English Conversation Activities for Adults | Fun ESL Conversation Ideas

Many of our students say they want to practice their conversation skills. You can use these English conversation activities to help them do just that and to work on speaking more fluently at the same time.

Keep in mind that these activities are not meant to replace a coursebook or textbook, but can be used to supplement it, such as in the last 15 or 20 minutes of class, or as a quick warm-up at the beginning.

Of course, avoid throwing in random English conversation activities into your lessons without some sort of purpose. They should be closely related to the topic of the day.

ESL Speaking and Conversation Activities for Adults

Let’s get to the top picks for speaking and conversation activities for adults. Have a great ESL class for adults.

#1: Conversation Starters for Adults

An excellent way to begin your class off is with an interesting question so that each student can share a little bit about their life. Her are a few of those great questions that are guaranteed to get some discussion going. Remember to keep it student-centered and have them talk to each other, instead of as a whole class.

I find that groups of 2-3 students work best, instead of bigger groups. In this situation, everyone has a chance to talk, instead of the best student in the group dominating the conversation.

Learn more here:

Conversation Starters.

#2: Cocktail Party to Practice Small Talk

This is a great way for students to practice small-talk by pretending that they’re at a cocktail party. Often, the best ESL games or activities replicate real-life and this one does just that.

You can find out how to use this activity here:

The Cocktail Party.

It’s also possible to extend this activity to work on reported speech by having students tell a partner some of the things they learned about their classmates.

#3 English Conversation Class for Adults: The Small Talk Game

Another way to get students speaking in English is by playing this conversational game. It’s quite challenging, but also really fun and students always enjoy it. You can adjust the length of time up or down depending on the level of your students-shorter for beginners and longer for more advanced level students.

Learn how to set this activity up here:

 The Small Talk Game.

#4: Partner Conversation Starters

If you have very low-level students that are unable to have a “real” conversation, try out these conversation starters. They are very structured and students will be able to get a feel for using English in a conversation.

Simply adjust the blank spaces depending on student level-more spaces for advanced and fewer spaces for beginners. It’s an easy way to help your students build confidence in English.

Check it out here: Partner Conversation Starters. These short, simple questions are a good start to deeper, more meaningful conversations between and with your students.

Encourage follow-up questions so that students have to explain their answers. And also consider questions where students have to give an opinion about something.

#5: An Activity for the Hobby Unit

If you’re studying hobbies, try out this fun ESL speaking activity that is student-centered awesome. You’ll be able to just relax and have students do all the work, which is actually what you should be doing all the time anyway!

#6 English Conversation Activities: Surveys for ESL Students

I’m all about using surveys in my classes and I make my students do them at least once a month. They’re very, very useful for getting students to ask follow-up questions as well as talking to just about everyone in the class.

Plus, they cover a wide variety of skills in a fun, interesting way. But, when you teach your lesson, be sure to set up and explain this activity well for the best results.

You can find out how to use surveys in an EFL or ESL classroom here:

Surveys for ESL Students.

Teaching Tip: If you have an activity as good as this, it’s common to want to spend a long time doing it. However, it does get boring after 15 minutes or so, so keep things moving along in your class and mix things up a bit.

#7: Presentation and Task-Based Learning Activities

Both public speaking and task-based learning lend themselves quite well to conversation if you require the students who are listening to the presentation to ask some follow-up questions. Or, you could also have the student doing the presentation to prepare some discussion questions for after the presentation.

Try out these task-based learning activities in your classes today: Presentations or Task-Based Learning.

Try out these ESL conversation activities for adults in your classes today and you’ll have your students speaking, listening, and having fun at the same time! One of my favorite topics is current events because they allow students to give opinions about what’s happening in the world.  Students usually choose popular topics that lend themselves to further discussion.

Of course, these ESL Speaking Activities work much better for intermediate and advanced levels of students than beginners. However, I have had my high beginners do presentations with great success. The key is to assign quite simple topics and allow for lots of preparation time and coaching.

Presentations are often a serious challenge, but students have a great sense of accomplishment when they’re done.

#8: Describe the Word Vocabulary Review Game

Having a decent vocabulary is key for students who are just getting started with English conversation. In some countries, this really isn’t a problem as students learn new words in English from the time they are very little. However, in other places, your students may really struggle with it.

One way to help your students out, especially beginners is to do some vocabulary review games, like this one: Flip-Chart. The way it works is that students have to describe a term to their “captain” who doesn’t know what it is. It works for almost any topic and students really like to play it. I’d actually consider it to be a sort of ESL information gap activity.

