Speaking Activities for ESL 10 Best Speaking Activities every Teacher should Know

hello everyone today i'm going to talk about the 10 best speaking activities that every esl teacher should know stay tuned because at the end i'm going to give final special activity that you can use in your class number one questions to partner make list of questions for student and list of different questions for student they ask each other these questions and they get to answer and respond to it why is this the best possible one it's because it maximizes student talking time and feel this is the best way to engage the students number two survey this is famous activity you make list of questions and students have to walk around the class and ask one question to different person each time students love this activity because it allows them to walk around the class and actually talk to some of the friends they haven't really spoken to lot three speed dating another list you make list of questions and students sit down with partner for minute or two and then you ring bell and then they have to switch partners what makes this different from survey is that it's not only one question they have to ask it's few questions and that gives them the opportunity to practice these questions and also these responses they can also choose which questions they ask their partners at more advanced level want you to encourage students to ask follow-up questions so that they practice more natural way of speaking number four running sentences students have to continue sentence or an idea or story one student will start with the story and then it stops and then it's the next student and the next student and the next student this is also used in writing where someone writes the start of story and someone writes the middle and the end it's also great for conditionals if one student says if had million dollars would be happy and then another student continues that and says if was happy would live in big mansion third student if lived in big mansion would have butler and so on number five deserted island ask students to draw picture of something anything once they're finished tell them that they are on deserted island and only half of them can survive they have to try and persuade their friends to pick them give them some time to prepare by writing reasons why they should get picked to survive and then once it's their turn they should plead their case students really like this they draw something it makes them imagine it and then also because they're actually fighting for their lives number six taboo taboo is you give students word let's say politics and then they should try and explain this word to the other students but they can't use these words sometimes you can put it on projector or you can put it on the screen in front you show them word and say okay listen you can't use these words prefer using cards i've got whole stack of cards that use think it's it's an easy way to put students into groups what you want to do with most activities is you want to scaffold it so what do is first start off and say okay everyone explain this word to your friends and you can use these words to help you then after some time say okay stop stop stop this is way too easy for you guys now let's make it little bit more difficult want you to explain this word don't use these words why do we scaffold it's like playing video game first when you start playing the game you're going to play it on easy then you're going to move on to normal and then too hard so and think it's that way with the students too with most of our activities we want to make it easy for them to understand so start at base and then from there you can add some things lot of inexperienced teachers start at the top and they say okay well you have to understand this and once the students the students don't know exactly know what to do the teacher says okay well maybe this activity doesn't work but think it's better to start from the bottom number seven two truths and one lie this is fun activity you ask students to write down two things about themselves that is true and then one that is false tell them to make it interesting don't make it anything boring for example when you show students how to do it you can say have three brothers can't eat seafood and my favorite color is red okay and then the students should actually ask you questions to find out which one is the lie tell students not to use the examples you have done they should try and make their own original ideas it's easy for them to fall back on well i'll just copy the teacher you should encourage them to use their own remember to split them up into groups so that they can practice with their friends the reason we split students into groups is to maximize talking time if you use the whole class then students get bored it takes too long they don't really get chance to do anything and when students are like that they're then going to zone out so you want to engage your students as much as possible by making them part of the activity when they're in their groups tell the students to remember to ask each other extra questions to try and find out which one is the life for example if said had three brothers they can ask me well what are their names how old are they just to see which ones are true number eight alibi this is really fun activity tell the students that yesterday crime was committed and they want to find group of students who is responsible if you have class of 20 students you could make groups of four four four four and then an investigator for each one one one one the investigators usually make the brightest students so that they can start and ask good questions give the groups few minutes to create an alibi story and its details where were they what were they doing at what time what were they eating what was the weather like once they're done each of the four investigators will interview the group and ask them questions they can give that group score how much do they believe them to make it easier you can also write some example questions on the board that the investigators can ask and they can also come up with their own questions so they will interview each group and then after few minutes move around so that they interview all the groups afterwards all the detectives should say which group do they think is responsible this is great activity students like this game and without knowing it they're practicing their english skills and they're gonna love your class number nine hot seat put the students into groups maybe if you have group of four students one sits out you tell these three students word or phrase they have to explain the student turns around and they have to explain it to him or her what you can do is you can make it more competitive you can put the groups against each other and give them list of words they have to run through then you'll see who finishes first it can get little bit loud but think if you set the ground rules then it should be lot of fun 20 questions we all know this you think of something and the students can ask you 20 questions to figure out what it is is it alive is it big you can ask any question you'd like once again put the students into groups to make sure that everybody gets chance thank you for staying until the last activity if you did you're going to enjoy this one it's called secret zombie before class you can have couple of small strips of paper you write on it for human or for zombie let's say if you have group of 20 students you can make three zombie the students have to go and have conversation with someone they will walk around just like survey and they should just have normal conversation about what did you do last weekend what's your favorite food you can give them some sample questions the thing is while they are talking they should shake hands during the conversation the zombie should secretly rub the other students hand if they do this now that person is zombie they will have to try and infect someone else they can't say anything they can't make any gestures but they're zombie now okay try and tell the students not to cheat make it fun at the end of couple of rounds you let everyone raise their hands who was zombie who's still alive and it's really fun students love this one okay everyone hope you like that if you enjoyed it like and subscribe in the future i'm going to make some more videos on card games use with students that get them really excited and i'm also going to focus on some other speaking activities that we can use inside the classroom this is eric from execute and i'll see you next time