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ESL warm-up activities are essential in the English classroom. Students may be tired or have other things on their minds and diving straight into a textbook or grammar explanation can be quite jarring. With a good warmer you can put your students into English mode; attentive, interested and ready to participate. A warmer can also serve to review language from a previous lesson or prime the class for a new topic.

No-preparation ESL Warm-up activities

Here is a list of warm-up activities you can use which don't require any preparation. Most of them can, of course, also be used as filler activities if you find yourself a few minutes short at the end of the lesson.

Quick questions

Write a list of two or three questions on the board which introduce the theme of the lesson. For example, if you are going to talk about books, you could write: What's your favourite book? What was the last book you read? What kind of books do you prefer? etc. Give the students 5-10 minutes to discuss the questions and then have students report back to the class.

If you're looking for ideas for conversation questions, check out our book 50 Conversation classes, which contains over 500 thought-provoking questions on 50 different topics.

Make the most words

Write a topical vocabulary item on the board. In twos or threes, students make as many new words from it as they can. Use longish seed words such as apologise, dictionary or September. Score teams a point per word and award a bonus point for the longest.

Make the longest words

Write a topical target word vertically down the board, for example, WINTER. In twos or threes, students attempt to come up with the longest word that begins with each letter. Give teams a point per word and a bonus point for the longest.

What does your name mean?

Using a dictionary, google or any other resource, students find and write down an appropriate adjective that begins with each letter of their first name. For example:

Mixed-up sentence

Write a sentence on the board but mix up the word order, then challenge students to reconstruct the original sentence. For example:
morning hadn't eaten wish that döner kebab I at this 5am
Hangman

This popular filler can also be a great way to start a lesson with beginner learners who are still unsure of the alphabet. Just put a recently learned word on the board and let the students take it in turns to guess a letter. If you don't know how to play, you can read an explanation here.

Mixed-up sentence (anagram variation)

Write a sentence on the board but this time scramble the letters of each word. For example:
hwy ddint' I dusty draher ta vieyunrsit?
Word ladders

In this activity, a word must be transformed step by step into a target word. To illustrate the idea, write the word run on the board and explain that the target word is fit. For each turn, only one letter can be changed. See if the class can find a valid sequence together. One possible sequence is:

If you want to find possible word pairs, there is a site with a handy word ladder generator.

Put students in pairs and have them create their own word ladders to test their classmates with.

What do you know about bananas?

Set a five-minute time limit and in groups have students think up and write down as many facts as they can about bananas (or cats, Belgium, David Beckham, etc.). One point should be given for each true sentence.

How many sounds can you hear?

Students sit in silence for two minutes and write down every sound that they hear. Let them compare their lists with their neighbours before seeing who has the longest list?

The A to Z game

Give students a theme, for example, jobs, things you take on holiday, food. Write the letters A to Z on the board. Teams of students must race to write an appropriate word next to each letter on the board. Read more about the A to Z game here.

Things to do with a potato

(one of many brilliantly simple ideas from this very handy book) Produce a potato (if that's not possible, introduce the concept of a potato). Ask students to come up with a list of as many unconventional uses for it as they can. For example paperweight, weapon, pen holder, smartphone dock. The longest list wins the potato.

Odd one out

Give the students a couple of examples to guess, then get students to come up with their own ideas. Here are some examples:

apple, peach, banana, tomato - a banana doesn't have seeds
strawberry, branch, bowling ball, boat, iceberg - bowling balls don't float
window, river, envelope, client, oregano - client doesn't begin and end with the same letter
comb, champagne, knife, plum - the word plum doesn't contain any silent letters

Note: There can be more than one correct answer

Name ten

Have students think of 10 items that fit particular criteria. For example:

Jobs where you have to wear a uniform

English football clubs

Sports that are played with a ball

Foods that contain egg

Animals that lay eggs

Three letter parts of the body - eye, arm, leg, hip, ear, toe jaw, rib, lip, gum

Two truths and a lie

An ESL classroom staple. Write or dictate three sentences about yourself. Two statements should be true and one false, for example:

I used to be an air steward
I can ride a unicycle
My favourite food is sushi

Now invite students to discuss in pairs which statement they think is the lie. Ask each pair which statement they think is untrue and have them explain why. Reveal your answer, and ask students to come up with three sentences about themselves. I find students need quite a lot of time (at least five minutes) to come up with three ideas. If some students are still short of a sentence or two, start the game anyway, and they can finish their statements during play. Check students' statements and then have them take it in turns to read them out to the class. In each case, the other students have to guess which is the untrue statement.

For a longer more involved version of this game, see the lying game.

Mastermind (AKA Bulls & Cows, Jotto)

Based on the code-breaking board game where players have to deduce the order of 4 coloured pegs which the other player had hidden behind a plastic guard. It's slightly complicated to grasp but fun when you get the hang of it.

Think of a four-letter word and write XXXX on the board, each X represents one of the letters of your word.

Invite the first student to guess what the word is.

Start a new line underneath your original XXXX. If the first letter in the student's word is the same as the first letter in your word put a ✓ in the first position. If the first letter is not the same as the first letter in your word but is contained somewhere in your word put a half-tick /. If the first letter of the student's word is not contained anywhere your word put an X.

In the following example, the teacher chooses the word FIRE.

A word of warning. Stick to 4 or 5 letter words. It's much more difficult to guess longer words and it can also be tricky trying to mark each guess.

When students are familiar with the game you can get them to come and put their own words on the board.

I'm going on a picnic and I'm taking a ...

This is a guess the rule type game. Think of a rule which governs which items can be taken on a picnic, for example, it must be six letters long, or it must start with a vowel. In this example, the rule is that the word must be an uncountable noun.

Teacher: I'm going on a picnic and I'm taking milk.
Student A: I'm going on a picnic and I'm taking eggs.
Teacher: No, you can't take eggs.
Student B: Can I take orange juice?
Teacher: Yes, you can take orange juice.

And so on.

Continue adding items to your picnic list until a student correctly guesses the rule (the choices don't have to make sense within the picnic scenario e.g. love, information, air ). When you've finished, invite the students (alone or in pairs) to come up with their own rules and let them run the game.

Word Association

This must be one of the oldest ESL warm-up activities, but sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be surprisingly effective and word games don't get any simpler than word association. Give an initial word, for example, banana and each student takes it in turns to say a word which they associate with the previous word. If the connection isn't obvious, challenge the student to justify their choice.
banana - monkey - zoo - tourists - hotel - bible ...
Three things in common

This is a great icebreaker, but you can also use it as a lead-in to a theme or to test your students' knowledge of a grammar point. Simply ask students to work in pairs and find three things that they have in common and then report back to the class. You can narrow the topic down to areas like t hree things we both did at the weekend, three foods we both like, three things we both don't like about this city, three things neither of us has done yet but would like to, etc.

Just a Minute Tic Tac Toe

Based on the BBC Radio show. Draw a Tic Tac Toe grid on the board and in each space write a topic that you think some of your students might be interested in or have some knowledge of. Play the game with two teams, to claim their X or O, a team member must attempt to talk about the topic in the chosen square for 45 to 60 seconds (depending on their level) without pausing or repetition. Check out this tic tac toe page for more ideas on how to use this popular ESL game.

One-upmanship

I discovered this great activity at BusinessEnglishResources.com. Start off by explaining the concept of one-upmanship, that some people always like to appear to be more interesting or superior to others in their company. Tell the students a relatively mundane story about something that happened recently and invite a student to tell a similar story but to top it in some way. Each student, in turn, tries to top the previous student's tale. For example:

You: Yesterday I overslept and was five minutes late to class.
Student: That's nothing, I overslept and was an hour late.
Student B: An hour! I once overslept a whole day!

