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Provide careful preparation - give lots of vocabulary practice and language practice beforehand

Offer visual support - a grid to follow, a table to complete, a series of picture cards to hold will help students focus and remember language

Half an hour is too long. Short ten minute bursts are better.

Plan class management - everyone has to know what they are supposed to be doing or the class breaks down into anarchy. Demonstrate with students. Run through with a pair of students.

Don't rely on verbal instructions. Show them what to do.

Stem sentences
Give students the first part of a sentence which they have to complete. Make a list of stems on a handout. This guides them and gives them something to work through and compare in pairs or groups. The sentences can follow a theme.

For example:

On Sundays I usually ..................

On School nights I usually................

In the Summer I often...................

On my birthday I sometimes................

At exam time I usually...................

On Valentine's day I usually..........

In 2006 I was...

Last year was.......

Last week I went to......

Last night I.........

Ask me more - improving conversation technique
Each student writes four facts about themselves or their families/friends (guide this with your own examples). In pairs or small groups learners take turns to say one of their facts. You can do this with the whole class. The other students must ask as many questions as they can to keep the conversation going. Give help on the type of questions, if necessary.
Why? Because ...
One person makes a statement about their interests. Another students asks them to give reasons. This can be done in pairs, groups or with the whole class.

For example:

A: I like cats
B: Why do you like cats?
A: Because they are more independent than dogs
B: Why are they more independent?
A: Because they are happy if you leave them alone and don't need a lot of attention
B: Why do they like being alone?
A: Because they are natural hunters.
The witness - a fluency game
Prepare a series of 4 or 5 pictures of people which can be easily copied (for example: 4 men with beards or moustaches of differing ages). Divide class into pairs. Student A is a witness and B is a policeman.

Show all Student A's one of the pictures (Student B must not see it). Show it very briefly.

Student B must ask the witness to describe the person he saw. Student B can ask questions for details: hair, age, clothes, height, weight. Student B should take notes.

Now give the Policemen (student B) the line up of 4 people. Which one did the witness describe?

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Provide careful preparation - give lots of vocabulary practice and language practice beforehand Offer visual support - a grid to follow, a table to complete, a series of picture cards to hold will help students focus and remember language Half an hour is too long. Short ten minute bursts are better.

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Motivating speaking activities for lower levels

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Planning time has been shown to increase production in speaking tasks. Lower level learners often find it especially difficult to speak spontaneously, so these activities incorporate 'thinking time' during which learners can prepare for speaking by planning what they are going to say, and asking the teacher or using a dictionary to look up missing vocabulary. The following activities are relatively short, with minimal materials preparation time for the teacher. They are designed for use as a warmer or a filler in the middle or at the end of a class.
1. Definitions lists
This activity is good for activating existing vocabulary or revising vocabulary studied in previous lessons.

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 ten words they associate with this topic. To make the activity shorter, reduce the number of words.

Pre-teach or 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 a few minutes to think of how they can define these words.

Now students work in pairs (or groups of three) and define their words to each other. 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 write three or four words each on strips of paper to draw out of a hat).

Pre-teach or 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/She's British / American / Spanish ..., etc.

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

Each team has one minute to define as many words as possible.
2. What were you doing ...?
This activity can be adapted to revise a range of tenses (present simple, past simple, continuous, future tenses) by changing the time prompts, e.g. What are you going to do tomorrow / next weekend?

Write a selection of time prompts on the board, e.g. yesterday at 6 o'clock, this time last year, on 11 September 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 five 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. Student A: I was watching TV yesterday at 6. Student B: 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!
3. 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.

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.
4. 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.

Before the class, find a cartoon with at least four 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. Put students into pairs and 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.
5. Write the dialogue

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

Display the comic strip / 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 strip, cartoon or image.

Students practise their dialogues and read their version out to the class.
6. What's the question?
This activity is good for practising questions and for fluency practice on a range of topics.

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 (but 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 five 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, e.g.
Student A: What's the best concert you've ever been to?
Student B: Robbie Williams.
Student A: When was the concert?
Student B: 2017.
Student A: Why was it good?
Student B: Because ...

Feedback and ask students what they found out.

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Motivating speaking activities for lower levels

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Planning time has been shown to increase production in speaking tasks. Lower level learners often find it especially difficult to speak spontaneously, so these activities incorporate 'thinking time' during which learners can prepare for speaking by planning what they are going to say, and asking the teacher or using a dictionary to look up missing vocabulary.

