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Wordwall - Create better lessons quicker

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Word magnets - Drag and drop the words or letters to arrange into sentences.

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This is an interactive PDF version of the above lesson for people who teach English online. In the interactive lesson, students do online exercises where they learn how to talk about what they did at the weekend using the past simple.

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Past Simple Affirmative Negative Games, ESL Activities and WorksheetsElementary (A1-A2)Pre-intermediate (A2)Intermediate (B1) Excuses Excuses Board GameESL Past Simple Board Game - Reading, Listening and Speaking Activity - Elementary (A1-A2) - 30 minutesHere is an amusing past simple board game to help students practice past simple affirmative sentences as well as regular and irregular verbs.

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TO READ AND LISTEN

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NPR - Breaking News, Analysis, Music, Arts & Podcasts

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Top stories in the U.S. and world news, politics, health, science, business, music, arts and culture. Nonprofit journalism with a mission. This is NPR.

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ESL lessons for advertising, branding & describing products and services

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Advertising, branding and describing products lessons can include: vocabulary and picture/image/brand matching classroom surveys about consumer habits questionnaires to find out opinions about brands general knowledge quizzes about brand awareness/slogans/logos etc.

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read and listen

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English news and easy articles for students of English

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News in Levels « World News for Students of English

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We write news in three different levels of English. We want to help you understand English more. Now all students can enjoy reading and listening to news.

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Editor's note: This is an excerpt from the latest episode of the Invisibilia podcast and program, which is broadcast on participating public radio stations. This story contains language that some may find offensive.
This is the story of a prisoner who committed a horrible crime and says he's no longer the same person who did it. It's also the story of why it's so hard for us to believe him.

In the early 1960s, a young psychologist at Harvard University was assigned to teach a class on personality. Though Walter Mischel was excited to prove himself as a teacher, there was one small problem: He didn't happen to know very much about personality.

"So, realizing I had to teach this stuff, I decided to look at the literature," says Mischel, who now works at Columbia University. "And I found myself enormously puzzled."

Mischel, like pretty much every other psychologist at the time, had some basic assumptions about personality. The first was that people had different personalities, and that those personalities could be defined by certain traits, such as extroversion, conscientiousness, sociability.

At the time, personality researchers liked to argue about which traits were most important. But they never argued about the underlying premise of their field - that whatever traits you had were stable throughout your life and consistent across different situations.

"For example, a friendly person is someone who should be friendly over time," Mischel says. "So if he's friendly at 20, he should be friendly at 25. And if he's friendly, he should be friendly across most situations in which friendliness is a reasonable and accepted possible way of being."

Thus an honest person would behave like an honest person no matter where they went or how much time passed, and a criminal would remain a criminal.

But when Walter Mischel sat down to do his literature review, he didn't find much support for the idea that personality is stable. "I expected to find that the assumptions would be justified," he says, "and then I started reading study after study that found that actually the data didn't support it."

One enormous study on honesty in children was done way back in 1928. The researchers, Hugh Hartshorne and Mark May, had put thousands of children in different settings where they had the opportunity to cheat or steal.

"And it came out with results that were shocking at the time," Mischel says. The same child who cheated in math class could be honorable in a different class - no cheating. "They were not consistently anything," he says. "They were inconsistent in their honesty."

The studies Mischel was reviewing were all looking for consistency in personality across situations - and none of them were finding it.

And researchers seemed to be ignoring this, dismissing the fact that study after study was finding no consistency in personality.

Mischel ended up writing a book called Personality and Assessment in 1968 that challenged some of the most basic ideas we have about the role personality plays in our lives. He said that the idea that our personality traits are consistent is pretty much a mirage.

But that idea was so hard for people to wrap their heads around. Mischel tried in many ways to make it stick, but never did. In fact, the irony of Walter Mischel's career is that he himself is remembered as proving the very opposite of what he actually believes.

It has to do with Mischel's most famous experiment, called the marshmallow test, which he first conducted in 1960. You can still find videos of it on YouTube. Mischel would give a small child a marshmallow, a cookie or a pretzel, telling her or him that they could eat it now - or if they could wait for a few minutes, they'd get two marshmallows or cookies. Then he left the room. Given that the children in the study were 4 to 6 years old, the marshmallow often got gobbled up.

But sometimes Mischel told the child ahead of time that she could just pretend that the marshmallow was not really there. Then "the same child waits 15 minutes," he says now. "It's a very small change that's been made in how the child is representing the object - is it real or is it a picture? And by changing the representation, you dramatically change her behavior."

The vast majority of children in Mischel's study were able to delay gratification when they reframed their interpretations of the situation in front of them.

The point of the marshmallow test was to show how flexible people are - how easily changed if they simply reinterpret the way they frame the situation around them. But that's not the moral that our culture drew from the marshmallow study. We decided that those traits in the preschoolers were fixed - that their self-control at age 4 determined their success throughout life. They're happier, have better relationships, do better at school and at work.

The marshmallow test became the poster child for the idea that there are specific personality traits that are stable and consistent. And this drives Walter Mischel crazy.

"That iconic story is upside-down wrong," Mischel says. "That your future is in a marshmallow. Because it isn't."