If the students are sufficiently advanced you could have them watch and read through Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch which is a very funny skit on the subject of one-upmanship.

Spontaneous Scatter Sheet

Scatter Sheets are a great way to review vocabulary, introduce a theme and get students talking. As a warmer, have students brainstorm words connected to a theme, for example, the seaside, London, marketing, etc. Write these words on the board randomly, not in straight lines or columns but higgledy-piggledy and at jaunty angles. When you have around 20 words on the board, go around the room asking each student, in turn, to describe one of the words, when it's been successfully guessed, circle it and move on to the next student. Encourage students to let the describer produce at least two sentences before shouting out the answer.

Spin the marker

Sometimes students just want a chance to talk and express themselves in an unstructured way and it's a good idea to encourage this. Spin the marker pen and whoever it points to can dictate the conversation, ask questions, suggest the topic, etc. Spin the marker again when you feel the conversation has run its course. I find this activity works best when students are sitting in a small circle not too far apart.

Fortunately / Unfortunately

English learners often have trouble remembering and correctly pronouncing these two useful words. One way to practice it is to start a story and have learners alternately advancing the story using these adverbs.

For example:

Teacher: Yesterday my car was stolen.

Student A: Fortunately, it was insured.

Student B: Unfortunately, the insurance company went bankrupt.

Student C: Fortunately, my grandfather said he would buy me a new car.

Student D: Unfortunately, he's lost his mind and doesn't have any money.

Etc.

Organise yourselves!

Have students arrange themselves in order according to a given criterion. For example by age, alphabetical order of first name or surname, the number of shoes owned, etc.

Letter string dictation

This is a great way to lead into the topic that you want to cover in the class and also serves as a simple activity to help students recognise letters of the alphabet. Think of a couple of questions for students to discuss in pairs or groups. Write the questions down and then dictate them as a long string of letters.

For example:
whatsyourfavouritecolour? whatdidyoudoattheweekend? whatkindofbooksdoyouliketoread?
After dictating the letter strings, students should attempt to form the questions and then discuss and report back to class.

To make it more challenging, dictate the letters backwards and then have the students figure out the question. This is more challenging because students will find it more difficult to predict the next letter and therefore must focus on the letters being dictated.
?teemotekiltsomuoydluowohw
For more ideas on using dictation see the article 10 dictation activities.

Whose weekend?

Give each student a slip of paper and ask each student to write down three things they did at the weekend. Collect up the slips of paper and randomly read each one out. The students must guess whose weekend is being described.

Provocative statements

Write a provocative statement on the board and then put students into small groups to discuss their opinion of it. For example, some drugs should be legalised, Facebook should be banned, Breaking Bad is overrated, one child is enough, organic food is a waste of money, etc. Have students report back to the class. You could make a list of arguments for and against the thesis.

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ESL warm-up activities and five minute fillers - 28 fun ways to start a class -

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ESL warm-up activities are essential in the English classroom. Students may be tired or have other things on their minds and diving straight into a textbook or grammar explanation can be quite jarring. With a good warmer you can put your students into English mode; attentive, interested and ready to participate.

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Easily-Searchable Database

Teacher-created activities, lots of different styles

Useful for:

Lesson Planning: Select a level; Select a topic; Choose an activity!

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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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Listening Activities from Casual to Formal

Features:

Audio File, Comprehension Questions, Vocab Sheets, & Conversation Transcript

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Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - English Listening

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Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab helps ESL and EFL learners improve their English listening comprehension skills through conversations.

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Concise grammar explanations  with charts and examples

Practice activities

Useful for:

Grammar explanation handouts & practice worksheets

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

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This site has been updated and relocated under a new name to International School Tutors. If you are unable to find what you are looking for on the new site, send an email to the webmaster via the Contact page.

