Author: albacker

ESL Pair Work Activity: Teenager Issues

This speaking activity deals with the everyday teenager issues.

Warm-up (10-15m)

Put the students in pairs and let them brainstorm the problems and conflicts young people might have. When they are finished, put them into groups of four and let them discuss the problems in more detail. What causes these problems? What advice would you give to people struggling with them? Do they have any personal experience that they are willing to share? Circle and monitor.

Activity (15m)

After that, tell the original pair to chose two conflict situations from their brainstorming sessions. They are going to role-play the first conflict and try to find a solution. Then they swap roles and play out the second conflict. Circle and monitor.

Problems: failing a subject, alcohol abuse, no money for new mobile phone/sneakers, etc.

Conflicts: with my dad because he grounded me for nothing, with my mom because she forces me to play the piano but I hate it, with my math teacher because….., etc.

Debrief (5m)

What advice did the students come up with?

Was it easier to play the role of a child or of a parent? Why?

How did they solve their conflicts?

Download the PDF version here: Teenager Issues

Other role plays:

Ridiculous Holiday Complaints: Reading And Speaking(Role-play) ESL Lesson Plan

ESL Communication Activity: Science Role Plays

ESL/EFL Speaking Activity: Role Play Debate

10 Signs You Are an EFL/ESL Teacher

1. You try to make your lessons exciting and engaging.

 

2. You teach students of all ages and you know that adults are far worse than kids.

 

3. You can have a conversation on any topic.

 

4. You love asking questions.

 

5. You are culturally aware and tolerant.

 

6. You speak three or more languages.

 

7. You never stop learning.

 

8. You are creative and great at improvising.

 

9. The only thing you hate more than parent-teacher conferences is your printer when it breaks down five minutes before your class starts.

 

 

10. Two words send shivers down your spine: FREE RESOURCES.

 

ESL Teaching Idea: Class Speaking Activity

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.

Class Speaking Activity

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

ESL Speaking Activity Worksheet: Business Plan

My students loved this speaking activity. It is fun, it is competitive and it kept the students engaged for a loooong time. It is easy to use, just print the worksheet and you are ready to go.

Download the FREE PDF Worksheet>>>>>>Business Plan Worksheet

Try also some other activities and worksheets:

ESL Role Play Worksheet: Travel/Holidays

At The Restaurant: ESL Pair Work and Role Play Lesson.

28 ESL/EFL Conversation Starters to Spark Conversation

Business English Vocabulary Card Game | Forbidden Words

Speaking Resources for ESL/EFL Teachers: Picture Prompts

Speaking Resource for ESL/EFL Teachers: Creative Storytelling

32 Inspirational And Creative Job Interview Questions For ESL/Business English Students.

Picture Based Speaking Activity For ESL/EFL Classes

ESL Speaking Activity: Conditional Discussion Questions

ESL Travel Vocabulary Taboo Cards

This card game is very popular with my students so I’ve created more of them to cover different topics. Below, you can download the ESL travel vocabulary taboo card game.

I mentioned this activity based on Taboo game in an older article 3 Board Games You Can Use In The Classroom, where I wrote about my favorite board games I use in the classroom.  Since that, I’ve created another set of cards, this time focused on Media/Entertainment Media/Entertainment Vocabulary Card Game Based on Taboo.

Every word has three or four “forbidden words” so you can adjust the difficulty of the game
by allowing the students to use one or more of the “forbidden words”.

ESL travel vocabulary taboo cards can be used for revision, different games and students will certainly have lot of fun in the classroom.

Download the printer-friendly PDF activity >>>> Travel&Holidays

This travel vocabulary activity can be used with other resource on the topic of travel, our role play activity that contains five role-play situations: ESL Role Play Worksheet: Travel/Holidays

You will find more Taboo based cards here:

Forbidden Words: Food

Forbidden Words: Health

Vocabulary Taboo Cards: Nature&Environment

You can get all three card games in a bundle, which is a great value: Bundle of Three Taboo Card Games: Food, Health, Nature

Motivational Posters

Posters for your classroom.                                                                                                        Motivational.                                                                                                                        Promoting critical thinking.                                                                                                      Promoting learning.                                                                                                                  Inspirational.