So how did we get it so wrong? Psychologists have come up with all sorts of theories. One is that the consistency we see in people's personalities is an illusion that we create. No matter how people behave, we shoehorn them into the idea we already have of them.

Lee Ross, a psychologist at Stanford University, has another intriguing idea. He had read Mischel's book on personality when it came out in the 1960s and immediately understood the profound puzzle it presented. He thinks we actually are seeing consistency in human behavior, but we're getting the reason for it wrong. "We see consistency in everyday life because of the power of the situation," he says.

Most of us are usually living in situations that are pretty much the same from day to day, Ross says. And since the circumstances are consistent, our behavior is, too.

But sometimes the dynamics at work and home ask us to be different people. The violent gangster at work may be the kind father at home. In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of experiments were done where the researchers put people in an extreme situation to see if it would change their behavior.

One of the most infamous is the obedience experiment done in the 1960s, by Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale University who was intrigued by the concepts of conformity and authority. In the experiment, a "learner" was wired with electrodes, and a "teacher" was told to give the learner an electric shock every time they got an answer wrong. The learner wasn't actually getting shocked; the part was played by actors who pretended to be hurt. But the teachers didn't know that, and they kept administering what they thought were stronger and stronger shocks, even as it made them very uncomfortable, because they were in a situation that required them to do it.

The point, Ross says, is that ultimately it's the situation, not the person, that determines things. "People are predictable, that's true," he says. "But they're predictable because we see them in situations where their behavior is constrained by that situation and the roles they're occupying and the relationships they have with us."

Even though these experiments were done almost 50 years ago, we're still struggling with the notion that human personality and behavior isn't a constant. Consider the story of Delia Cohen. Like most of us, she believed in a core consistency in humans; she'd seen it in people her whole life. The good people were good; the bad, bad.

Cohen had been doing some work for the TED organization, the one that does TED talks, and had heard about a TEDx event that was put on in a prison, by prisoners. So she went to Marion Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio, to see it.

One of the first prisoners she met was a man named Dan. He had the word "hatred" tattooed on the back of his neck.

But as soon as she started talking to Dan, Cohen completely forgot about the tattoo. His personality didn't seem to have anything to do with hatred.

The prisoners' presentation included poetry and music. Cohen liked it so much that she told Dan she wanted to work with him to re-create it in prisons across the country. Then a friend of hers Googled Dan and started reading descriptions of his crime to Delia. It turned out that Dan was a sexual predator who had raped a woman at knife point. Cohen says: "I was absolutely horrified."

She went home and tried to figure out how she should think about Dan (the prison asked us not to use his full name so it would be less difficult for his victim). Was he the kind, creative, competent person she had met, or the brutal, sadistic personality who had committed the crime?

To find out, she decided to ask him. She sent him an email.

"I've had a lot of people contact me," Dan says. "I don't know if they see some of my poetry online or they see something about me and they write me." Then at some point those correspondents Google Dan like Cohen's friend did, and they vanish. "So I'm kind of used to people having adverse reactions."

Dan emailed Cohen back, saying he was willing to talk with her about his crime. But the conversation didn't go well. "It was an incredibly awkward conversation," Cohen says. "Basically he said he was a horrible, horrible person."

After talking for almost an hour, Cohen didn't feel like she was any closer to answering the question that plagued her: Was there something in Dan's personality that caused the crime, and did that thing still exist?

We decided to ask Dan ourselves.

When he committed the crime, Dan says, "I was a real live piece of s***." But he says that person has ceased to exist.

It happened six or seven years into prison, Dan says. His best friend in prison had stolen something from another inmate, and Dan, who had a reputation for being violent, told the other inmate to back off. Then he went back to his best friend and beat him up.

"I remember while I was doing it, he was asking me to stop, and I was like, 'How could you be so stupid? I'm going to beat the stupid out of you.' "

Dan remembers looking down at the man he was beating, and thinking, "Whoa, what am I doing? This is someone I say I love. This is someone I care about. This is someone I say I treat like family. And this is how you treat family?"

Dan says that's the last time he was physically violent. He decided to quit the group of guys he hung out with in prison. He physically isolated himself. It was hard. "It was easier to be a no-good m*****-f***** than it was to be alone."

Dan says it took him about two years to reconfigure his personality. He wanted to be less aggressive, less impulsive, more conscientious. He says he's now a different person. But he knows most people won't see him that way.

"I'm forever going to be a criminal," he says, "which I'm not. I've become a completely different human being at this point."

Delia Cohen had a hard time accepting that Dan had changed; you hear those words so often from people, and they're often not true. But she decided to suspend her disbelief and work with him on the TEDx project. They started exchanging emails.

Cohen knew that there are people whose horrible crimes really do emanate from their personalities, such as psychopaths. But after more than a year of working with Dan, Cohen felt sure he wasn't a psychopath.

As she tried to figure out if something rotten remained in Dan and the other prisoners she worked with, she decided to reject the frame of reference she used to think about people. "All these people I've met that have done really horrible things are not horrible people," Cohen says. "They're not bad people. Which was shocking to me."

She's still working with prisoners on the TEDx project, and she says she no longer even thinks about their crimes. "I'm more curious about who they are now."