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Multi-level Brief Grammar Lessons with examples

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Song Lyrics Follow Along / Fill-in Sheets for Classic & Contemporary Pop Songs

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Music can be a great way to connect with your students. Even students who aren't fluent in English often know the words of popular songs phonetically, which makes these songs ideal resources for teaching your students certain forms of grammar, as well as vocabulary. Many students are happy to work with the unusual phrasing of song lyrics, because they're learning new meanings for a piece of music that already has meaning in their lives.

You might never have noticed it before, but many songs' lyrics involve just one single tense - which means that as soon as you find a song that contains the tense you want to teach, you've got the makings of an exercise that your students will love. They'll get to brag to their non-English-speaking friends that they know exactly what the song's lyrics say, so they'll be extra-motivated to stick with you throughout the activity to make sure they learn those meanings correctly. But where should you start your search for the right song? Right here on BusyTeacher.org, of course! Our 1,788 song worksheets provide you with a wealth of resources for teaching tenses, sentence structure, vocabulary, and all kinds of other aspects of English - all with songs that your students already know and love. We've even taken the time to organize our library of song worksheets by verb tense, or by the type of activity that each worksheet helps you organize.

While some of our 1,788 worksheets simply focus on a certain feature of grammar that's used a lot in a given song, others encourage more advanced students to really listen for the song's meaning, and speak or write about their own interpretations of its lyrics. Some of our worksheets focus on idioms used in certain songs, or on the phonetics and pronunciation different singers use. Whether you want to teach the past simple tense with "Call Me Maybe" or practice vocabulary with Coldplay, BusyTeacher.org's library has a worksheet for you.

Not only are these worksheets built around internationally popular songs that'll be familiar to your students - they're also designed by real ESL teachers around the world, who've had success using them in their classrooms. This means that whenever you download a worksheet from BusyTeacher.org, you can be sure that it's already been tested and proven useful by a teacher just like you.

In fact, our whole community depends on worksheet contributions from teachers like you - so if you've got a worksheet that you think others would like, click the "Submit a worksheet" button at the bottom of this page, and send it our way. It might show up in an ESL classroom halfway around the world!

All of our 1,788 song worksheets are completely free to download, print, use, and share - so grab any that look like they might be handy. Our helpful "quick view" feature lets you get a glimpse of each worksheet as a small thumbnail, so you can save time by only clicking those that look like what you need. So take a look at the worksheets on this page, print off any that catch your eye, and see how they play in your classroom. Each one ought to be a hit!

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english as a foreign language worksheets

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1,788 FREE ESL Songs For Teaching English Worksheets

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Music can be a great way to connect with your students. Even students who aren't fluent in English often know the words of popular songs phonetically, which makes these songs ideal resources for teaching your students certain forms of grammar, as well as vocabulary.

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TOEFL Listening Audio Files featuring both Lectures + Dialogues

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toefl listening exam practice english language elt efl grammar writing structure teofl

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TOEFL® Listening: Lecture 1 : free practice test

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Listen to a lecture about the poet Sylvia Plath. Then answer questions.

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TOEFL iBT Quick Prep is a free practice tool with real TOEFL iBT test questions from past tests.

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News in levels 0-6, flagged with "harder" or "easier" labels

Current events, health articles, discoveries, breaking news+

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Breaking News English - Easier News Lessons

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Breaking News English Lessons - 3,419 FREE Easy News English lesson plans. EFL/ESL graded news lessons, news in 7 levels, current events.

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News divided into 3 categories (easy-difficult), highlighted vocabulary

Topics include News, Sports, History, Interesting, Funny, Nature, Exercise

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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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More challenging news articles

Relevant News, US, World, Entertainment, Economy+

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Accurate, objective news coverage from the U.S. and around the world.

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News divided into 5 categories (easy-difficult)

Quizzes & Writing prompts designed to match each article & adjusted to different levels

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Challenging Reading Passages with Comprehension Questions + Vocabulary Lists

Additional Listening Exercises + Activities

Topics: Music, People, News

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EFL Club - English as a Foreign Language for Advanced Students

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For intermediate and advanced students of English as a Foreign or Second Language. Study online about the news and famous people in art, business, history, literature, movies, music, politics, science and sport using authentic materials. We have academic word list vocaulary quizzes, reading, and listening exercises.

