A selection of English ESL questions and short answers ppt slides with discussion starters, speaking cards, speaking practice

Discussion starters, speaking cards

Questions and short answers

Culture, intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication

Adjectives to describe feelings, emotions

Adjectives to describe personality and character

Adjectives: Gradable / Non-gradable adjectives

Articles: Definite or indefinite article (a, an or the)

BE + infinitive structures (e.g. he was to become famous)

Clauses of contrast (e.g.  although, while)

Clauses of purpose (e.g. in order to, so that, so as to)

Clauses of reason (e.g. because, because of, due to, as, since)

Cleft sentences (e.g. It's Joey we're looking for)

Comparison: Comparative adjectives and structures

Comparison: Superlative adjectives and structures

Conditional 2 (second conditional) - would

Conditionals: Conditional phrases (e.g. unless, provided that, as long as)

Conjunctions (aka connectives, e.g. and, but, or, so, then)

Contractions (shortened forms, e.g. don't, aren't, etc.)

Determiners (words that can come before nouns)

Formal and informal English (politeness or colloquial language)

Future perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Future perfect simple and continuous (progressive) tense

Future phrases (e.g. be about to, bound to, likely to, due to, set to + INF)

Homonyms (two words with the same pronunciation - homophones and homographs)

It as preparatory subject (e.g. it's raining, it's nice of you to)

Linking verbs (aka copulas, e.g. I am a student)

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how to accuse somebody of something in English

how to apologize, say sorry, forgive and express regret in English

how to ask for information and make inquiries in English

how to ask for something, make requests in English

how to blame somebody for something in English

how to defend yourself from criticism in English

how to deny or admit something in English

how to describe things or people in English

how to emphasize important things in English

how to encourage or discourage people in English

how to evaluate people or progress in English

how to express agreement /disagreement in English

how to express approval and disapproval  in English

how to express cause and effect in English

how to express interest in something in English

how to express likelihood, probability in English

how to express likes and dislikes in English

how to express sequence and chronology in English

how to express shock and disbelief in English

how to express sympathy and condolences in English

how to give permission, authorization in English

how to inform somebody about some news in English

how to interpret what was said in English

how to keep a conversation going in English

how to make guesses about something in English

how to make, accept and refuse offers in English

how to order or make a booking in English

how to persuade, convince people in English

how to praise people and express appreciation in English

how to reassure somebody of something in English

how to refuse and object to something in English

how to remind people of something in English

how to rephrase, paraphrase what was said in English

how to say thank you, express gratitude in English

Nouns: Collective nouns (team, class, family, committee)

Nouns: Proper nouns (names of people, cities, companies)

Oxymorons (phrases with words of contradictory meaning, e.g. living dead)

Participles: Past participle (e.g. HAVING DONE)

Participles: Present participle (e.g. DOING)

Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Past perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Phonetics (pronunciation, IPA, phonetic symbols)

Plural nouns: regular plurals with S ending

Prefixes (e.g. A, UN, IM, DIS, MIS, EN, etc. )

Prepositions vs adverbs (e.g. before me, saw him before.)

Prepositions: Double prepositions (e.g. out of)

Prepositions: Participle prepositions (e.g. pending, concerning)

Prepositions: Phrase prepositions (e.g. by means of)

Present perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Present perfect simple or present continuous tense

Present simple tense: S for third person singular verbs

Present simple vs continuous (progressive) tense

Pronouns: EACH OTHER, ONE ANOTHER (reciprocal pronouns)

Pronouns: Possessive pronouns (e.g. my, mine)

Pronouns: Reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, yourself))

Pronouns: SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, EVERYBODY, NO ONE, NOTHING, etc.

Pronouns: THIS, THAT, THESE, THOSE (demonstratives)

Pronouns: YOU and THEY to talk about people in general

Quantifiers (e.g. some, many, much, any, few, little)

Questions: WH questions (open-ended questions)

Reported speech: reported questions (indirect questions)

There is / there are / there was / there were / there will be, etc.

Verbs: Transitive or intransitive verbs (words that can or cannot stand with objects)

Working with Paragraphs: ordering, titling

Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game

Pictionary (picture dictionary) or picture matching

Writing an opinion essay (persuasive essay)

Learners who are Pre-A1 have just begun learning English and will first learn how to:<ul><li>Say the letters in the alphabet and numbers</li><li>Say hello, talk about names and age</li><li>Name the colors and dates, express likes and dislikes</li></ul>

Absolute beginners who have begun to learn the letters and numbers

Learners taking the A1 Elementary exam should be able to:<ul><li>Introduce themselves and ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, things he/she has, people he/she knows.</li><li>Communicate using very basic phrases as long as the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: common adjectives & adverbs of frequency, going to, how much/how many, imperatives, I'd like, 's – possessive, common prepositions of place and time, present simple & continuous, there is/are</li></ul>