Even though Dan says he's no longer the man who committed the crime, he knows why he's in prison. "I have to atone for my crime. But I realize now I'm just paying for someone else's debt. The person who committed the crime no longer exists."

There's something more than a little disturbing about that sentence - being in prison now for someone else's crime. But just because it's disturbing doesn't mean it can't be true.

"Maybe we're not thinking right about who we are and what we could be," says Walter Mischel.

It's no wonder, Mischel says, that we're drawn to this idea that personality is important and stable. It makes us feel better. "I mean, how can you marry anybody unless you believe that they are basically going to stay the way that you have them pictured now?" he asks. "We like to feel like we're living in a stable world."

We realize the outside world can change in a heartbeat, "but when it comes to human beings, we really don't have tolerance for realizing that there is an enormous amount of instability."

Still, we're not slaves to that instability. Traits and life situations both affect our behavior, Mischel says. But so do our minds.

The beliefs, assumptions, expectations that you've gotten from your friends, family, culture - those things, Mischel explains, are the filter through which you see the world. Your mind stands between who you are, your personality and whatever situation you are in. It interprets the world around it, and how it feels about what it sees. And so when the stuff inside the mind changes, the person changes.

"People can use their wonderful brains to think differently about situations," Milgram says. "To reframe them. To reconstruct them. To even reconstruct themselves."

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Invisibilia: Is Your Personality Fixed, Or Can You Change Who You Are?

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Editor's note: This is an excerpt from the latest episode of the Invisibilia podcast and program, which is broadcast on participating public radio stations. This story contains language that some may find offensive. This is the story of a prisoner who committed a horrible crime and says he's no longer the same person who did it.

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Test your visual vocabulary with our 10-question challenge!

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Personality types

Understand others

In our free type descriptions you'll learn what really drives, inspires, and worries different personality types, helping you build more meaningful relationships.

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Free personality test, type descriptions, relationship and career advice | 16Personalities

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Personality types In our free type descriptions you'll learn what really drives, inspires, and worries different personality types, helping you build more meaningful relationships.

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Teaching and Learning With The New York Times

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ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes
In this enjoyable teaching activity, students line up in teams as quickly as possible, according to a series of instructions. To do this, students ask each other 'Wh' questions to establish the correct line up. The class is divided into teams of six to eight. The students line up in their teams, according to the criteria you call out. For example, if the criteria was 'Line up as quickly as possible by age', the students need to ask each other the question 'How old are you?' The first team to line up correctly wins three points. The second team wins two points. The third team wins one point. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes
This delightful speaking game helps students to master yes/no questions and short answers with the 'verb to be' and 'do'. This game can be used to practice asking and answering yes/no questions in the present simple, present continuous and with 'going to'. The students are divided into groups of three and each group is given a set of short answer cards. The cards are shuffled and dealt out evenly. The first player picks one of their cards and thinks of a yes/no question that will yield the answer on the card. The player then directs the question to another student in the group. If the student gives the same short answer that is on the card, the player wins and discards the card. If not, the player keeps the card. Players take turns proceeding in this way. The first player to get rid of all their cards wins the game.

Answer the Previous Question Game
ESL EFL Reading, Writing and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 Minutes
In this amusing worksheet activity, students play a game where one student asks a series of questions and the other student answers the previous question each time. The class is divided into pairs (A and B). Each student is given a corresponding worksheet, containing a set of ten questions. Student A asks Student B the questions on their worksheet. Student B's task is to delay their answer to each question until the next question is asked. For example, if Student B's first question is 'Where do you go swimming?', the student doesn't reply. If the second question is 'Where do you cook?', the student replies to the first question, e.g. 'In a swimming pool'. The aim of the game is to answer all ten questions in this manner. When the students have finished, they swap roles. Afterwards, the students create their own list of ten questions and play the game again with different partners.

Ask the Right Question
ESL EFL Reading, Writing and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 40 Minutes
In this fun group activity, students play a game where they guess 'Wh' questions from answers written by other students. The class is divided into groups of three and each student is given a set of questions. The students write down a one or two word answer for each question. When the students have finished, they cut or tear the worksheet along the dotted line so the questions and answers are separate. One student begins by placing their answers on the desk for the other two students to see. These two students read the first answer and take it in turns to guess the 'Wh' question. The first student to guess the question wins one point. If the two students are having problems thinking of the right question, the student who wrote the answer gives them a clue, e.g. 'It's a question about learning', etc. This process continues until all three students' questions have been guessed correctly. The student with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Get it right
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 Minutes
In this entertaining group activity, students play a game where they ask 'Wh' questions in order to receive a specific answer. The class is divided into groups of four. Each group is given a set of cards, which they shuffle and place face down in a pile on the table. The first student begins by picking up a card and asking a question that will make someone in the group answer with the word or phrase on the card. The student, who answers with the word or phrase, keeps the card and wins one point. If no one answers correctly, the student keeps asking questions until someone says the word or phrase. The next student then picks up a card and so on. The student with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 Minutes
Here is a fun worksheet activity that helps students practice asking questions with a variety of question words. In the activity, students have five minutes to ask questions to their partner to elicit as many words as possible from their worksheet. The class is divided into pairs (A and B) and each student is given a worksheet. The students go through the words on their sheet and think of possible questions. When everyone is ready, a five-minute time limit is set. Student A then asks questions to their partner to elicit as many words from their worksheet as possible. When Student B says a word from the worksheet, Student A puts a tick next to the word. If Student B cannot guess the word after a few questions, Student A puts a cross. After five minutes, the students stop and swap roles. The process is then repeated with Student B asking the questions. When everyone has finished, pairs add up their points. The pair with the highest combined score wins the game.

