Commercial
Get a bunch of things from your room or from your house, bring them in and
you need to make a commercial about these items.

Someone is giving a random product. It might be a deodorant, might be an

iphone, it could be anything. And then they are required to give a 30 second to
1 minute commercial on this product and talk about why this is so awesome
and why people should buy it. So that’s a really fun one as well.

8. A Fake Holiday
This one is done with images primarily and a set of images that are related to
each other.

So it could be a farm where you have images of animals, or the barn house or
something funny happening on the farm.

The speaker is required to tell maybe 1, 2 or 3 sentences for each image and
then you click forward to the next image.

Then they need to use the next image to continue the story.

So you are using these images as the key cards, as to where the story needs
to go so the person needs to adapt the story based on the images that are
given.

9. Alternative Ending
You take a well known TV show or a well-known movie. And what you do is
you create an alternative ending for it.

10. Connect The Nouns

This is really a fun one, I really like this one.

You can do this by either putting nouns on key cards shuffling them up and
picking 2 up at a time or you can use this random noun generator.
You get 2 nouns and you then have to create a story that connects that 2
nouns.

So it might be ‘a sheep’ and ‘a mechanic’ or it could be ‘friend’ and ‘shoelace’.

Then you have to create a story that connects those 2 nouns together.

11. How It Got It’s Name

Take an item (for example: packing tape) and you need to create a story
around a packing tape and why it’s got its name that way.

You have to make it exciting.

12. Oink Substitution

When you are giving a speech you must allocate one word that you have to
replace with word ‘oink’. Or you can use ‘moo’ or you use ‘woof’ or whatever it
is that you want.

So you can use the word ‘I’ and replace it with ‘oink’.
So you would say: “Oink went to the movies and oink bought some popcorn.”
And so you replace that word ‘I’ with ‘oink’.

This challenges your mind, and it makes that little bit harder to deliver a
presentation. And it’s pretty funny for the audience, as well.

13. Which Is A Lie?

This one is generally pretty easy to out work and a lot of fun as well. And you
will find that some students do it really well, but then some students just
fumble when they are tying to lie and its quiet humorous to watch.

A person gets up and tells 3 truths about themselves, but 2 of them need to
be true and one of them needs to be a lie.
So they get up and they tell 3 things about themselves and then the audience
needs to choose which one was a lie and they see if they were correct.

So this one is really quick, really easy and you don’t have to go into a great
detail about it but it can be really fun.

14. Definitions
Get really big words that nobody really knows what the meaning is. You can
do this using this big word generator or another tool (just Google it). Or you
can just go through the dictionary and pick some strange ones yourself.
The speaker has to get up – they are given this strange word and they need to
with confidence tell the class what this word means.

Obviously they are making it up, but they need to do it confidently.

15. Endings
You give a person an ending. It could be a saying: “Diamonds are forever” or
an ending to a story ‘and the man cried for 3 days’.
You give them an ending and they have to create a story that matches up with
that ending.
A lot of being a great pubic speaking is about story telling. Teaching people
how to creatively think up stories on the spot is going to make them a better
public speaker.
I have previously talked about how public speaking rubric actually damages
the progression of public speaking skills. We need to continually practicing
public speaking (like riding a bike) and have it be fun if we want to teach
people to be great public speakers. Technique comes along with that.
So keep that in mind, keep public speaking fun and I hope that you enjoyed
these activities.
When working with world language classes or English language learners,
have you ever asked a question only to be answered with complete silence
and blank stares? It’s a common issue—nearly every teacher has struggled
with encouraging students to speak in a language they’re still learning.
A student may have a deep fear of making a mistake, or may be just plain
shy, even in their native language. Whatever the reason, here is a list of a few
fun activities to get your students to speak. This list is for more
advanced students.

12 WAYS TO GET LANGUAGE LEARNERS TALKING

1. Who’s Telling the Truth? Have each student write three facts about
themselves that nobody in the class knows on a piece of paper. Make sure
each student includes their name on the top of the page. Collect the sheets of
paper and bring three students to the front of the room. Read aloud one of the
facts that is true for one of these three students.

All three claim that the fact is theirs, and the class then proceeds to question
them in an attempt to determine who is telling the truth and who is lying. Each
student is allowed to ask one question to one of the three students. After a
round of questioning, the students guess who is telling the truth.

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2. Variations on the game Taboo: For variation 1, create a PowerPoint

presentation with a noun on each slide. Have one student come to the front of
the room and sit with their back to the PowerPoint. The rest of the
students take turns describing the words on the slides, and the student at the
front has to guess them.