 

 

Credit: https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/

Useful Classroom Tip: Vocabulary Revision

Whether you teach large classes or small groups, revising vocabulary in a quick and simple way is always useful, especially when its all done by the students – all you have to do is to give them instructions, circle and monitor.

1. Put the students in groups of four ( I like to use Random Team Generator for this).
2. Give each group 40 (the amount depends on the level of the students, the time you have for this activity, etc.) small slips of paper ( 1 A4 page makes 16 slips of paper of the optimal size)
3. Each student will write an item of vocabulary that was covered in the previous lesson/lessons. The group has to cooperate so there is no duplicate vocabulary.
4. When they finish, groups swap the pile of cards they made so they get a different set of cards,
5. In their groups, they take turns and draw a card from the vocabulary pile and explain the word to the rest of the group. The person who first guessed the word keeps that card. The winner is the person with the most cards.

Other resources and activities:

Fun Vocabulary Posters For ESL/EFL Students

ESL Game Compound Nouns Dominoes: Town and Countryside

ESL Speaking Activity Worksheet: Business Plan

ESL Pair Work Activity: Teenager Issues

 

ESL Group Speaking Activity: Language Centre Simulation

This is a great ESL group speaking activity  (16+/adults, intermediate/upper intermediate).

It covers various topics: education, jobs, communication.

It teaches the students to co-operate, voice their opinion, it fosters creativity and gives the students enough room to make their own decisions and maintain a certain level of independence.

It is suitable for groups of 4 or 5 students, each of them will choose their role in company management and together they have to plan their language centre business.

Stronger classes need minimal supervision and encouragement, weaker students might need some help (especially when your students are not very creative).

Teacher’s notes are included in the PDF file.

 

Download here>>>>Language Centre

Other speaking actvities:

ESL Speaking Activity: Conditional Discussion Questions

ESL Speaking Activity: Business English Role Plays

32 Inspirational And Creative Job Interview Questions For ESL/Business English Students.

ESL/EFL Speaking Activity: Role Play Debate

Conversation Questions Conditionals: ESL Speaking Activity

Conversation Questions Conditionals: First, Second, Third Conditional


First Conditional

  1. If you don’t go to work tomorrow, what will happen?
  2. What will you do if it rains tomorrow?
  3. What will you do if you learn perfect English?
  4. What will you do if a colleague is rude to you?
  5. What will you do when you retire?
  6. What will happen when we continue polluting the Earth?
  7. What will happen if stop using plastic bags?
  8. What will happen if______________________?
  9. What will you do if______________________?
Looking for more activities? Try 120 Conversation Starters and One-Minute Talk activity.

Second Conditional

  1. What would you do if an alien from outer space landed their spaceship in your
  2. garden?
  3. If there suddenly was no internet, how would the world change?
  4. How would you spend $100 000 in 12 hours?
  5. What would you do if you could fly?
  6. If could go on holiday anywhere in the world, where would you go?
  7. If somebody hit you in the face, what would you do?
  8. If you survived a plane crash in the jungle, how long would you survive?
  9. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would that be?
  10. If it was possible, would you like to have your own clone?
  11. What would you do if_____________________________?
  12. What would happen if_____________________________?

Third Conditional

  1. If you had been born in a different country, what would have been different in your life?
  2. What would you have done if you had found out you were a lost child of a European monarch and a successor to the throne?
  3. How would your life have been different if you had been growing up with 9 siblings?
  4. If you could have studied something else, what would that have been?
  5. How would your life have changed if you had done something different that one time?
  6. What would have happened last weekend if you had partied all night long?
  7. If you had been born as a child of a Hollywood celebrity, how would your childhood have been different?
  8. If you had been born Quasimodo, how would your life have changed?
  9. If you had been born with 6 fingers on each hand, how would that have changed your life?
  10. What would have happened if_____________________________________?
  11. What would you have done if______________________________________?

Download here>>>>>Conditionals Speaking Activity

Other speaking activities:

ESL Speaking Activity: Business English Role Plays

No-prep Speaking Activity: Warmer And Filler For ESL Classes

32 Inspirational And Creative Job Interview Questions For ESL/Business English Students

ESL/EFL Speaking Activity: Role Play Debate

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