Question Crossword
ESL EFL Writing, Listening and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 35 Minutes
In this fun crossword activity, students practice making questions with different question words. The class is divided into two groups (A and B) and each student is given a corresponding worksheet. Both groups have the same crossword, but Group A has the words across and Group B has the words down. Working together, the students write down questions that would elicit the words and phrases on their crossword. When they have finished writing their questions, the students pair up with someone from the other group. Students then take it in turns to ask their partner for a question to one of their missing words or phrases, e.g. 'What's the question for 1 down?' Their partner then asks them the question for that word or phrase, indicating the number of words in the answer, e.g. one-word answer, two-word answer, etc. The student then tries to guess what it is. If the student guesses the answer successfully, they write in the missing word or phrase on their crossword. If not, their partner continues to ask more questions until they are able to guess the answer. When the students have finished, they compare crosswords.
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 35 Minutes
This engaging worksheet activity gives students practice at asking and answering questions using various structures. This activity can also be used as an icebreaker on the first day of class. The students are divided into large groups and each group sits in a circle. Each student is given a copy of the worksheet. Students write their name at the top of the first column and give the worksheet to the person sitting on their right. This person thinks of a question that they would like to ask the student whose name is on the worksheet. The students write their question on the worksheet by completing one of the unfinished questions or by using the empty spaces at the bottom of the worksheet to write their own question. When students have written a question, they write their name next to it. Students then give the worksheet to the person on their right and repeat the process. The activity continues until the students receive back their own worksheet. The students then find the person who wrote each question and answer it. Finally, students give feedback to the class on what they found out about their classmates.

The Question is...
ESL EFL Reading, Listening and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 20 Minutes
This worksheet activity is great for reviewing 'Wh' questions. The class is divided into pairs (A and B) and each student is given a corresponding worksheet. Student A starts by reading out the first answer on their worksheet to Student B. Student B listens and tries to guess the question which is on Student A's worksheet in brackets. If Student B guesses incorrectly, they keep trying until they manage to guess the question. Student B then reads out their first answer and Student A tries to guess the question. The students continue taking it in turns to read out answers until all the questions have been guessed. Alternatively, you can make the activity more competitive by seeing which student can complete all the questions in the fastest possible time.
ESL EFL Listening and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 20 Minutes
Here is a simple game to practice question forms. Before class, prepare a list of answers for questions you want to review. In the activity, students play a game where they are given an answer and they have to race to come up with the correct question. The class is divided into two teams. One player from each team comes to the front of the class. An answer is read to the two players. The first player to respond with the correct question wins a point for their team. Then, two new players come to the front of the class for a new round, and so on. The team with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

Opening Statements
ESL EFL Speaking Activity - Intermediate - 30 Minutes
In this challenging team game, students practice asking questions to find out further details about an opening statement. The class is divided into groups of six. Each group comprises of two teams (A and B). A student from Team A picks up a card and reads the opening statement on the card to Team B. Team B then gets two minutes to ask the student as many questions as they can to find out further details about the opening statement. The student replies to the questions with short imaginary answers. Team B receives one point for each question. After the two-minute time limit has been reached, the teams swap roles and a member of Team B gives an opening statement. This process continues until all the cards have been used. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
ESL EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Intermediate - 1 Hour
In this teaching activity, students create job interview questions. Students then role-play a job interview and practice asking and answering the questions. The students begin by deciding on a job they would like to apply for. The class is then split into interviewers and candidates and each student is given a corresponding worksheet. The students sit together in their groups. The interviewers discuss and write down the details for the job, e.g. salary, hours of work, etc. The candidates discuss and write down the ideal profile a candidate should have for the job, e.g. the person's age, work experience, etc. The interviewers then write down job interview questions for the items listed on their worksheet and the candidates write down questions to ask during the interview. After that, the interviewers and candidates are paired together and they begin the role-play. The interviewer's task is to decide if the candidate is right for the job. The candidate's task is to find out as much information as possible to decide if they want the job. When all the pairs have completed the job interview, the interviewers say what qualities they were looking for and if they found the right candidate. The candidates say what they thought of the job and if they would like to do it. Finally, pairs act out their role-plays in front of the class and the class votes for the best candidate from the interviews.

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Asking Questions - ESL EFL Activities, Games and WorksheetsInformation Line UpESL EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 MinutesIn this enjoyable teaching activity, students line up in teams as quickly as possible, according to a series of instructions. To do this, students ask each other 'Wh' questions to establish the correct line up.

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TED-Ed lessons on the subject Critical Thinking. TED-Ed celebrates the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and share your big ideas.