For variation 2, separate the students into groups of four or five. Place a pile
of cards with random nouns in the center of each group. Have students take
turns describing a noun for their group members to guess. The group member
who guesses correctly keeps the card, so there’s competition to see who
has the most cards at the end of the game.
Variation 3 is for advanced speakers. Separate the class into two teams.
Students are given a word to describe to their teammates, in addition to a list
of words that they cannot use in their description. Each student should have
two to three minutes to see how many words their teammates can guess.

3. Descriptive drawing activity: Pair up the students and give each student a
picture, placing it face down so partners cannot see each other’s cards. They
must describe the picture for their partner to draw.

4. Comic strip descriptions: Give each student a portion of a comic

strip. Without showing their pictures to one another, the students should
attempt to describe their image, and put the comic strip into the correct
order. After about 10 minutes, the students can guess the order, show one
another their portion, and see if they were correct.

5. Secret word: Students are given a random topic and a random word that is
unrelated to the topic. The students must hide the word in a speech about the
topic—they’re trying to make sure the other students can’t guess
the secret word. The other students listen carefully to the speech and attempt
to guess the secret word.

6. Debates: Give each student a piece of paper with “agree” written on one
side and “disagree” on the other side. Read aloud a controversial statement,
and have each student hold up their paper showing the agree or disagree side
depending on their opinion. Choose one student from each side to explain
their position and participate in a short debate.

7. Impromptu speaking: Prepare a list of topics that students will be able to talk
about. Split the class into two teams, and have each student choose a
number—that’s the order they will go in. Each student will respond to a
statement without preparation. They must continue speaking for 45
seconds. As the student is speaking, the other team listens for moments of
hesitation, grammatical mistakes, and vocabulary mistakes. If the other team
can correctly identify an error, they get a point.

8. Desert island activity: Give each student a piece of paper and tell them to
draw an item—any item. Collect the drawings and pass them out again; no
student should receive their own drawing.

Next, tell the students that they’ve been stranded on a desert island, and only
half of the class can survive and continue to inhabit the island. The only thing
each student will have on the island is the item depicted in the drawing given
to them, and their goal is to convince the class that they should survive based
on that item.

9. Storytelling activity: Bring four students to the front of the classroom. Three
of them should sit in a row, and one should stand behind them and act as a
controller. Give the controller a stack of cards with nouns written on them.

The controller will hand a noun to one of the three students, who will start to
tell a story. The student continues telling the story until the controller decides
to hand another noun to another student, who will then take over the story.

10. Two Truths, One Lie: Each student should write three statements about
themselves on a piece of paper. Two of them should be true, and one should
be a lie. Students read their three statements, and their classmates question
them to try to determine which statement is a lie.

11. True/false storytelling: Give each student a piece of paper with either “true”
or “false” written on it. Each student should tell the class a story that is true or
false, depending on which word they received, and the class must guess
whether it’s true. To add to the activity, you can allow the other students to
question the student telling the story.
12. I Have Never...: All students in the class should start this activity holding five
fingers in the air (you can use less fingers to do this more quickly). The
student who goes first tells the class one thing that they have never done. The
students who have done that activity should put a finger down, and tell the
class a story about this activity. A student is out of the game when all of their
fingers are down.

This piece was originally submitted to our community forums by a reader. Due
to audience interest, we've preserved it. The opinions expressed here are the
writer's own.

Thinking Hats
This speaking activity is based on a system designed by Edward de Bono with an ESL twist.
Basically, 6 Thinking Hats is a tool for group discussion and individual thinking involving 6
colored hats. Just like de Bono’s idea, each color represents a mode of thinking which
allows the students to expand their views on a particular thing or issue. I love this speaking
task because it helps students to think logically and become better speakers.

Pin me! 6 Thinking Hats Writing & Speaking Strategy

You can see the PowerPoint I created with instructions on how to do this speaking activity.
To ensure that every member participates during discussion and presentation, you may also
use the role cards included in the member resources page.
Activity Type: Individual, Pair, Group

Would You Rather

This conversation activity is about student preference. Students are given a question that
starts with “Would you rather…” followed by two equally good or equally bad options. For
example, “Would you rather be beautiful but poor or less attractive (ugly) but rich?”
Answering “neither” or “both” is against the rules so students must choose 1 and justify their
answer. Sometimes, students’ answers will crack you up! One student said that she’d rather
be rich but ugly because if she’s rich, she could afford plastic surgery!