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Roleplay ideas

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by Andrei Zakhareuski 630,804 views

There are two ways a role play can go: scripted and non-scripted. With a scripted role play, the teacher might use an example in a text book. This is a good idea for a warm up exercise, by getting everyone to split up into pairs and allow them to speak to their partner, taking on different roles. Non-scripted ones are when students are given a role each and must use whatever knowledge they have in order to speak with that partner. Below is a list of ideas for a general English class. This can be adapted to suit a situation.

Try These Fresh Role Play Activities With Your Class

1. Telephone Conversation
Speaking on the phone is different to a face-to-face conversation because one relies solely on language to communicate. Get the students who are practicing to sit back to back in order for this to work properly. There is a whole range of ideas which one can use to act this out. Examples include: phoning to make a complaint, speaking to a friend or inquiring about a job position.

2. Going to the Shop
A great one for younger learners as it will teach them the basics of interacting with people. Children generally rely on their parents to buy things for them, therefore this will boost their overall general confidence in buying. It can be as simple or as complex as one wishes, depending on the situation. Key phrases are often important here, such as " I would like..." " How much are..." " Good morning... " and so forth.

3. Booking a Hotel
This will allow students to practise a specific type of language. Usually this will be formal language as it is a business conversation. This can also be done in the format of a telephone conversation, or it could be someone approaching a text. There is a wide range of opportunity here for the students to learn new forms of vocabulary.

4. Sharing Opinions
Choose a topic that everyone appears to be interested in. Get the students to pair up and give them a list of questions to follow (for example, see our ' 130 Topics for Discussion (more than 2000 questions) For Any Level '). This will allow them to come up with their own phrases and use language in a much more practical way.

5. Job Interview
Work is usually a good topic to begin with when teaching adults. Many are learning English in order to improve their career prospects. As a result, a job interview role play is an excellent way to get the class learning that all important material. Again, this can be scripted or non-scripted. A good idea would be to have the interviewer have a list of set questions, and the students can take it from there.

6. Getting Everyone to Speak
A traditional method is to ask the class to pair off. Of course, one cannot monitor every student particularly if the class is quite large. Therefore, it is important to make sure everyone is speaking and getting the most out of the language they know. If one has time, have each individual group come up to the top of the class and speak in front of everyone else. This will allow people to use their language more creatively.

7. Argument Between Neighbours
Again, this is a new opportunity for learning different types of vocabulary. This could be between two neighbours who are having an argument. Perhaps one plays music too loudly in the middle of the night and is disturbing the rest of the apartment block. This can be as absurd or ridiculous as the students' want, as long as they are speaking and using the language correctly. Some of the situations thought up can be quite amusing. See some suggested situations here: " Neighbour Problems Role Play ".

8. Body Language
Body language is just as important as spoken language, so in their role plays try and let the students get into the role. Of course, one does not have to be an expert at acting but it is important for them to get a feel of the flow of the conversation. Using body language effectively will allow them to become a lot more in tune with the language they are using.

9. Debate
Debates are a brilliant way of encouraging language use. This is because they can become somewhat heated, and many new words can come up. It is important to choose a topic which might not be too controversial to some students. Remember to be sensitive to their age group and the general attitude of the particular country. Divide the class into two sides and give them each a side of an argument to defend.

10. Have Fun
When it comes to role plays, it is all about the creative use of language. The student must put what they know to the test. This doesn't mean they have to list off a boring dialogue. Allow them to be as creative as they can. Put them into challenging situations, and this will allow them to think of new ways of saying things.

Role plays can work as a great ice breaker for the beginning of the class.

Always remember to be sensitive to any particular issues at the time, however, and be wary of the students' age. Usually, the likes of filing a complaint will not really be of interest to children. Once the students are having fun and speaking English, there are no limits to their own learning!

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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10 Fresh Roleplay Ideas for General English

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by Andrei Zakhareuski 630,804 views There are two ways a role play can go: scripted and non-scripted. With a scripted role play, the teacher might use an example in a text book. This is a good idea for a warm up exercise, by getting everyone to split up into pairs and allow them to speak to their partner, taking on different roles.

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Speaking about oneself: games and activities

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Speaking about oneself: games and activities

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How to make your students speak about themselves:
a collection of various games to have them talk, talk, talk.

From https://en.islcollective.com/, here comes a nice though short collection of " Let's Talk about... " board games; don't hesitate to check on their website, it is an exquisite treasure chest:

http://eslgames.com/ offers us another view on conversation:

Yet another fabulous website, http://busyteacher.org/ challenges us to " Discuss, Chat or Talk about... "

http://www.cristinacabal.com/ suggests we go further, speaking about friendship, going shopping and money:

Just as good as all the other games, the next ones*** are definitely worth playing.*** The only trouble is that the web browser we are presently using doesn't allow us to search for the sites where these games come from. We are doing our best to change the present state of facts. Please, do contact us privately, in case one of the images offends copyright.