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A 'Who done it' ESL activity. One of my favorite activities because it generates so many simple past tense questions and can be used for a variety of levels. Three students leave the room and make an air-tight alibi (the bank was robbed and they are the suspects). The rest of the class is divided into three interrogation teams and each team will interrogate each suspect in different corners of the room. If an interrogation team finds 5 mistakes then they have gathered enough evidence to put the suspects in jail. For example, the suspects claim they were at the cafe from 7:00 to 8:00 but when asked, "What did you drink?", one suspect says wine and another suspect says coffee. This would be one mistake. Hopefully the suspects will agree before hand on what they ate, drank, who paid, etc ... I played this game as a high school student but the original idea to use it as an ESL game comes from Penny Ur's Discussions that Work. which is one of the best books for teaching ESL I have ever read.

Topical Sentence Stems : The following sheets are paragraphs with blanks that the students fill in to complete their stories. They then share their stories with the class and the class asks questions:

Government Minister : If you were the government, how would you change things?

Two Truths and A Lie: Students write down to true things about themselves and one lie. The rest of the class tries to catch them lying (take a vote and see what the majority thinks is the lie). If they get caught lying maybe suggest a punishment like singing or buying coffee.

Students look at how to use "used to do". It comes with a card activity.

Troubles and Worries A simple worksheet where students discuss their worries and troubles.

The Great Dinner Party : Students decide who they will invite to their great party and what they will do at the party.

: A ranking exercise where students determine the most important attributes in a partner.

Dreams and Interpretations Half the students write down a dream that they have had and the other half of the students spread out around the room and open up their psychiatric clinics. The students who wrote down their dream will visit the psychiatrists and ask for interpreations of their dreams.

These materials were created by Chris Gunn

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Boggle's World: ESL Activities for Adults

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A 'Who done it' ESL activity. One of my favorite activities because it generates so many simple past tense questions and can be used for a variety of levels. Three students leave the room and make an air-tight alibi (the bank was robbed and they are the suspects).

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Capitalization and Punctuation Rewrite the sentences with capital letters where needed, and insert necessary apostrophes and hyphens. (Periods and commas are supplied.)

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Browse our database of 17,300 free printable worksheets and lesson plans for teaching English. No matter if you teach kids or adults, beginners or advanced students - BusyTeacher will save you hours in preparation time. No registration required.

Latest ESL articles for busy teachers:

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english as a foreign language worksheets

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BusyTeacher: Free Printable Worksheets For Busy English Teachers

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Free printable worksheets and lesson plans for every busy teacher. Find printable worksheets on any topic: vocabulary, grammar, listening, reading, writing and speaking!

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Are you trying to figure out what to actually do in your English conversation class for adults? That's a good question.

The good news is that you've come to the right place! Here are some of my 20 favourite ESL activities for adults.

ESL Conversation and Speaking Activities for Adults: Top 20

If you want to make your English conversation class as interesting, engaging and fun as possible for the students, you'll need to check these out. They're guaranteed to get your students speaking English in the most painless way possible! They range from warm-ups, to fun games to complete ESL lessons.

Check out these activities below. Clicking on the title will take you to the article with all the information. How to set it up, resources needed, etc.

#1: The Small Talk Game

Small talk is an important of the English language, but it's often an overlooked skill. Part of the reason people think that others aren't great at English when they really are quite capable is because they lack the ability to make small talk.

I'm not sure why we don't teach it more in our classes. Perhaps it's because the textbook don't really focus on it? Maybe it's hard to teach students to do it well?

Whatever the case, help out your students with one of my top ESL conversation games for adults.

You can get students practicing it while having fun with this game. I like it so much because there's an element of competition to it that keeps things interesting. However, it's best for intermediate to advanced students because it requires maintaining a conversation about a variety of topics for a set period of time.

The way it works is that each team tries to talk about a certain topic for a certain amount of time. If successful, they get to mark that square off on the board and it's kind of like tic-tac-toe. It's a nice way to start getting students to have longer conversations in English.

Learn more about it here: Small Talk Activity.

#2: The Cocktail Party for Adult ESL Learners

This is another small talk conversation activity for adults that gets student mingling and mixing in an ESL class for adults. It's great at replicating real life. Students will be having conversations just like they would at a cocktail party. Give your students confidence that they can venture out into the real world and use English!

Find out more here: The Cocktail Party ESL Activity for Adults.

#3: The Hobby Unit-A Fun ESL Conversation Activity

I'm so, so weary of the hobby unit because I've taught it so many times. Here's an interesting activity I do that gets my students engaged, asking follow-up questions and talking together. Student centered language teaching at its best!

I like this activity as well because you can use it with pairs, or groups of 3-5. It's flexible and can be adapted to most levels, ages and class sizes.

#4: Role Plays, an ESL Speaking Activity for Adults

If you teach beginner students, it can be a little bit difficult to do some of these conversation activities that are mentioned in the list. They simply don't have the grammar and vocabulary skills necessary to engage in a conversation beyond the very basic facts. Many ESL conversational games are just beyond their reach.

Something you can do to help your beginners is to use role-plays in class. These will help them to have short conversations, build some confidence and also get creative. The best ones have a number of possibles ways that students can answer.

