International TEFL InstituteGeneral Speaking Activities
Here are some great speaking activities that you can try in the TEFL classroom:
- “Find Someone Who…?”
This activity is very easily adapted to almost any scenario. Students are given a handout which may be: Find someone who….
i. Is born in the same month as you.
ii. Who lives in your neighbourhood.
iii. Has similar interests (sports/hobbies…).
iv. Is of the same age as you.
This may then be followed up by a discussion in which students mention those people who share similar attributes.
- “20 Questions”
This activity may be used to help students remember vocabulary related to a topic recently covered in class e.g. media and media-related occupations. In this situation, each student pretends to have a job in the media. Students then ask questions in order to reveal his/her occupation. Example questions may be:
– Do you work in the print media?
– Do you work in the electronic media?
– Do you appear on television?
– Are you a sports reporter?
– Are you an entertainment reporter?
- Interview a Partner
This kind of activity is a useful way to break the ice at the beginning of a language course and allows the students to get to know one another. Students are placed in pairs and ask each other any questions they like. They may be given some time beforehand to prepare some questions. They note down any interesting answers.
Students then introduce the student they interviewed to the rest of the class, telling them a little about him/her.
- Pyramid Discussion
In this activity, you may present any situation to the students. Here is an example:
You tell the students that they are a cruise ship which has encountered problems while sailing in the Pacific. The ship is sinking and you have about 5 minutes to abandon ship. Luckily, there is a small island within swimming distance. You have five minutes to select 5 items to take with you before the ship disappears below the surface. Remember that you have to swim to the island. The island has freshwater but is uninhabited by humans.
– Each student is then given a few minutes to write down the 5 items that they wish to take along with them.
– Students are then placed in pairs and from their combined list of ten items, have to discuss and select the best 5.
– Students are then placed in 4’s and have to select the best 5 items again.
– This process is repeated until there is only one group who have to discuss, argue and select the 5 best items.
- Picture Comparison
In this activity, the students work in pairs. One student is given picture A and the other student is given picture B. The students then have to find the differences between each picture without looking at the other picture. They have to describe the pictures to each other while sitting back to back. The students mark the differences in their individual pictures.
Here is a selection of ideas to stimulate conversation and speaking.
- Speaking for One Minute
For small groups. You have a list of subjects to talk about. e.g., football, shopping, holidays, cooking, etc. You choose one person to start talking about the subject. If the person repeats a word, hesitates or makes a grammatical error, another person in the group can take over by saying ‘error’, ‘hesitation’ or ‘repetition.’ It is the teacher’s job to decide quickly if the interruption is valid. The person who interrupts then must continue. The winner is the person talking at the end of the minute.
- Yes/No Game
Everyone must have played the game in which one person must avoid saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when asked many questions by the others in the group. The winner is the person who can survive the longest. Strangely it seems to be less difficult for a non-native speaker to avoid saying ‘yes/no.’
- Call My Bluff
You need a big (bilingual) dictionary for this one. A student looks in the dictionary and finds a word which seems very obscure. That student gives a definition of the word to the others. The definition must be either 100% true or 100% false. When the student has finished the others must decide if the definition was bluff or true. The student receives a point for each person who is deceived.
- Ranking and Negotiating Games
If you look in almost any TEFL book you will find ranking games. A group of students have to decide what to take from a series of objects for a particular situation, e.g.:
To get to the North Pole, or survive on a desert island. Each student has 2 objects that they want to take. Each person must argue in favour of their own choices. The student with the most inventive argument wins rather than the one with the most sensible idea.
- Women’s Magazines
Do the questionnaires from women’s magazines. The ones that find out if you are honest or not etc. Get the students to make their own questionnaires in groups and then try them out on each other.
- Speak About Cards
Get some small cards and write a topic of conversation on each one. Give each group a pile of them. When a student turns over a card he must talk about the given subject.
This often leads to spontaneous conversations with the students forgetting about the game which in my opinion is excellent. Some ideas for topics are The happiest moment of my life, the pets I have had, what happened to me last weekend, my ambitions, my ideal day etc. You should change the topics according to the class.
- Simon Says
Students should only obey the commands if you preface each one with “Simon says.” If you omit the preface Simon says any student who obeys the command can no longer participate in the game. The last student to remain in the game is the winner. Simon says: “put your right hand/left hand/both hands on your right/left knee.”
- What’s a boogsy?
Think of any object and write down a number of sentences which describe certain aspects of the item. The word boogsy or any other nonsensical word is used to replace the actual name of the item. Now give each student in the classroom one or more of these sentences. The students then get together as a group and discuss the clues that have been given. The students then send a representative up to the front of the class to write on the whiteboard what they think the object is. Here is an example:
– A boogsy can be shared by two people.
– A boogsy is often taken to work by people.
– A boogsy often gets wet.