If you want to help your students out with this important skill and with describing things, you can learn more about it here:

Flip-Chart Vocabulary Review Game

Alternatively, you could write a list of words on the board (dispersed randomly) and students can take turns describing a word of their choice to a partner.

This activity is also ideal for holiday-themed classes. You can find even more ideas here:

ESL Christmas Activities.

#9: Just a Minute

Another top pick that you can use during your conversation class for adults or teens is Just a Minute. Unlike many of the other activities you can find, this one focuses on speaking fluency.

Plus, it’s easy to turn it from just a speaking activity into a conversation one by requiring that students listen, and ask 1-2 follow-up questions for each person.

Do you want to know more about this popular speaking activity for adults? Check out all the details on YouTube:

#10: The Expert TEFL Conversation Activity

If you have higher-level students, then you’re definitely going to want to try out this one at the beginning of the course. It’s one of my favorite icebreakers because after all, who doesn’t like talking about themselves?

The way it works is that students pick a number of topics that they’re an expert in. Then, they narrow them down to ones that they think other students in the class will be most interested in. After that, you can match up the students and they can have a mini-interview/conversation with their partner about those things.

It’s a nice way for students to learn more about each other and you don’t have to put people on the spot in front of the class.

Find out more about it here:

The Expert ESL Speaking Activity for Adults.

#11: Tell A Simple Story from the Past

Do you know the unit about the simple past in your textbook? Yeah, there’s almost always one, and it can get a little bit boring. However, you can make the old new again by doing this interesting conversation class activity.

Give students a topic related to something in the past. For example, a past vacation, or a fun memory from their school days. Allow students a few minutes to prepare and jot down a few notes (not full sentences).

Then, in groups of 4-5, each student takes a turn telling their story. Each member of the group has to listen carefully and ask at least 1 follow-up question, and the person has to answer them. For whatever reason, students really seem to enjoy this simple group conversation activity.

This also makes a nice simple past vs past continuous activity.

#12: Family Activities

One of the most common topics you can find in conversational English textbooks is family. This can often get a little bit boring, so it can be useful to spice things up a little bit with some fresh, new activities.

Check out some of my favorite ESL conversation activities for adults or kids related to family here:

ESL Family Activities 

#13 English Conversation Activities: Information Gap ESL Activities

If you have students who are a little bit reluctant to speak to each other in English (my experience in South Korea), then you’ll have to be sneaky about what kinds of activities and games you use.

The best ones are often of the information gap variety. This is where one student has one set of information and their partner has the other. Then, they have to work together to put everything together into one.

Sounds complicated? It’s actually not so much. Here are some tips for getting started:

Information Gap ESL Speaking Activities for Adults.

#14 Conversation Games for Adults: Getting to Know You Bingo

If you’re looking for an English conversation game that you can use for the first day of class as an icebreaker, then you’ll want to consider this getting to know you Bingo game.

It’s ideal because students have to get up, move around the class, and talk to various classmates in order to fill in their Bingo grid. Although the students won’t have in-depth conversations, it does make a nice icebreaker activity.

Of course, emphasize to your students that the point of the game is for students to get to know people other than their friends! It’s a lot more fun this way too if you don’t already know the answers to the questions you’re asking.

And for the answers? Students of course have to tell the truth.

Learn more about it here:

Get to Know You Bingo Game.

#15 ESL Conversation Activities: Board Games

In real life, I love to play board games. So, I like to use them in my ESL conversation classes as well. There are various places you can find them:

• In the textbook that you’re using
• In the teacher’s resource book that may come with your textbook
• Online

Or, you can make your own. Once you get the hang of it and have a template that you use, you can make a custom one for the unit you’re teaching in under 15 minutes. Now, if that’s not some ESL teaching awesome, then I don’t know what is.

Check out this short video below for even more details about them:

#16: ESL Shopping Activities

If you teach adults, they’ll probably love to talk about shopping for clothes, electronics, sports equipment (check out our list of different sports), cars or other things. The good news is that there a ton of fun speaking activities for adults related to shopping. Check out some of our top picks right here:

ESL Shopping Activities.

#17: Predictions about the Future

Who doesn’t like making predictions about the future? We all do it almost every single day, at least informally. As English teachers, we can incorporate some of these prediction activities into our classes for adults. They’re a fun way to give our students some practice with future forms. More information here:

Making Predictions ESL Activities.

#18: Travel and Holidays

Another topic that adults love to talk about is holidays! Plus, there are so many conversation activities you can do related to this unit. Here are some of the best picks:

ESL Travel Activities.