Just like other speaking activities, Would You Rather will be a success if the questions are
age and proficiency level appropriate. Due to file storage issues, I can only upload a sample
copy. However, you can find more Would You Rather questions here and use the template I
created to see how it looks like.
Activity Type: Individual, Pair

TED Ed Riddles
This one uses video prompts such as the riddle videos from TED Ed. These are brain
teasers presented in a professionally animated video that hook students and keep them
engaged in our speaking activities! Each riddle is divided into two parts – the problem and
the answer. I show my students the first part, pause the video and make sure that they
understand every detail of the riddle. I provide them a mini-whiteboard and give them time
to discuss the problem in their group and come up with possible solutions. When the time is
done, I ask each group to discuss their answer to the whole class.

You can find a lot of TED Ed riddles on YouTube but you may check out my
favorite Hat and Bridge riddles to start with.
Activity Type: Group

Missing Dialogues
This is a drill conversation activity where you pair your students up to practice the dialogue
you show on the screen. Simply show your slide and have students read out loud. After two
rounds, you will start deleting words in the dialogue and replace it with blanks. Do this in
sequence until the entire dialogue is just a series of blanks.

You get the idea, right? You can also see these 3 beginner sample dialogues on
PowerPoint then you can go ahead and create your own missing dialogues based on your
lessons! This speaking drill is absolutely effective!
Activity Type: Pair
Picture Sequencing
In this story telling activity, students must put a series of pictures in order. They color the
pictures and write descriptive words using adjectives, adverbs and expressions of time and
sequence. When they finish, they go in front of the class to tell their story.

By doing picture sequencing before the speaking activity, students are able organize
information and ideas efficiently thereby enhancing necessary skills such as reasoning and
inferring.

You can download samples in the resources page.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: 12 LISTENING ACTIVITIES FOR ESL STUDENTS
FlipGrid
Have you always wanted to assess your students’ speaking abilities but you have no time to
do it in your classroom? Then FlipGrid is for you! This activity is sort of a homework if
students have access to computers at home.

FlipGrid is video discussion platform where you can (1) create a grid for your classroom;
and (2) add a topic to spark discussion. Students can respond with short videos (up to 1
minute and 30 seconds only) without creating an account as long as they have the code to
access your topic.
FlipGrid allows you to create unlimited topics/discussion and unlimited video uploads for all
your speaking activities and tasks!

Activity Type: Individual

Tongue Twisters
Well, everybody knows what a tongue twister is! It is a series of words or sounds that are
usually repetitive and are difficult to pronounce quickly and correctly. I use tongue twisters
as one of our speaking activities to develop my students pronunciation and accent; or
sometimes just for the sheer fun of doing it. I often get my students to memorize this and
ask them to say it out loud in class as a group and in pairs.

You can download this tongue twister PowerPoint I created.

Activity Type: Pair, Group

Information Gap
 In this activity, you will create two different versions of a dialogue and hand out version A to
Student A and version B to Student B. The idea behind this is all the B section sentences
that are missing on version A appear on version B; and vice versa.

Example:

Version A
Student A: How are you today?

Student B: _____________________!

Version B
Student A: ____________________?

Student B: I’m fine, thank you!

During the speaking task, students have to read out loud and listen to and write down
sentences from the other student’s paper. You have to make sure though that students are
really having a conversation and not just sharing and copying each other’s dialogues.

Activity Type: Pair

Conversation Cards
If you don’t want all your kids to have a conversation at the same time, then conversation
cards is just the answer! In this speaking game, you will only have up to 10 to talk in front of
the class per round. I usually use this activity when teaching positive/negative question or
sentence but I think you can adapt this one to your lesson.

To do this speaking activity, you need to prepare cards that have conversation starter
sentence or question, such as “What did you do last weekend?” or “Do you like watching
cartoons?” and so on.

 To start the game, give 1 different card to 5 students and let them go in front.
 Tell the rest of the class to close their eyes or put their heads down.
 The 5 students you chose will quietly put their card on other students’ desks and then come
back to the front.
 Tell the class to open their eyes.
 One by one, ask the student who has a card on their desk to stand in front of the student
who they think has given them the card and read the prompt written on it aloud.
 (You can change this last part according to your prompts) If the card does not match the
person who gave it, that person will give a negative response to the question or statement
and the other student will go back to his/her desk.
 If the card matches that person, the person will say a positive response and the two people
will switch places.
Game Type: Pair

Talking Cards

Pin Me! Talking Cards: Conversation Activity

Speaking of cards, I also use traditional playing cards for a conversation activity. The
regular size will do but I love using the giant version which I got for $2 from a stationery
store. Basically, I make groups of four and let each one pick 1 card. Each suit (shape) will
represent a topic, for example, students who got a “heart” will talk about love and the
students who got a “diamond” will talk about money, and so on. You can assign any topic
for each suit as you wish.