– A boogsy can be found in most countries.
– A golfer usually has a very large boogsy.
– A boogsy is not usually used indoors.
– A boogsy can be opened or closed.
– A boogsy can be carried.
– A boogsy is very difficult to use when it is windy.
– A boogsy is not usually expensive to buy.
– Black is a popular colour for a boogsy.
– A boogsy is very useful when it is raining.
– A boogsy appears smaller when you are not using it.
Answer: A boogsy is an umbrella!
- Fun with Fake Money
Using play money.
Level: Any
Class size: Any
Divide the class into proportionate groups. In each group, there will be a “Banker” who controls the money and reads from a list of questions.
The questions correspond to the different denominations of money.
($1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100) $1.00 questions are the easiest and $100.00 questions are the hardest. You can make up your own questions appropriate for the students’ level (5 or 6 questions for each denomination is enough). Type out this list and give a copy to each banker.
The banker will go around the group asking each person, “How much would you like to take out today sir/ma’am?”
The student chooses $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, or $100 and the banker reads a question from the category the student chose. If the banker thinks the answer is satisfactory, he/she gives the money to that student. If the banker is not satisfied with the answer, he/she will say, “I’m sorry, you don’t have enough in your account”. The banker continues going around to the members in the group until the teacher says, “SWITCH
BANKERS!”
The students in the group write down the amount they have and give all their money to the new banker, who continues asking the questions. Try to switch bankers often enough so everyone has a chance to be the banker. Students can keep track and see who has the most money at the end of the game.
This will get your students to speak!
- Find Your Partner
Give each student an index card with four statements. Two say something in the first person, and two say something about “My partner,” using vocabulary your students are working on. So, one card for my class says:
I have a bad memory.
I am sick of English.
My partner is totally confused.
My partner is a big coffee drinker.
Another student would have an index card that is the opposite, saying “I am totally confused,” and “My partner is sick of English,” etc.
Give the students a couple of minutes to memorize their card, and then collect them.
Then, tell the students to go find their partner.
It may take your class about three or four minutes to do this. Make the cards so that they have to remember all four statements in order to find their correct partner. For example, more than one person had “a bad memory.”
Finally, once they found their partner, have conversation topics for them to work on, so they can ask about each other’s daily schedule, plans for the weekend, academic interests, etc. When they are finished with the conversation topics, they may go back to their seats, and then ask them questions, such as “What time does your partner wake up in the morning.”
That’s about it. It should take about twenty-five minutes for a lower intermediate class of twelve.
- Conversational Tic-Tac-Toe
Draw a tic-tac-toe grid on the chalkboard. Write the numbers 1 through 9 on the grid. Each square has one number in it. Then on a piece of paper write nine easy conversation questions such as -What’s your hobby?, What time is it?, How old are you? etc. Number the questions one through nine. Each question corresponds to one square on the tic tac toe grid.
Divide the class into two teams, team x and team o. The students choose which square on the tic-tac-toe grid they want to try to get. When they choose a number then ask them the corresponding question. They get the x or o on that square if they answer the question WITH NO MISTAKES. The pickier you are with this one the more fun it is.
- Can You Come to My Party?
This is an easy activity with no preparation time.
Each student needs a pen and a piece of paper. Ask them to write down all the seven weekdays.
Tell them that each student will throw a party and has to invite as many classmates as possible. But before the activity starts each student has to choose:
– the day of the party
– another day where he/she must go to bed early and cannot go out
– a third day where he/she goes to the gym and therefore cannot go to any party.
Now all the students walk around in class and try to invite each other.
Dialogues should go like this:
“Can you come to my party on Wednesday?”
“Sorry, I cannot. On Wednesday I must go to bed early/ to the gym/ to another party.”
or “Yes, of course!”
Each student writes down the names of the classmates who will come to his/her party. The one who can throw the biggest party wins! It gets very loud in the classroom but most of the kids really like it.
- He’ll be Bald in Ten Years
It can help the students to revise the future tense. Be careful to only use it with a group you get on well with and are not easily offended.
First of all, ask the students how old they are, then ask them how old they will be in ten years. They must imagine what the other students will be like in ten years.
Then give an example on the blackboard using one of the less offended students:
In ten years, David will be married to a very ugly woman. She will be short and fat and they will have ten children; nine boys and one girl. In the future, David will be a farmer and his wife will look after the children and the animals. David will be bald in ten years and will become very ugly and fat. They will live in a very dirty barn in the middle of nowhere and will be very lonely. So, in ten years’ time, David will be very unhappy.
Then ask the students to secretly choose another student in the class to write about, but it mustn’t be a student sitting next to them. Give them about 10-15 minutes to write down their ideas then each one, in turn, will present their idea. You can also ask the other students to guess who they are talking about.
Groups come up with all sorts of imaginative ideas.
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