They are also perfect for a huge variety of topics and they can really help your students improve their sentence building. Before speaking, students can a bit of practice with writing.

It's like a conversation, but it's a bit more structured. You can learn more about how to use role plays in your English classes here:

Quick tip: if you anticipate using these role-plays from semester to semester with multiple classes, make some cards with the details of each role-play on them and laminate them.

They can make an excellent review before a final exam as students have to work in a group through a few of them together. It's a simple activity that's ideal for any age of student with a few guidelines.

#5: Conversation Lesson Plans

A common question that newbie foreign ESL teachers have is how to plan a lesson. You may ask around at work and not get a single satisfying answer. Perhaps nobody really seems to know? It can seem overwhelming, but it's actually not that difficult.

Teaching ESL is not easy, especially if you want to do it well. However, a good class starts with a good lesson plan, and they can help you bring some order out of the chaos that's possible if you don't have this in place.

I often plan my own conversation class lesson plans based around a topic that is in the news. Here are 6 samples to check out and see how I do it.

Or, consider using some of these ESL news articles. One of my favourite sources is Breaking News English, who regularly provide graded language articles of the most recent current events, along with activities and questions to discuss that go along with them. They also contain some nice questions and answers for vocab, grammar, etc.

Studying English in an ESL class for adults doesn't have to be boring if you make some interesting lesson plans!

#6: Find Someone Who Bingo

This ESL warm-up game is an excellent way to get students moving around the class and getting to know each other. You can use it as the beginning of the semester on the first day or class, or later on for an energizer if the students are low energy.

Students walking around with their Bingo Card, having fun while speaking English with lots of different partners? This activity will help to create some buzz about your lesson and around your school. Students love to play this TEFL conversation game. The main point is to have students find out more about each other.

Love it! I'm sure you will too. These are usually the best kind of ESL conversation activities.

More details here about this activity that helps with students getting to know each other: Find Someone Who Bingo.

#7: Just a Minute for Adult ESL Students

If you ask your students in your ESL classroom, many of them will mention speaking fluently in English as their top priority in your class. However, many of the exercises we do focus a lot on accuracy.

Just a Minute is a speaking activity that focuses exclusively on speaking. It's a nice warm-up at the beginning of class that's best for intermediate to advanced level students.

The way it works is that you write a bunch of words on the board. Then, students will have to talk about one of them (chosen randomly) for a full minute, or two minutes (depending on the level).

It's easy to turn this into a conversation activity by requiring the people "listening" to ask 2-3 follow-up questions once the person is finished speaking. You can learn more about this English speaking activity here in this short video:

#8: Dialogue Substitution

Ask your adult students what they want to do in your class and they're often say speaking or conversation. If they're intermediate or advanced level, this is easy enough to make happen.

However, if students are lower level, it can be difficult to design activities and games to get them speaking that aren't too difficult.

Basically, you take a dialogue like you might find in your textbook and then leave key elements out. Put students into a group or pair and they can work on it together.

Sounds right for your students? You can learn more about it here: Dialogue Substitution Activity. It's one of my favourite English speaking activities for adults who are lower-level language learners.

#9: Find Something in Common

Another one of my favourite ESL adult activities is this simple one where students have to find some things in common with someone else. It's best as an icebreaker on the first day of class when students don't know each other that well.

Do this at the end of the semester and it'll likely be far too easy. Students could probably do it without even talking to each other. So, keep this ESL conversation idea for the first class or two.

#10: Partner Conversation Starters

This is another one of those activities ideal for adult beginners who want to get some practice with speaking or conversation. The way it works it that you give students the first few lines of a conversation and then they have to work with a partner to complete it.

Once they're made their conversation, they have to memorize, and present it to the rest of the class. It's a fun way for students to get a little bit creative, but has enough structure for beginners. Your students will be able to speak with confidence!

Check out these ESL Discussion Topics here: Partner Conversation Starter ESL Activity.

#11: The Expert, One of My Favourite ESL Activities for Adults

If you teach intermediate to advanced level students, then you'll want to consider trying out "The Expert." It's an interesting conversation activity for adults that's ideal for the first or second day of class to use as an icebreaker.

The way it works is that students think of a few topics that they're experts in. Then, they narrow down the choices to things that they think other people might be interested in. After that, students have mini-conversations with a few different people in the class about those things.

You can find out more about this Icebreaker here: The Expert ESL Speaking Activity.

#12: ESL Interactive Activities

If you're looking for some more ESL conversation activities for adults, then you're seriously want to consider trying out some of these interactive activities. They're designed specifically to get students talking to each other and with you.

You can learn more about them here: Interactive ESL Activities and Games.

Oh, and of course, you can use lots of videos and pictures for this style of activity, which students always love. Get creative because the sky's the limit!

#13: Small Group Discussions

If you ask students what they want to do in speaking or conversation classes, they'll often say "free-talking." This isn't ideal for lower-level students because they often don't have the language skills to do this. For higher-level students, it's not ideal either because it doesn't really push them to use new grammar or vocabulary.

If you are going to have some free talking time in your class, it's best to have a bit of structure. Here are a few tips for making sure this time goes smoothly: ESL Small Group Discussion Tips.

