Classroom Speaking Activities
Secret Zombi Game
This
is a fun conversation activity that, although they talk in
pairs, involves the whole class!
The
scenario is that a virus has attacked the world and everybody is turning into a
zombie! The virus is contagious – it affects everyone it touches – and students
have to reach the safe zone before it’s too late!
First,
prepare some strips of paper with either Z or H which stand for zombie or
human; then let students pick their role. They shouldn’t let anyone know.
Students
will go around the classroom asking and answering questions. After they have
asked and answered, they will shake hands. The zombie will infect the other student
by secretly scratching the inside part of the other student’s hands.
If
a student shakes 5 people’s hands without getting infected, he/she enter the
safe area and humans will win the game! Otherwise, zombies will take over the
world!
Thinking Hats
This activity is based on a system designed
by Edward de Bono with an ESL twist. Basically, 6 Thinking
Hats is a tool for group discussion and individual thinking involving 6
colored hats . Just like de Bono’s idea, each color represents a mode of
thinking which allows the students to expand their views on a particular thing
or issue. I love this speaking task because it helps students to think
logically and become better speakers.
You
can see the PowerPoint I created with instructions on how to do this activity.
To ensure that every member participates during discussion and presentation,
you may also use the role cards included in the download
page.
Activity
Type: Individual, Pair, Group
Would You Rather
This
conversation activity is about student preference. Students are given a
question that starts with “Would you rather…” followed by two equally good or
equally bad options. For example, “Would you rather be beautiful but poor
or less attractive (ugly) but rich?” Answering “neither” or “both” is against
the rules so students must choose 1 and justify their answer. Sometimes,
students’ answers will crack you up! One student said that she’d rather be rich
but ugly because if she’s rich, she could afford plastic surgery!
As
in every activity, Would You Rather will be a success if the questions are age
and proficiency level appropriate. Due to file storage issues, I can only
upload a sample copy. However, you can find more Would You Rather
questions here and use the
template I created to see how it looks like.
Activity
Type: Individual, Pair
TED Ed Riddles
This
one uses video prompts such as the riddle videos from TED Ed. These are brain
teasers presented in a professionally animated video that hook students and
keep them engaged! Each riddle is divided into two parts – the problem and the
answer. I show my students the first part, pause the video and make sure that
they understand every detail of the riddle. I provide them a mini-whiteboard
and give them time to discuss the problem in their group and come up with
possible solutions. When the time is done, I ask each group to discuss their
answer to the whole class.
You
can find a lot of TED Ed riddles on YouTube but you may check out my
favorite Hatand Bridge riddles
to start with.
Activity
Type: Group
Missing Dialogues
This
is a drill conversation activity where you pair your students up to practice
the dialogue you show on the screen. Simply show your slide and have students
read out loud. After two rounds, you will start deleting words in the dialogue
and replace it with blanks. Do this in sequence until the entire dialogue
is just a series of blanks.
You
get the idea, right? You can also see these 3 beginner sample dialogues
on PowerPointthen you can go ahead and create your own missing dialogues
based on your lessons!
Activity
Type: Pair
FlipGrid
Have
you always wanted to assess your students’ speaking ability but you have no
time to do it in your classroom? Then FlipGrid is for you! This activity is
sort of a homework if students have access to computers at home.
FlipGrid is video
discussion platform where you can (1) create a grid for your classroom;
and (2) add a topic to spark discussion. Students can
respond with short videos (up to 1 minute and 30 seconds only) without
creating an account as long as they have the code to access your topic.
Free
version allows you to create unlimited topics/discussion and unlimited video
uploads.
Activity
Type: Individual
Tongue Twisters
Well,
everybody knows what a tongue twister is! It is a series of words or sounds
that are usually repetitive and are difficult to pronounce quickly and
correctly. I use tongue twisters to develop my students pronunciation and
accent; or sometimes just for the sheer fun of doing it. I often get my
students to memorize this and ask them to say it out loud in class as a group
and in pairs.
You
can download this tongue twister PowerPoint I created.
Activity
Type: Pair, Group
Information Gap
In
this activity, you will create two different versions of a dialogue and hand
out version A to Student A and version B to Student B. The idea behind
this is all the B section sentences that are missing on version A appear on
version B; and vice versa.