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TOEFL Reading passages&  Exam Practice Questions

Challenging, relevant reading activities for the advanced English classes

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toefl vocabulary exam practice english language elt efl grammar writing structure teofl

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TOEFL® reading test 4: free practice exercises from Exam English

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Read an article about Robert Capa and answer some questions

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Take your free, TOEFL practice test now! The TOEFL exam is taken by more than 30 million people. Study on our site for free with no registration required.

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Played like a bingo-board

Great for getting the class to mix & chat

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Around the room introductions

Share personal intros with a fun twist

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Two Truths and a Lie is one of the most popular ice breaker games. It is often used by teachers in adult classrooms, is a great way to start a meeting, and is perfect for any gathering where you'd like people to get to know one another. It's easy and fun and doesn't make everyone want to run from the room.

How to Play Two Truths and a Lie

This is an incredibly easy game to play and you won't need any materials, just a group of people. It is ideal for 10 to 15 people. If you have a larger gathering, divide people up into manageable groups so it doesn't take longer than 15 to 20 minutes to get through everyone.

Instructions: Tell the group that each person will introduce themselves by stating two truths and one lie. They don't have to be intimate, life-revealing things, just simple hobbies, interests, or past experiences that make each person unique. The lie can be outrageous, wacky, or sound like a truth and the rest of the participants have to guess which statement is a lie.

For example, "Hi, I'm Mary. My hair was almost to my waist in high school, I talked to Cher in an airport coffee shop, and I speak four languages."

To get you started and give you some ideas, we have a list of 50 statements your group might want to use. Once you get them started, it's super easy and can be very funny. You'll often find that some people's truths are more unbelievable than their lie.

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Two Truths and a Lie is one of the most popular ice breaker games. It is often used by teachers in adult classrooms, is a great way to start a meeting, and is perfect for any gathering where you'd like people to get to know one another.

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Easy introduction for rapid English practice

Share a statement & trade turns in the "hot seat"

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This is a game that you can do to break the ice and learn the names of students on the first day in class.

It can be done at all levels and it can be played in ten minutes or half an hour depending on the level of fun the students will have. It will require the students to sit in a circle and push the tables aside but it is really worth it. Before you start teaching your first lesson, you can do this activity with your students to give yourself a chance to remember their names.

The game is called "The Hot Seat".

Get the students to bring chairs and make one big circle by moving all the tables to the side of the class. Point to your chair and say "This is the Hot Seat". Sit down and say " My name is ............... and I have black hair". Ask them to stand up if this is true to them. Ask the students who have stood up to exchange their places quickly with others who have stood up but remind them that they are not allowed to sit down on the same chair. You have to leave your Hot Seat so another student can come and say "My name is ............ " and mentions another fact.

If the students don't fully understand what you are doing, you can use sentences that are common to everyone:

My name is .................. and I have two eyes.

My name is .................. and I have a car.

My name is ..................... and I had breakfast this morning.

My name is ..................... and I come from Asia. My name is ..................... and I learn English in this class.

I hope you have fun doing this activity on the first day in class.

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This is a game that you can do to break the ice and learn the names of students on the first day in class.It can be done at all levels and it can be played in ten minutes or half an hour dep

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Ask students to share a word they either heard that day & didn't understand or just learned & would like to share

Define the word together + give example of usage

Make Digital Flashcards with Quizlet

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Finish a famous English saying, quote, proverb, idiom

Discuss meanings (can be adapted to different lessons or levels)

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When beginning a new topic in class, such as cultural perspectives on marriage, put the beginning of a related quote on the board: for example, "Marry in haste, repent at-"(leisure). See if students can supply the rest of the quote.

If they can't, finish it for them and discuss. This activity not only gets students prepared for the topic but also teaches new language and a quote within their new culture.