Have you found any mistake?
Do you want to drop us a word?
Do you need these documents in .word or .pdf formats? We may be able help you.
Contact EngliSHip.

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How to make your students speak about themselves: a collection of various games to have them talk, talk, talk. From https://en.islcollective.com/, here comes a nice though short collection of " Let's Talk about...

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Being Strategic: Adult Learners and Speaking

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81 tips for ESL speaking teachers

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ESL Speaking activities for University students

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Learn English with dialogues

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Learn English conversation online. Dialogues to help you learn to speak English.

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How to speak better English - advice for the self-directed learner

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If you're reading this, I imagine you want to speak better English and communicate in a more confident and competent way.

When we communicate effectively we are able to express our ideas and opinions, share experiences, and build relationships with others. When we struggle to express ourselves, we feel unvalued and insecure. As human beings, we want to participate in group discussions and have an impact on the society around us.

In the modern world, we communicate across borders. English is the closest thing we have to an international language.
By speaking better English, people all over the world can hear our voice. But, to speak better English, you need a teacher, don't you? You need to take English classes, right?
Well, English teachers and English classes definitely help. But, studying English for a few hours a week may not improve your spoken English very much.
What you need is to become a self-directed learner, somebody who takes responsibility for their own learning and creates their own learning programme to develop their English.
Now, it's certainly true that speaking is a social activity and is best done with other people. However, you could say the same about many activities. Leo Messi became a wonderful football player because he spent hours every day for many years practising by himself.
You can do the same with your English. Here are 33 ways to speak better English, without going to classes.
4. Watch short video clips and pause and repeat what you hear. YouTube is an amazing resource for language learners and you probably already have your favourite clips. My advice is to watch short clips and really study them. With longer videos, you may find your attention wanders. The key to improving by watching videos is to really listen carefully and use the pause button to focus on sounds and words. Many YouTube videos now have captions.

7. Learn about weak and strong forms of common words. When you know about the 'schwa' sound, you will listen to native speakers in a different way. English is a stress-timed language which means that we use a combination of strong and weak forms of some words. For example, which words do we stress in the following sentence?
I want to go for a drink tonight.
How do native speakers pronounce to / for / a in the sentence? We use the schwa sound so it sounds like:
I wanna go ferra drink tenigh.
Learn how and when to use weak form s and your speaking will improve overnight. You will also learn to focus on stressed words when listening to fast, native-speaker English and you will finally be able to understand us!

8. Learn about word stress. When words have more than one syllable, we stress one or more of them. For example, the word intelligent has four syllables but which syllable do we stress? Click here to find out. Remember that the small vertical mark above the word identifies the stressed syllable: /ɪnˈtel.ɪ.dʒənt/

9. Learn about sentence stress. Sentence stress refers to the word or words we stress in a phrase of a sentence. When we stress a word, we help the listener understand what is important. If we stress the wrong word or don't stress the key word, the listener may get confused or not realise what is important in the sentence. A few years ago, I enrolled in a gym. I was asked to attend an introductory class at ' five to six'. The Hungarian receptionist stressed the word ' six' so I arrived at 5.55. She looked at me and told me that I was late and the class had nearly finished. She should have stressed ' five' and ' six' so would have understood that the class lasted for one hour and began at 5pm! For more on sentence stress, read here .

10. Identify fixed and semi-fixed phrases and practise them. Fixed phrases usually contain between 3 and 7 words and include items like:
to be honest on the other hand
A conversation is made of grammatical structures, vocabulary and fixed or semi-fixed phrases. In fact, t o tell the truth , on the whole, most of the time, my friends and I , communicate with each other in a series of fixed and semi-fixed expressions.

Learn the communicative function of these phrases and practise how to pronounce them (remember weak forms, which words are stressed) and use them in your everyday conversation. Click here for a list of 1000 common phrases .
Yellow doesn't get on well with hair. Maybe yellow is jealous of blond because blond and hair are frequently seen out together having a great time. Yellow doesn't understand why hair prefers blond because yellow and blond are so similar.
Listen carefully for common combinations of words. Short and small have similar meanings but people have short hair not small hair. High and tall are often not so different but people have high hopes but not tall hopes. Foxes are sly not devious. Hours can be happy but are never cheerful. Idiots are stupid but rarely silly.

13. Learn short automatic responses. Many of our responses are automatic (Right, OK, no problem, alright, fine thanks, just a minute, you're welcome, fine by me, let's do it!, yup, no way! you're joking, right?, Do I have to? etc.) Collect these short automatic responses and start using them.