#19: Discussion Starters

Check out this short video on YouTube for details about this ESL conversation activity for adults:

#20: Common English Phrases and Expressions

All students can benefit from knowing more English phrases and expressions. Conversation can flow much more smoothly if students have a wide variety of these things at their fingertips.

I find that the best way to teach them is in related sets. Here’s one example of that:

English Expressions to Offer Help.

#21: ESL Interview Activity

A nice way to get some conversation going in a TEFL class is to talk about some controversial topics or current events. This man/woman on the street activity is the perfect way to do that.

It’s student-centred, engaging, and encourages some serious interaction among students. It’s easy to adapt it to just about any level and works well for larger classes too. Find out more about one of the best English conversation activities:

Man on the Street ESL Activity.

#22: English Conversation Questions

One of the simplest conversation activities is to use a set of questions around a certain topic. In a small class or with 1-1 teaching, the teacher can interact with the students. In bigger classes, put students into pairs or groups of three, give them a set of questions and let them get to talking!

Sure, you can make your own questions or find some on the Internet but wouldn’t it be nice to have a book that you could just print off some questions to talk to class from? Right? Right. That’s why you’ll need to check this out:

ESL Conversation Questions.

#23: 20 Questions

#24: Current Events Conversation Lesson Plan

If you want to see a simple but complete lesson plan about a popular topic, current events, have a look at this one. It’s ideal for teenagers or adults, ranging from intermediate to advanced and is a great English conversation activity:

ESL Current Events Lesson Plan

#25: Talking about Food

I think food is probably the most universal topic in any country that you’re in. After all, who doesn’t love food, right? It’s delicious and each culture has its own specialties. Food lends itself to some rich and varied conversations. So, if you’re serious about getting your adult students talking, then talk about food!

Check out some of our best food conversation activities here:

ESL Food Activities.

Or, have a look at some other ideas for lessons on culture here:

ESL Culture or, Relation Between Language and Culture.

#26: Daily Routines

Talking about daily routines or schedules is one of my favourite topics. After all, everyone has something to say because we all have the regular things that we do every day.

There are a number of interesting and engaging activities to use for this topic. Here are just a few of them:

ESL Daily Routine Activities.

#27: Debates

If you want to create some fun and excitement in a TEFL conversation class, then bring in some fun, silly, or controversial debate topics. Then, give students some time to research their arguments and it’s time to get to talking! There are plenty of things to debate about. Here are some of the best ideas:

Top Debate Topics.

#28: Advanced English Conversation Dialogues with Idioms and Phrases

This book is ideal for assigning as homework to your students. It’s filled with idioms and phrases in American English that your students will love.

#29: What to do on the First Day of an English Conversation Class

#30: TV English Conversation Lesson Plans

One of my favourite English conversation activities is to give students an easy-to-follow lesson plan, then put them into pairs or small groups and let them get to conversing! Students will be speaking or listening for almost the entire class and any time that happens in my classes, I consider it a win.

A nice lesson plan to consider using for intermediate or advanced learners is this one on the topic of TV. Have a look here:

TV Lesson Plan for ESL.

#31: Business English Vocabulary and Dialogues

If you teach businessmen or women, then consider using some of these business English dialogues. They can often be more useful for business people than general English.

You can find even more ideas here:

Business English Lesson Plans.

#32: Find Something in Common 

This is a fun icebreaker activity that’s ideal for intermediate to advanced students. It requires absolutely nothing in the way of preparation and no materials except a pen or paper. This is one to keep in your back pocket in case of conversation class emergency:

Find Something in Common.

#33: Speaking Fluency Activity

#34: Saint Patrick’s Day ESL Activities

I love to celebrate the holidays with my students. It can be a nice change of pace from the usual stuff in ESL textbooks.

Saint Patrick’s Day is one of my favourites. There is an interesting history plus some fun, current-day traditions and there’s certainly lots to talk about. Check out some of my favourite ideas:

St. Patrick’s Day Class Activities.

#35: Running Dictation 

#36: Role Playing Conversations

One of the best ways to get beginner adults to have “real” conversations is to use role-plays. They offer some structure, are ideal for targeting a specific grammatical structure or vocabulary set but also allow students some flexibility to finish the conversation as they wish. Check them out:

Ideas for ESL Role-Plays.

#37: ESL Small Talk Activities

A necessary part of forming relationships is small talk. It also serves other useful functions in a variety of social interactions. That’s why I like to spend some time helping my students practise this important skill. Here are some of my favourite ideas:

ESL Small Talk.

