• Informal chat: highly effective for improving fluency and comfort in speaking, as it encourages spontaneous communication in a low-pressure environment, building confidence and everyday conversational skills for learners. It could be used at the beginning or end of a lesson for warm-ups or cool-downs, in pairs or small groups with minimal teacher intervention.

• Discussion, and group formats: highly effective for collaborative communication and sharing ideas, as they foster negotiation of meaning and diverse viewpoints, providing opportunities to practice language functions such as agreeing, disagreeing, and asking for clarification. It could be used after reading/listening tasks, for example.

• Systems-based discussion: moderately to highly effective, as they require learners to use specific vocabulary and structured reasoning, making them ideal for intermediate to advanced learners working on structured speaking and problem-solving, though they may feel rigid for less fluent learners. We could provide learners with scenarios that involve decision-making or problem-solving, and ask them to use collaborative problem-solving skills.

• Formal debate: highly effective for advanced learners, as they develop critical thinking, persuasive language, and the ability to articulate ideas under pressure. This activity could be used in advanced-level classes to develop formal speaking, after studying persuasive language or critical thinking, or as part of a competition.

• Stimulus-to-interaction: highly effective for all levels, as visual, audio, or textual stimuli inspire natural and spontaneous interactions, encouraging authentic responses and creativity. It could be used in a lesson to inspire creativity, particularly to introduce or expand on a topic.

• Role-played interactions: highly effective for contextual language use, as they simulate real-life scenarios (e.g., booking a hotel, job interviews), helping learners practice specific phrases and cultural nuances in a safe environment, making them valuable for all levels and particularly useful for developing particular interactional skills.

• Prepared interactions: moderately effective, as they promote structured speaking practice and reinforce learned vocabulary and grammar, though they may lack spontaneity and are best suited for beginners to intermediate learners building confidence before tackling unstructured tasks. It could be used at the end of a unit to consolidate learning, before oral assessments, or as homework assignments.

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES:

1 - Information Gap Activities involve pairing or grouping learners to share different pieces of information to complete a task, encouraging natural negotiation, questioning, and clarification skills, making them ideal for all levels to promote active listening and spontaneous language use, such as deciding the best train route using a schedule and destinations list.

2 - Story Building involves learners collaboratively creating a story by adding sentences or parts of the narrative, fostering creativity, turn-taking, and narrative skills, making it ideal for intermediate to advanced learners (or beginners with support), with prompts like starting a story with "It was a dark and stormy night..." and building it step-by-step.

(Hot Seating) is a strategy in which a character or characters, played by the teacher or a student, are interviewed by the rest of the group. This activity invites students to recount a specific event, explore motivation and multiple perspectives/experiences related to a theme, topic, event, or idea. 

A (Four Corners debate) requires students to show their position on a specific statement (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree) by standing in a particular corner of the room. This activity elicits the participation of all students by requiring everyone to take a position. Use this as a warm-up activity by asking students to respond to a statement about a topic they will be studying. It can also be an effective follow-up activity by asking students to apply what they have learned when framing their arguments, or you can use it as a pre-writing activity to elicit arguments and evidence prior to essay writing.