#14: Would you Rather?

I'm sure you've done would you rather informally with friends. You can use it to choose between two positive things like ice cream or cake, or two bad things like how you might die. Try it out with your students too to create some fun, interesting discussions and conversations.

Find out more details here about one of the best ESL adult activities: ESL Would You Rather.

#15: Task Based Learning Activities

For speaking and conversation classes, there are a ton of task based learning projects you can do. The major advantage to them is that they give students some freedom to learn what they want to learn. This increases motivation and chances are, students will discover some new vocabulary that you would have never thought to teach them!

You can find out more about this style of teaching here: Task Based Learning for ESL.

In particular, one grammar point that I like to use this style of activity with is making predictions about the future. Students can select a general area like transportation, the economy, work, etc. and then make some predictions about what life will be like in those areas in 25 years from now.

#16: Making Predictions Conversation Activities

Who doesn't like making some predictions about the future, right? They can lead to some super interesting discussions and there are also a ton of fun activities and games you can do with them. And these often turn out to be some of my favourite ESL conversation activities.

Here are some of our top recommendations: Making Predictions Activities and Games.

#17: Conversation Classes for Adults-Business English

If you teach English to businessmen or women, there are a ton of activities you can do with them that are engaging, relevant and will be super helpful for your students. They will likely appreciate the more targeted practice with business scenarios and vocabulary as opposed to general English conversation.

Here are some of the best recommendations: Business English Activities.:

#18 ESL Conversation Activities: Present Perfect For and Since Activities

I love to teach the present perfect using for and since. There are just so many fun ESL conversation games for adults that you can do with this grammar point.

If you want to see some of the best recommendations, check out the following resource: Present Perfect For/Since Activities.

#19: What are you Cooking?

I LOVE 4-skills ESL activities and my guess is that you probably do as well. If you're looking for a fun one that has the added bonus of requiring basically nothing in the way of prep time or materials, then check out What are you Cooking?

To get the full story, you'll have to check out the article right here: What are you Cooking?

#20: ESL Family Activities

Talking about family is one of those classic ESL conversation activities. However, the same old powering through the textbook for this unit can get a little bit boring because it's likely that students have seen it before many times.

The good news is that there are lots of interesting ESL activities for adults related to family and family trees. Here are some of the best ones: ESL Family Activity Ideas.

Like these ESL activities for adults?

If you found these conversation games useful, then you'll need to check out this book: 39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teens and Adults. Conversation classes for adults? They're no problem when you have this book of ideas at your fingertips.

Speaking games for adults? There are a ton of them and unlike many other ones you'll find around the Internet, each ESL game is fun! Make conversation for adults fun again. Your students will love you for it.

There are almost 40 ESL activities that require very little in the way of preparation when teaching English. Planning your speaking classes is easy, with a wide array of fun and interesting activities.

The book is available in both digital and print formats. The (very cheap!) digital one can be read on any device. You just have to download the free Kindle reading app. Top-quality ESL activities to have at your fingertips anywhere you go? Love it!

Check out the book on Amazon today. Click the button below to learn more about this popular book of ESL activities for adults.

Conversation Class with Adults: Some Teaching Tips

If you have an English conversation class for adults, here are some quick tips that you'll need to know in order to make your class as awesome as possible!

It's all About Student-Centred Teaching

When you're planning your lessons, remember that it's your students who should be doing the hard work, not you. What does this mean?

Well, you are most of a facilitator than the one doing all the talking. Get students talking to each other and avoid the temptation to be front and centre all the time.

Can your Students Read Well?

If your students can't read that well, it'll be pretty difficult for them to improve their speaking, grammar or vocabulary. Even though it's a conversation class, if your students are struggling with this skill, sneak a little bit of it in there.

Ask Them if They Want Homework

Adult students often have very different expectations when it comes to having homework or not. The best thing to do is ask them directly what they want!

Of course, if you teach a university course for example, then you'll likely just have to assign homework and students will have no say over it. But of course, it's different if students have voluntarily signed up for the class and aren't getting graded.

Don't Put Students on the Spot with ESL Conversation Activities

This is especially important in Asia because your students will want to save face in front of their peers. Ensure that you give students some thinking time, or have them compare answers with a partner before asking them something in front of the entire class.

This is probably the most important thing to keep in mind for an English conversation class for adults, and it certainly differs in this regard from teaching kids!

Knowing a Few Things Well

My goal is that students leave my class knowing a few things really well, instead of a lot of things only a little bit. It's these things they know well that they'll use in the future when writing or speaking in English!

Include Lots of Review in a Conversation Class for Adults

It takes a few times when learning a language before something really "sticks." Help your students out by incorporating lots of review into your classes. I do this in a number of ways.

Sometimes I'll review key grammar or vocabulary at the end of a class by doing a little "mini-test," that's just for fun. And, I'll often do a review game at the beginning of a class for content studied in previous sessions.

Finally, I'll usually dedicate an entire class or two to review before any sort of test.

Use a Variety of English Conversation Activities

Mix things up a little bit and use some different activities in your conversation or speaking classes. Although a bit of a routine can be helpful, it's nice to change things up sometimes, right?