Example:
Version
A
Student
A: How are you today?
Student
B: _____________________!
Version
B
Student
A: ____________________?
Student
B: I’m fine, thank you!
The
students have to read out loud and listen to and write down sentences from the
other student’s paper. You have to make sure though that students are
really having a conversation and not just sharing and copying each other’s
dialogues.
Activity
Type: Pair
Conversation Cards
If you don’t want all your kids to have a conversation
at the same time, then conversation cards is just the answer! In this speaking
game, you will only have up to 10 to talk in front of the class per round. I
usually use this activity when teaching positive/negative question or sentence
but I think you can adapt this one to your lesson.
To do this activity, you need to prepare cards that
have conversation starter sentence or question, such as “What did you do last
weekend?” or “Do you like watching cartoons?” and so on.
- To
start the game, give 1 different card to 5 students and let them go in
front.
- Tell
the rest of the class to close their eyes or put their heads down.
- The 5
students you chose will quietly put their card on other students’ desks
and then come back to the front.
- Tell
the class to open their eyes.
- One by
one, ask the student who has a card on their desk to stand in front of the
student who they think has given them the card and read the prompt written
on it aloud.
- (You
can change this last part according to your prompts) If the card does not
match the person who gave it, that person will give a negative response to
the question or statement and the other student will go back to his/her
desk.
- If the
card matches that person, the person will say a positive response and the
two people will switch places.
Game Type: Pair
Talking Cards (Карти)
Speaking
of cards, I also use traditional playing cards for a conversation activity. The
regular size will do but I love using the giant version which I got for $2 from
a stationery store. Basically, I make groups of four and let each one pick 1
card. Each suit (shape) will represent a topic, for example, students who got a
“heart” will talk about love and the students who got a “diamond” will talk
about money, and so on. You can assign any topic for each suit as you wish.
Activity
Type: Group
Jenga
I
saw this activity on Pinterest and I thought it was fun to do in my class
too! To do this game, give each group their Jenga blocks and play as it is
supposed to be played: stack the blocks in sets of three until they have
built a tower that is 18 blocks high. They take turn picking 1 block from any
level until the tower collapses. Just write a question in the target
language, and have students answer as they pull the blocks out. You could also
write verbs and pronouns on each block and make a game adaptable to any tense
you are working on.
Activity
Type: Group
Other common classroom speaking activities that I do in my
English class
So
much for creativity, I believe we don’t always have to reinvent the wheel.
Below are some common activities that we also shouldn’t ignore.
Discussions or Brainstorming
In
groups, students share ideas, ask questions or find solution to an issue or
problem that you give them. To make discussions work well, it is suggested to
assign each member a specific role such as leader, time keeper,
recorder, challenger, etc.
Role Plays
Students
pretend they are in a different social setting taking on a different social
role. To make role plays successful, it is important that students
understand their role and the context of the situation. For example,
students can be the waiter and the costumers in “In a Restaurant” role play,
and so on.
Interviews
Students
can interview foreigners about a certain topic to allow them to
use the language outside the classroom. Another way to do this is to
provide an opportunity to talk with some experts via Skype and have students
prepare their questions beforehand.
Debates
Debate
doesn’t have to be formal and serious. In my experience, ESL students don’t
have the drive to do extensive research about a topic and then talk about it at
a later date. I modify debate to make it easy and
not tedious, for example, I do 30 seconds Debate where
I group the class into two: For vs Against. I flash interesting and sometimes
funny statements like “Soda should be banned” or “Students should not watch
TV.” Each student-representative from each group will give their stand in 30
seconds per round.
Class Presentation or Reporting
There
are many ways to do class reports in the classroom. Students can do a presentation
about a project or you can provide opportunity for each student
to teach the class about whatever topic that he/she is interested in. I did
this activity before where everyday, one student got to talk for 5
minutes before I started the lesson. My colleague called this
activity as “Students Can Teach Too!“
Performance Activities
Sometime
ago, I wrote about how I use Classroom Performance Activities. These are activities
which students need to prepare for before presenting in front of an audience.
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