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When beginning a new topic in class, such as cultural perspectives on marriage, put the beginning of a related quote on the board: for example, "Marry in haste, repent at-"(leisure). See if students can supply the rest of the quote. If they can't, finish it for them and discuss.

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Lesson plans & activities, image archive for description

New York Specific lessons

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NYC.gov - City Information, Services and Programs

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The characters in the episodes take action to help themselves, their families, friends and communities. These activities help learners create WANY-based courses on the theme of leadership. Materials include a facilitator's guide with activities students can use to lead presentations to lower level classes; and reflections from students who have presented WANY at a community center, increasing their own communication skills in the process.

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Lesson Activity

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Games for ESOL learners that promote classroom interaction and natural speaking

Directions on how to play

Games that are adaptable to whatever lesson you may be teaching

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Free ESL Games and Quiz Corner

Welcome to our 'Free ESL Games and Quiz Corner'. Here you'll find interactive games, ESL classroom activities and games, online quizzes and hundreds of printable quiz questions in graded sets, including many sample question sets from our ESL board game Word Up. You'll also find excerpts from articles and books on using games in language learning plus links to many other ESL games and activity resources online.

For Teachers

Most of the classroom games and activities may be used with students of any level except for absolute beginners. For the card games, Matching Cards (Opposites) has printable card sets for beginner, intermediate and advanced students, while Matching Cards (Phrasal Verbs) has cards suitable for upper intermediate to advanced students. The classic games can be adapted to any level, while the miming games are suitable for the levels indicated. All of the quiz games except Mastermind are primarily intended as supplementary activities for teachers with access to a copy of 'Word Up', though they can also be used by printing out the sample question sets.

The instructions for each game and activity and most other materials are available in printer-friendly versions. Feel free to download, print, photocopy and use any of these materials in any way you wish (but please respect the copyright of the Word Up™ questions by only reproducing them for use in your classes.)

For Students

You can have fun and improve your English by playing our Interactive Games (elementary to advanced) or by trying our General Knowledge Quizzes (lower intermediate to advanced).You can also test your English by trying to answer some of the Sample Word Up™ Questions. You can check your answers by clicking on 'Spelling and Answers' at the bottom of each page. If you like, play a simple game by answering them with your friends and checking to see who has the most correct answers.

If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas for other games, please contact Matt Errey at matt@teflgames.com

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ESL Games, Quizzes and Classroom ESL Activities

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Free ESL Games and Quiz Corner Welcome to our 'Free ESL Games and Quiz Corner'. Here you'll find interactive games, ESL classroom activities and games, online quizzes and hundreds of printable quiz questions in graded sets, including many sample question sets from our ESL board game Word Up.

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BestPlus features both oral and written exams. Written exams are only taken by levels 3+ at Community Impact.

Community Impact uses BestPlus to demonstrate student progress, which is necessary for continued state-funding for the program

Check out the BestPlus's website for a full explanation

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Here is a collection of practice photographs + questions

On the exam, the students are asked to describe the photo and answer questions. This activity models this component of the evaluation.

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Here is a study guide of practice questions

You can let students practice these questions in pairs or groups, or discuss all together

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Here is a brief study guide of skills that are important to the BestPlus

The study guide is not comprehensive, but it does include some skills not otherwise covered in the Future curriculum

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Here is a lesson plan that helps students prepare for the financial literacy requirement of the BestPlus

Note that this is the standard lesson plan for all levels; you may need to adjust the lesson to be more appropriate to your level.

Also note that it Financial Literacy may not be appropriate for levels below 3

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BEST Literacy Financial Literacy Lesson Plan.docx

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Here is a lesson plan that helps students prepare for the job readiness requirement of the BestPlus

Note that this is the standard lesson plan for all levels; you may need to adjust the lesson to be more appropriate to your level.

