Level: Upper Intermediate, Advanced
Age: 16+
Monolingual classes of ESL/EFL
This activity is great for practising fluency and improvising.
1) Tell each student to chose a topic they know a lot about, are passionate about and can talk about it for hours. Give them 5minutes to prepare a short lecture/presentation in their NATIVE language. They can only write brief notes/bullet points. Don’t tell them more at this stage.
2) When they are ready, tell them that they are going to present their lecture/presentation at an international conference, but unfortunately, they don’t speak English so they will need an interpreter. (Explain that they will interpret consecutively.)
3) Put Ss in pairs and explain that they will interpret each other’s presentations. Give them 5-10minutes so they can familiarize themselves with the topic and important vocabulary that will be used in the presentation. At this stage, they can use the notes they previously prepared.
4) The conference starts! The first pair of students gets on stage ( in front of their classmates). The speaker starts their presentation and after every couple of sentences pauses so the interpreter can repeat what was said in the target language. At this stage don’t correct the Ss, let them speak and write notes so you can provide feedback later.
5) Don’t let them speak longer than 5 minutes. If time allows, you can let the audience ask follow-up questions which will need to be translated from L2 into L1 and then the answer back from L1 to L2.
6) After everyone had their turn, provide feedback on the mistakes they made and don’t forget to praise them!
Download this activity in a PDF file.
More speaking activities:
ESL Speaking Activity Worksheet: Business Plan
ESL Group Speaking Activity: Language Centre Simulation
ESL Speaking Activity: Conditional Discussion Questions
ESL Speaking Activity: Business English Role Plays
No-prep Speaking Activity: Warmer And Filler For ESL Classes