14. Practise telling stories and using narrative tenses. Humans are designed to tell stories. We use the past simple, past continuous and past perfect for telling stories but when the listener is hooked (very interested), they feel like they are actually experiencing the story right now. So, we often use present tenses to make our stories more dramatic!

16. Learn about chunking. Chunking means joining words together to make meaningful units. You don't need to analyse every word to use a phrase. Look at the phrase: Nice to meet you. It's a short phrase (4 words) which can be remembered as a single item. It is also an example of ellipsis (leaving words out) because the words 'It' and 'is' are missing at the beginning of the phrase. However, we don't need to include them. Learn more here.

17. Learn about typical pronunciation problems in your first language. Japanese learners find it difficult to identify and produce ' r' and ' l' sounds; Spanish don't distinguish between ' b' and ' v'; Germans often use a ' v' sound when they should use a ' w '. Find out about the problems people who speak your first language have when speaking English and you will know what you need to focus on.

20. Use a mirror and / or a sheet of paper for identifying aspirated and non-aspirated sounds. Aspirated sounds are those with a short burst of here, such as ' p' in ' pen, and unaspirated sounds have no or little air, such as the ' b' in ' Ben'. Watch this video to learn more.
What a terrible tongue twister. What a terrible tongue twister. What a terrible tongue twister.
22. Practise spelling names, numbers and dates aloud. This may seem very basic to some of you but if you don't practise, you forget how to say them.Have a and at place names here.

23. Learn about common intonation patterns. Intonation (when the pitch of the voice goes up and down) is complex in English but it is very important as it expresses the feeling or emotion of the speaker. Here is an amusing introduction to intonation.

26. Learn why English is a stress-timed language. The rhythm of the language is based on stressed syllables so we shorten the unstressed syllables to fit the rhythm. Syllable-timed languages (such as Spanish) take the same time to pronounce each syllable. Here's an which might explain why you speak English like a robot or watch this funny clip here.

31. Learn exclamation words and fillers. Watch or study this list of 100 common exclamations here.
Now, here's your CALL TO ACTION. In the next 33 days, spend 15 minutes every day on one of the tips. I'm sure you'll notice a huge improvement.
And maybe one day you'll speak English like Messi plays football!
Thanks for reading the post.
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33 ways to speak better English without taking classes

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If you're reading this, I imagine you want to speak better English and communicate in a more confident and competent way. When we communicate effectively we are able to express our ideas and opinions, share experiences, and build relationships with others. When we struggle to express ourselves, we feel unvalued and insecure.

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Speaking activities

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Everyday conversations are an important part of life in the UK. Do you talk to the other people in your neighbourhood? Watch the video, which focuses on people living in a typical neighbourhood in the UK. Practise your speaking skills as you complete the activities.

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Minimal resources: Speaking activities: Scott Thornbury

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Functional Language - ESL EFL Activities, Worksheets and Games

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On this page, you will find all our ESL teaching activities, games and worksheets related to functional language. Functional language is language that we use to perform various functions, such as making requests, giving advice, complaining, agreeing, asking permission, etc.

Learning functional language gives students of English the skills to communicate effectively in various everyday situations. Functional language contains a lot of fixed expressions. Because there are so many expressions for each function, it is best to teach these structures in manageable chunks. Try to limit the number of structures you introduce in each lesson to help your students remember the specific phrases. Functional language can also be taught early in a student's English language development. There are some basic structures that when introduced enable students to make themselves understood even if their level of English is quite low.

The teaching materials in this section include worksheets, lessons, games and fun communicative activities to help demonstrate and practice each function. Each teaching activity is categorized, according to the level and type of activity. To help students put the language structures into context, we have created a variety of activities that use dialogues and role-plays based on realistic situations. By focusing on and practicing these structures regularly, students will be able to build on their English language knowledge and communicate successfully.

The functional language topics are listed below:

Agreeing and Disagreeing

This page provides a wealth of functional language activities, worksheets and games to help teach your students how to agree and disagree with positive and negative statements and opinions.

Asking for and Giving Advice

These functional language activities, games and worksheets help to teach students how to ask for and give advice. The resources also help students learn a variety of structures for asking and giving advice on a number of everyday topics.
Asking for and Giving Directions
This page offers engaging functional language worksheets, activities and games to help students practice asking for and giving directions.

Asking for and Giving Opinions

In this section, you will find functional language activities and worksheets about asking for and giving opinions. This page also contains a wide range of engaging resources to help students practice explaining, justifying and summarizing opinions, agreeing, disagreeing and persuading. Students can also participate in debates where they express and defend their opinions by arguing for or against a topic.
Asking for and Giving Personal Information
On this page, you will find functional language worksheets and activities to help teach your students how to ask and answer personal information questions. These resources can also be used on the first day of class to help students get to know each other and make introductions.