Activity Type: Group

Jenga
I saw this activity on Pinterest and I thought it was fun to do in my class too! To do this
game, give each group their Jenga blocks and play as it is supposed to be played: stack the
blocks in sets of three until they have built a tower that is 18 blocks high. They take turn
picking 1 block from any level until the tower collapses. Just write a question in the target
language, and have students answer as they pull the blocks out. You could also write verbs
and pronouns on each block and make a game adaptable to any tense you are working on.
Activity Type: Group

TIPS: ESL ACTIVITIES TO END A LESSON WITH A BANG!

Other common speaking activities that I do in

my English class
So much for creativity, I believe we don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Below are
some common activities that we also shouldn’t ignore.

Discussions or Brainstorming
In groups, students share ideas, ask questions or find solution to an issue or problem that
you give them. To make discussions work well, it is suggested to assign each member a
specific role such as leader, time keeper, recorder, challenger, etc.

Role Plays
Students pretend they are in a different social setting taking on a different social role. To
make role plays successful, it is important that students understand their role and the
context of the situation. For example, students can be the waiter and the costumers in “In
a Restaurant” role play, and so on.

Interviews
Students can interview foreigners about a certain topic to allow them to use the language
outside the classroom. Another way to do this is to provide an opportunity to talk with
some experts via Skype and have students prepare their questions beforehand.

Debates
Debate doesn’t have to be formal and serious. In my experience, ESL students don’t have
the drive to do extensive research about a topic and then talk about it at a later date.
I modify debate to make it easy and not tedious, for example, I do 30 seconds
Debate where I group the class into two: For vs Against. I flash interesting and sometimes
funny statements like “Soda should be banned” or “Students should not watch TV.” Each
student-representative from each group will give their stand in 30 seconds per round.
Class Presentation or Reporting
There are many ways to do class reports in the classroom. Students can do a presentation
about a project or you can provide opportunity for each student to teach the class about
whatever topic that he/she is interested in. I did this activity before where everyday, one
student got to talk for 5 minutes before I started the lesson. My colleague called this
activity as “Students Can Teach Too!“

Performance Activities
Sometime ago, I wrote about how I use Classroom Performance Activities. These are
activities which students need to prepare for before presenting in front of an audience.
Speaking Activities
1.Use picture prompts. Depending on the variety of visual resources and class level and ability, a teacher
can brainstorm with the class a variety of sentences, (key) words, and phrases around a particular
category or situational context that is the building block for a presentation.

2.Follow-up with a memory game or exercise. Students then work in pairs writing down or translating the
words they remember.

Effective Teaching Continues

1.Another teaching activity involves asking questions or presenting statements that are not true about
themselves, and then asking their friends to decide whether they are true or false. Students have a lot of
fun with this one.

2.Play Adjectives All Around! Students have one minute to present all the adjectives they can in a
sentence.

3.This person is _______________________________________________.

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4.The other student then tries and guess who the person is. Make sure they include a minimum of five
adjectives and no more than seven or eight. A teacher can use this activity to draw the students’ attention
to the different categories that make up an adjective.

Additional Tips for Improving Speaking Skills

*Allot a time limit for each and every speaking activity. Take into consideration those activities that involve
either group or pair work.
*Keep the activity fun and simple. Make sure the instructions are also crystal clear.

*Don’t overdo speaking activities in one lesson.

*Make sure you aim for a balance between speaking and listening.

*Have a back-up plan for the entire class and for individual students who are withdrawn.

*Always reflect on what can you do as a teacher to help students improve their speaking skills.

Remember, the more diverse and creative your speaking activities become, the easier it will be to train
your students to improve their speaking skills and speaking exercises will become much more automatic.
I’ll be giving away a FREE teaching report on how to improve fluency in English language learners to
those who leave a comment at the New Teacher Resource Center. Now…I hope you’ll visit the next site
on the blog chain sponsored by the National Writing for Children Center. That site is;
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www.writingforchildrencenter.com