ESL Conversation Activities FAQs

There are a number of common questions that people have about teaching conversation and speaking classes. Here are the answers to some of the most popular ones.

How do you Make an English Conversation Class Interesting?

If you want your English conversation class to be interesting and not boring, here are a few tips:

Change partners often

Introduce a variety of topics

Encourage free-flowing discussion

Plan lessons well

Use lots of different activities and games

Get beyond the textbook

Consider getting outside the classroom

Have a class party

Use current events

What are the Activities to Develop Speaking Skills?

There are a number of activities you can use to help your students develop speaking skills.

Discussions

Role plays

Information gap activities

Brainstorming

Telling stories

Interview

Complete the story

What is a Communicative Activity ESL?

A communicative ESL activity is one that encourages English learners to speak and listen to another learner(s) and actually requires this in order to complete the activity. The purpose of them is to find out information, break down barriers, talk about one self and also learn about what other people think.

What are the Advantages of a Communicative Approach?

There are many advantages to the communicative approach when it comes to language teaching. However, an increase in fluency in the target language is the most important one. This approach will help language learners feel more confident when interesting in another language.

How do you Make ESL Students Talk?

Remember that you can't make an ESL student talk if they absolutely don't want to. However, you can design activities and games well so that it's easier to participate than not. Something like surveys or information gap activities are ideal for encouraging communication.

What Do you Think about these ESL Conversation Activities for Adults?

Do you have one or two favourite conversation games and activities for when you're teaching ESL students? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We're open to new ideas for teaching English!

Also be sure to contact me with any questions that you might have about ESL activities for adults.

And don't forget to share the word about this ESL teaching awesome on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. It'll help busy teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.

Last update on 2020-04-15 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

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Top 20 ESL Conversation Activities for Adults | ESL Class for Adults

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Are you trying to figure out what to actually do in your English conversation class for adults? That's a good question. The good news is that you've come to the right place! Here are some of my 20 favourite ESL activities for adults.

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Here are all the English grammar exercises on the site so far.

Irregular Verbs:
Present Simple Form (with the verb 'be'):Present Simple Form (with all verbs except 'be'):
Present Continuous Form:
Present Simple or Present Continuous? Present Perfect Simple Form: Past Simple or Present Perfect? Present Perfect Continuous Form: Present Perfect Simple or Continuous? Past Simple Form (with the verb 'be'):Past Simple Form (with all verbs except 'be'):Past Continuous Form: Past Simple or Past Continuous? Past Perfect Simple Form: Past Perfect or Past Simple? Past Perfect Continuous Form: Past Perfect Simple or Past Perfect Continuous? Past Perfect Continuous or Past Simple? Future Simple Form: Future Simple or Present Simple? Future Continuous (or Future Progressive) Form: Future Perfect Simple Form: Future Perfect Continuous Form: Mixed Future Forms: Conditionals: Forms Reported Speech: The Passive: Relative Clauses: Modal Verbs Verb Patterns Prepositions: Adjectives: Gerunds and Infinitives: Let and Make: Make and Do: Used to Do, Would Do, and Be Used to Doing: Phrasal Verbs A and The Other Things Linking words

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Lots of English grammar exercises and quizzes both online and in PDF to help you practise your English

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Modals of Possibility and Probability for Past Situations 

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Modals of Possibility and Probability for Past Situations 

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Exercise 1 WEBLINK

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ELC Study Zone: Modals of Possibility and Probability for Past Situations - Exercise 1

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Kansas City Star, "Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty Helps America Speak and Write Better" September, 2007

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Mignon Fogarty is the founder of the Quick and Dirty Tips network and creator of Grammar Girl, which has been named one of Writer's Digest's 101 best websites for writers multiple times. She is also an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame.

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ADVANCE

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A detailed explanation of all the important points of English grammar.

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Grammar explanations and excersices

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Here are all the English grammar exercises on the site so far.

Irregular Verbs:
Present Simple Form (with the verb 'be'):Present Simple Form (with all verbs except 'be'):
Present Continuous Form:
Present Simple or Present Continuous? Present Perfect Simple Form: Past Simple or Present Perfect? Present Perfect Continuous Form: Present Perfect Simple or Continuous? Past Simple Form (with the verb 'be'):Past Simple Form (with all verbs except 'be'):Past Continuous Form: Past Simple or Past Continuous? Past Perfect Simple Form: Past Perfect or Past Simple? Past Perfect Continuous Form: Past Perfect Simple or Past Perfect Continuous? Past Perfect Continuous or Past Simple? Future Simple Form: Future Simple or Present Simple? Future Continuous (or Future Progressive) Form: Future Perfect Simple Form: Future Perfect Continuous Form: Mixed Future Forms: Conditionals: Forms Reported Speech: The Passive: Relative Clauses: Modal Verbs Verb Patterns Prepositions: Adjectives: Gerunds and Infinitives: Let and Make: Make and Do: Used to Do, Would Do, and Be Used to Doing: Phrasal Verbs A and The Other Things Linking words

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Lots of English grammar exercises and quizzes both online and in PDF to help you practise your English

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excersices

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English Grammar Reference and Exercises on Tenses and all other Grammar Topics.