Also note that it Financial Literacy may not be appropriate for levels below 3

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BEST Literacy Job Readiness Lesson Plan.docx

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The ability to make small talk comfortably is one of the most desired objectives of almost any English student. This is especially true for business English learners but applies to all. The function of small talk is the same the world over. However, which topics are appropriate for small talk can vary from culture to culture. This lesson plan focuses on helping students develop their small talk skills and addresses the issue of appropriate subjects.

Difficulties in small talk skills can arise from a number of factors including grammar uncertainties, comprehension problems, lack of topic-specific vocabulary, and a general lack of confidence. The lesson introduces a discussion of appropriate small talk topics. Make sure to give students ample time to delve into the subjects if they seem particularly interested.

Aim: Improving small talk skills

Activity: Discussion of appropriate small talk subjects followed by a game to be played in small groups

Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Small Talk Lesson Outline

Write "Small Talk" on the board. Brainstorm as a class to define small talk. Write examples on the board.

Discuss the importance of small talk skills with the class.

Divide students into groups of 3 - 5.

Give students the small talk worksheet.

Students begin by reviewing key functions and grammar by matching purpose, expression, and form. Review as a class. Discuss any questions in usage.

Ask students to discuss whether the topics provided in the second section are appropriate for making small talk. Students can also decide that some topics are appropriate in certain situations but not in others.

Once students have discussed the various situations, solicit responses on the various subjects from the class as a whole. Make sure to ask for examples of comments on appropriate subjects, as well as explanations for those topics which students feel are not appropriate. Feel free to let students debate their opinions to help develop conversational skills.

Have students get back into their groups and play the small talk game in the third section. Circulate around the room helping students when they run into difficulties.

Take notes on subjects that students find difficult. As a class, brainstorm on appropriate comments.

Understanding Forms Used in Small Talk

Match the conversational purpose to the expression in the second column. Identify the appropriate grammar structure in the third column.

Ask about experience

Open the package. Fill out the Forms.

Conditional form

Question tag

Use of "some" in questions rather than "any"

To me, In my opinion, I think

Information question

Modal verbs such as "should", "ought to", and "had better"

Imperative form

Let's, Why don't you, How about

Present perfect for experience

I'm afraid I don't see / think / feel that way.

Where can I find out more?

I'm afraid I don't see it that way.

Have you ever visited Rome?

Let's go for a walk.

To me, that seems like a waste of time.

You live in San Francisco, don't you?

Would you like something to drink?

If you were the boss, what would you do?

You should visit Mt. Hood.

Give advice

Make a suggestion

Express an opinion

Imagine a situation

Provide instructions

Offer something

Confirm information

Ask for more details

Agree or disagree

Hit Your Small Talk Target

Which Topics are Appropriate?

Which topics are appropriate for small talk discussions? For topics which are appropriate, think of one interesting comment to make when the teacher calls on you. For topics which are not appropriate, explain why you believe they are not appropriate for small talk.

The latest films

The One True Path to Eternal Life

The local basketball team

Cars

A product you would like to sell to everyone

The Death Penalty

Your hometown

How much you make

Your last holiday

Your favorite movie-star

The correct political party

The weather

Gardening

Your health problems

Your family

Small Talk Game

Throw one die to move forward from one subject to the next. When you get to the end, return to the beginning to start again. You have 30 seconds to make a comment about the suggested subject. If you don't, you lose your turn!

Your best friend

The last film you saw

Pets

Rock and roll

A magazine

Learning a language

Playing tennis

Your current job

An interesting excursion nearby

The Internet

Marilyn Monroe

Keeping healthy

Human cloning

Your favorite food

Finding a job in your country

The last book you read

Your worst holiday

Something you've never done, but would like to do

Teachers - what you like

Teachers - what you don't like

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Small Talk Conversation Lesson Plan for ESL Students

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The ability to make small talk comfortably is one of the most desired objectives of almost any English student. This is especially true for business English learners but applies to all. The function of small talk is the same the world over. However, which topics are appropriate for small talk can vary from culture to culture.