#38: 5 Senses

#39: Scatter Sheets for English Learners

If you’re looking for a no-prep solution for conversation classes for teenagers or adults, then look no further than these vocab sheets. They’re a no-prep solution that you can just print off and take to class. Find out all the details you need to know about them here:

Scatter Sheets for English Learners.

#40: Teach Contractions and Connected Speech

#41: Would You Rather Questions for Adults

Have a fun and short discussion about controversial (or simply entertaining) topics! Use our list of the top 50 would u rather questions for adults.

Do you Like These English Conversational Games for Adults?

Do you like these conversation games and activities for adults? Then you’re going to love this book: 101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults. There are dozens of top-quality English speaking, listening, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and warm-up games and activities to help you plan your lessons quickly and easily.

Well Organized and Easy to Find What you’re Looking For

The best part is that the book is organized into sections so that you should be able to find what you’re looking for in seconds. Need a writing activity? No problem. A quick warmer? Sure!

It sure beats wasting a ton of time searching around on the Internet for ESL conversation activities for adults, right? I mean, I certainly think so!

Who are the Authors of this Book of English Conversation Activities?

The authors of the book (Jackie Bolen and Jennifer Booker Smith) have decades of experience in ESL and EFL classrooms with children, teenagers, university students, and adults so they know what works. They’ve taught a huge range of classes, and have even taught teachers how to teach English.

Learn from their experiences and find out how to vary the activities in your classroom. Your students really can have fun while learning English at the same time! Seriously, it is possible!

Available in a Variety of Formats

101 ESL Activities is available in both digital and print formats. The digital copy can be read on any device by downloading the free Kindle reading app. Keep a copy on the bookshelf in your office to use a handy reference guide. Or, take the digital version with you to your favourite coffee shop for lesson planning on the go. It really is that easy.

Have more than 100 top-quality activities with you on the go—anywhere you might plan lessons.

Shop Now and Get More English Conversation Activities for Adults

You can check out the book for yourself on Amazon, but only if you want to get yourself a serious dose of ESL awesome in your life.

Conversation Class for Adults FAQs

There are a number of common questions that people about teaching English conversation to adults. Here are the answers to some of the most common ones.

What Makes an English Conversation Class Interesting?

There are a few key things that make an English conversation class more interesting for your students. They include:

• A variety of topics and things to talk about.
• Bringing current events into the classroom.
• Changing partners regularly.
• A variety of games and activities.
• Student feedback.
• Everyone has a chance to talk and participate.

What is a Communicative Activity for ESL?

Communicative activities for ESL are those that encourage and even require learners to speak and listen to another student in order to complete the activity or task. They are useful for breaking down barriers, finding information, as well as helping students get to know each other in a real way.

How Can I Teach English Conversation?

There are a number of strategies you can use to teach English conversation. Some of the best ones include the following: using a variety of interesting ESL games, focusing on fluency instead of accuracy, allowing lots of time for pair and small group work, rotating partners, teaching vocabulary and learning strategies, choosing a variety of topics, and teaching both formal and informal conversation skills.

What is a Discussion Topic?

A discussion topic is simply what is being talked about that day. In an ESL class, this is often the topic that the teacher chooses, but students can and should have some input into this as well because it’ll make the lessons more memorable.

What is the Communicative Method of Teaching English?

The communicative method or approach to teaching English is based on the idea that learning comes through students having to communicate real meaning. This is done through a variety of games and activities that are focused on speaking and listening and which give students a real reason to talk to each other.

How Can Students Develop Communication Skills?

Students can develop communication skills in a variety of ways including watching TV shows or movies as a model for conversation, through technology, using active listening and open-ended questions, through task-based learning, practicing with conversation partners, and more.

What are Interesting Topics for ESL Conversation Class for Adults?

Some interesting topics for ESL conversation classes for adults are the following: free time, music, movies, food, current events, books, TV, travel, hobbies, and more.

What Are Some Good Conversation Starters?

Some good conversation starters are the following questions:

• What’s something that not many people know about you?
• What do you love to do?
• What did you like doing as a kid?
• Who do you text with the most?
• What do you love to cook?
• Are you watching any interesting TV shows?
• Where did you go for your last vacation?

How to Teach ESL Speaking? 

Tips for Teaching English Conversation

English Conversation Activities: Have Your Say!

What’s your favorite one or two English conversation activities for teenagers or adults? Or, do you have any conversation games that you love to use? Leave a comment below and let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Also be sure to give this article a share and give us a follow on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. It’ll help other teachers, like yourself, find this useful resource.

 

Last update on 2022-07-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API