Asking, Giving and Refusing Permission

On this page, you will find functional language worksheets and activities to help teach your students how to ask for, give and refuse permission using a variety of phrases.

This impressive selection of activities help students to master asking and answering questions. On the page, you will find a wealth of games and worksheets to help students practice 'Wh' and yes/no questions in a range of tenses.

Complaining and Apologizing

These functional language activities teach students how to make and deal with complaints in English. Students also learn how to soften complaints, apologize, make requests, and give excuses. This page also contains several role-plays and teaching activities that cover common and business complaints.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

On this page, you will find engaging teaching activities and worksheets to help students practice their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The page also contains a variety of topic-based lessons to help students develop their skills. The resources in this section also combine other useful skills such as negotiating, prioritizing, ordering, analyzing and evaluating.

Describing Character and Personality

This page offers a range of activities and worksheets to teach students how to describe someone's personality and character. These resources also help students learn a variety of positive and negative character and personality adjectives.

Describing People's Appearance

These enjoyable ESL activities help to teach students how to describe someone's appearance. This includes their physical appearance and clothing. Students can learn how to use the 'verb to be' to describe height, body build and age, and how to use 'have' and 'has' to describe hair colour, hair length and facial features. These resources also help students to practice a wide range of adjectives related to appearance.

This page provides worksheets and activities to help students practice describing places, famous landmarks and buildings. There are also lessons and games to help teach related adjectives and practice writing descriptions of places.

This page offers a variety of entertaining games, worksheets and activities to help students practice describing things. The resources also help students learn essential language and adjectives to describe objects.

On this page, you will find engaging worksheets, activities, games and icebreakers for the first day of class to help your students get to know each other and practice giving personal information.

These imaginative worksheets, activities and games help students to master holiday vocabulary and common expressions used in holiday and travel situations. There are resources to help students talk about all aspects of holidays, such as describing holiday experiences, talking about travel plans, booking a hotel, etc. Students can also learn how to ask and answer questions about holiday and travel information like the location of hotel facilities, opening/closing times and the price of hotel rooms.
Introductions
These functional language activities, worksheets and games help to teach students how to formally and informally greet someone, introduce themselves and others, make small talk, end a conversation and say goodbye. This page also provides fun activities for students to use on the first day of class to get to know each other and make introductions.

This page provides rewarding activities and worksheets about indirect questions to help your students master how to ask questions politely. The resources also help students learn how indirect questions are formed, why we use them, and how to change direct questions into indirect questions.
Making, Accepting and Declining Requests
This page provides functional language activities, worksheets, games and lessons to help you teach your students how to make, accept and decline requests using a variety of phrases.

Making, Accepting and Rejecting Suggestions

This page provides teachers with a variety of functional language activities based on making, accepting and rejecting suggestions. There are also resources to help students learn how to raise objections, suggest alternatives and make excuses. On this page, you will also find activities that help students practice inviting, accepting and declining invitations.

Ordering Food and Drink

These functional language activities and worksheets help students practice ordering food and drink. The resources also provide students with a variety of situational role-plays to help students master restaurant language and useful dining expressions.

This page is packed with functional language activities and worksheets to help teach students shopping language. The page also contains a variety of engaging role-play activities to help students master buying and selling items in a shop.

These functional language activities, worksheets, games and lessons help teach students techniques for keeping a conversation going and making small talk. These techniques include using echo questions and words, asking 'Wh' follow-up questions and responding with phrases that show attention, agreement and interest. There are also resources to help students learn how to reply to everyday statements and questions with commonly used phrases.
Travel and Transportation
The functional language resources on this page focus on travel and transport. There are fun activities, worksheets and games to help students learn vocabulary and language connected to travel and transportation. You will also find role-plays and dialogues students can use to learn how to ask and answer questions about travel information.

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Functional Language - ESL EFL Activities, Worksheets and GamesOn this page, you will find all our ESL teaching activities, games and worksheets related to functional language. Functional language is language that we use to perform various functions, such as making requests, giving advice, complaining, agreeing, asking permission, etc.

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6 Speaking activities

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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.

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More than just speaking - developing student speaking skills

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More than just speaking - developing student speaking skills

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Speaking lesson plans for developing functional English

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Functional Language

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Functional Language | Vocabulary | EnglishClub

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Typical expressions used for language functions such as giving advice or apologizing. Various levels. Vocabulary for ESL learners and teachers.

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Functional English

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Sample Lesson

Beg - Low Int

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