Speaking/conversation games

Hotel Receptionist

Aims:Cooperation, team spirit, speaking skill, miming

Level:Beginner/Intermediate

Time:10-15minutes

Organisation: Groups

Procedure:Students sit in the form of a reception desk. The teacher gives sentence to one person in the group, student reads and memorises. This student is the guest. The guest has lost his/her voice and must mime the problem or request to the collective receptionist. The receptionist aks questions to discover what the guest wants.

The language is limited so suitable for a renge of abilities- students gain confidence as they realise they are not performing to a potentially hostile audience but simply working together as one group.

Pairs interview

Aims:Speaking skill, asking questions, answering

Level:Pre-intermediate

Time:-

Organisation: Pairs

Procedure:This is useful at start of a course to help people get to know one another and to create a friendly working relationship. It also establishes the fact that speaking is an important part of a course right from the start.

Put the students into pairs. They should interview the other students, asking any question they wish, and nothing down interesting answers. When finished they introduce the person they interviewed to the rest of the class.

If you are concerned that the class may not have enough language to be able to ask questions, you could start the activity by eliciting a number of possible questions from the students.

Planning a holiday

Aims:Make decisions, Speaking skill, writing skill

Level:Pre-intermediate/Intermediate

Time:20-30 minutes

Organisation:Groups

Procedure:Collect together a number of advertisements or brochures advertising a holiday.

Explain to the students that we can all go on holiday together, but we must all agree on where we want to go. Divide the students into groups of three and give each group a selection of this material. Their task is to plan a holiday for the whole group (within a fixed budget per person). Allow them a good amount of time to read and select a holiday and then to prepare a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the class that they should choose this holiday. When they are ready, each group makes their presentation and the class discusses and chooses a holiday.

Back to back

Aims:Speaking skill, listening comprehension

Level:Beginners

Time:10-20 minutes

Organization:Pairs

Procedure:The teacher should bring a tape recorder to the lesson. While the music is playing or the teacher is clapping, everybody walks around the room observing other’s people clothes, hairstyle. As soon as the music stops, each student pairs up with the person standing nearest and they stand back to back. Taking turns, each of them makes statements about the other’s appearance.

After a few minutes the music starts again and all partners separate. When the music stops a second time, the procedure is repeated with a different partner.

A day in the life

Aims:Speaking, writing skills

Level:Intermediate

Time:10-15 minutes

Organization:Groups of four to students each

Procedure:The class is divided into groups. One member of each group leaves the room. The remaining group members decide on how the person who is outside spent the previous day. They draw up an exact time schedule from 8 am to 8 pm and describe where the person was, what he did, who he talked to.

The people who waited outside are called in and return to their groups. There they try to find out- by asking only yes/no questions- how the group thinks they spent the previous day. When each ‘victim’ has guessed his fictions day, the group tries to find what he really did.

Secret topic

Aims:Speaking skill

Level:Intermediate/ Advanced

Time:15-20 minutes

Organisation:Pairs, class

Procedure:Two students agree on a topic they want to talk about without telling the others what it is. The two students start discussing their topic without mentioning it. The others listen. Anyone in the rest of the group who thinks he knows what they are talking about, joins in their conversation. When about a third or half of the class have joined in, the game is stopped.

Which job?

Aims:Speaking skill, logical explanation

Level:Intermediate

Time:15-20 minutes

Organisation:Groups of six students

Procedure: The students work together in groups. Each group member writes down the ideal job for himself and for everybody else in the group. The job lists are read out and discussed in the groups. Students explain why they feel the ideal jobs suggested for them would/wouldn’t be ideal.

Personalities

Aims:Speaking and writing skills

Level:Beginners

Time:10-15 minutes

Organisation:Individuals

Procedure:The teacher unites a list of names on the board. She asks the students to select the six personalities they would like to invite to their classroom to give a talk and rank them in order the preference. They write their choices in order on a piece of paper. All the papers are collected.

The list of the names:

o William Shakespeare

o Walt Disney

o Cinderella

o James Bond

o Napoleon

o Monet

o Sting

When the final list for the whole class has been completed, students who selected the most popular personalities are asked to explain their choice. Then at home they write down the questions what they will ask from them.

Our town

Aims:Describing a town, writing skill

Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Time:-

Organisation:Groups

Procedure:Divide the class into groups. Give each group the task of describing one feature of their town. For example:

– places of interest

– good places to eat at

– entertainment facilities

– sports facilities

– local industries, etc.

Each groups should write their description in such a way that the feature described sounds attractive to someone visiting the town. Each student should also make his own copy of the description.

Then form new groups, making sure that they contain at least one representative from each of the original groups, and ask them to write a full report on their town based on these descriptions. The report may be accompanied by a map showing the location of various places of interest, etc.

How do you feel?

Procedure:Tell the students to close their eyes; they might like to place their heads on their arms. Ask them to think about how they feel; they might think about their day so far, or about their previous lesson with you and what they remember of it, what they learnt and what their problems might have been. After a few minutes, students who are willing to do so can say what their feelings are.

Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People

Level:Easy to Medium (Low to low intermediate)

Each student is then give one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room. He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described.

It is more interesting if the person being described is known by everyone. Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny.

It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about who they are describing.

Crazy Story

Level:Any Level

This is an activity that will make your students speak in class and be creative.

• Ask students to write a word on a piece of paper and tell them not to show anyone. This word should be a verb (or whatever you'd like to rewiew).
• The teacher starts telling a story, then stops and chooses a student.
• That student will continue the story and must use his/her word. This student then chooses the next student to continue the story.
• The last student must end the story.
• After the story is over, the students then try to guess what words each student has written on his/her paper. The student who guesses the most words wins the game.

Suppose That

Level: Easy to Medium

This works well as a fluency activity

1. You are the black sheep of your family. Explain to us why.
2. You won a motorcycle and you are planning to embark on a voyage. Explain where you go.
3. You arrive face to face with a person who you owe 100 dollars to. What do you say?
4. You help an old woman across the street. It turns out that she is a magician. To thank you, she offers you four wishes. What do you ask for?
5. You arrive home at midnight, you open the door and

Group Dialogue

Level: Any Level

Following a simple warm-up where each person must say a word associated with the word mentioned by the person before him or her, I have them repeat the same procedure but with complete sentences, as if it were a discussion between two people. For example: student 1, "Hi how are you Joe?"; student 2, "Oh pretty good Sue. How about you?"; student 3, " Well, not so good."; student 4, " Why not?", etc. The dialogue must procede in such a way that the last person concludes the discussion and they bid each other goodbye. You never know where the conversation will lead and it's excellent for listening, even without a point system!

Writing games

Something for everybody

Aims:Speaking and writing skills

Level:Intermediate/Advanced

Time:10-15 minutes

Organisation:Groups/class

Procedure:Imagine that you, that is all of you together, have 200 $ left over from a bargain sale you organised. You should now think of what you could do with the money so that everyone in the class is satisfied. First write down all the ideas you have without talking about them or commenting on them, then rank them. When you have found one suggestion you all agree with, present it to the class. The class then tries to agree on a common proposal by arguing and presenting reasons.

Writing a questionnaire

Aims: Writing skill, making a questionnaire

Level:Pre-intermediate-Advanced

Time:10 minutes

Organisation:Pairs

Procedure: the students preferable working in pairs, write questionnaries which they can use to interview one or more other students in the class. Questionnaries can focus on specific topics and even particular items of language.

Writing puzzles

Aims:Writing skill, making sentences, answering correctly

Level:Beginner-Advanced

Time:5-10 minutes

Organisation:Individuals/pairs

Procedure: The students working individually or in pairs. They should write one or more puzzles which they give to other students to answer.

Writing jumbled texts

Aims:Writing skill, dialogue or short-story writing, sentence connection

Level:Pre-intermediate-Advanced

Time:20-25 minutes

Organisation:Pairs/groups

Procedure:the students work in pairs or small groups to write a dialogue or a short story, which they then cut up into separate sentences and give to another pair or group to put together.

Book reports

Aims:Writing skill, reading skill

Level:Intermediate/Advanced

Time: -

Organisation:Individuals

Procedure:Ask eachstudent to write a report on a book he has read. If there is a class library, he should choose book from this and place the report he has written inside the book for the guidance of prospective readers. If there is no class library, the book reports may be circulated among the students in the class in a folder. Similarly, the students may be asked to report on new records or on films they have seen.

Noticeboard

Aims:Writing skill, correct usage of the language

Level:Pre-intermediate-Advanced

Time:-

Organisation:Individuals

Procedure:Ask the students to write ads or notices for things which they would like to sell or buy. These should be pinned on the class notice board or circulated round the class in a folder. The notice board may also be used as the location for some of the activities.

Class wall sheet

Aims:Writing skill, team spirit

Level:Pre-intermediate-Advanced

Time: -

Organisation:Groups

Procedure:Ask each student to write a contribution for a class wall sheet- items of class news, items of general interest. Divide the class into three or four groups and ask them to edit the various contributions. They must also decide how these will be arranged on the wall sheet. These wall sheets, when completed, should be displayed for the other students to read.