A very basic tourist level, which is enough for buying food and a bus ticket

Learners taking the A2 Pre-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand sentences and frequently used expressions (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).</li><li>Complete tasks that are routine and exchange information about familiar matters.</li><li>Describe matters of immediate need in simple terms.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: countable/uncountable nouns, adverbs of frequency, future will/going to, much/many, present perfect, past simple, past continuous, common phrasal verbs, common modals: can/should</li></ul>

A tourist who can do basic conversations about the past, present and future

Learners taking the B1 Intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand points regarding family, work, school or leisure-related topics.</li><li>Deal with most travel situations in areas where the language is spoken.</li><li>Create simple texts on topics of personal interest.</li><li>Describe experiences, events, dreams, and ambitions, as well as opinions or plans in brief.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: question tags, intensifiers: too/enough, future tenses, past tenses, modals, conditionals, wh-questions in the past</li></ul>

Learners who can deal with both familiar and routine situations, in friendly and work contexts

Learners taking the B2 Upper-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.</li><li>Interact with fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without difficulty for either party.</li><li>Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain an opinion on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: perfect tenses, mixed conditionals, modals in the present, phrasal verbs, reported speech, wish, relative clauses</li></ul>

The level where you can be a tour guide for your foreign friends and talk about a lot of topics, even abstract ones, with ease and fluency

Learners taking the C1 Advanced exam should be able to: Express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts. Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, using linking phrases (=words that connect ideas between sentences). Main grammar points to know: inversion, mixed conditionals, modals in the past, all passive forms, phrasal verbs (all patterns), wish/if only for regrets

Learners who can smoothly communicate in every walk of life, read long texts and write well

Learners taking the C2 Proficient exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand almost everything read or heard with ease.</li><li>Summarize information from a variety of sources into a coherent presentation.</li><li>Express themselves using precise meaning in complex scenarios.</li><li>Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations</li></ul>

Get here and you are ready to study in English at university

A lengthy presentation covering almost all aspects of jobs and work - best to print some of the slides for students to make notes, but most can be simply projected



first, two slides are discussion and debate about different jobs



next is discussion and questioning activities about functional job vocab



a couple of slides deal with what types of people work specific jobs students must discuss and speculate



towards the end activities focus on bad companies and bad employees, descriptions, examples and short reading passages can be used to spark discussion about bad practices.

Jobs discussion activities

This short IELTS practise ppt is part of my series covering speaking tasks. It is mainly about describing and giving personal information for part 1 answers. 



It does not include much preparatory vocabulary and so it requires the teaching of home vocabulary and a basic introduction to IELTS speaking to be done beforehand. Please refer to my other ppts for these.



The first slide is a simple information sheet, students fill them out and ask each other simple questions in pairs to compare their information with each other.



The second activity: for small groups, is a vocabulary exercise where the students draw and label their homes and then help each other to complete the labelling with words they don't know.



The third slide: individual students and then pairs, is a good opportunity to test students on their knowledge of adjectives nouns and verbs. It is an answer shell where the students reference the complete answer and use their own homes to complete a lengthy description. Then students read and compare their answers.



Finally, there is a selection of questions from past IELTS exams covering the topic of home for the students to answer.

IELTS speaking part 1: Home

You would need to adapt this power point as my version doesn't allow me to make the numbered boxes disappear when you click on them. Basically the idea is that you ask the kids to choose a number and they get to answer the question that's behind that number. You can create a point system to make it more challenging. 

Spontaneous speaking about holidays

This lesson is about school things and the common conversation in school. It teaches the kids how and when to use "GUESS" and  simple questions with the use of articles (a , an).

School Things Conversation

This presentation is a good way to start an English speaking course for beginners. Has comments in Russian for better explanation. Covers the following topics:

- Greetings

- Introduction

- Asking/answering basic personal questions

- Saying goodbye

Meeting people - basics of English communication for Russian speakers

Halloween is just around the corner, and this ESL Halloween quiz is perfect to use in any English class from kids to adults. It has a variety of interesting questions about Halloween which can be used as a starting point for conversations about the popular holiday.



An online version is also available on the AGO Kids ESL website along with a downloadable pdf version:



https://www.bingobongokids.com/online-esl-halloween-quiz/

ESL Halloween Quiz Worksheet for English Class

Special coronavirus to make sure our kids know how to behave now.

French humour, I entitled the game "qui veut gagner des bonbons?" Who wants to win sweets? You can give your pupils wrapped sweets when they have an answer right.

Who wants to be a millionaire ?

This is a grammar and conversation drill for students to solidify their ability to give accurate answers to common questions.  Answers are meant to be short natural responses. 

Common Questions and Answers 

When to use this lesson on life in Canada?

This is a great lesson to use with your pre-Intermediate students that are looking to practice speaking, reading and grammar skills. Also, this is a fantastic lesson to use as a review with students moving to the intermediate level. Since this resource involves several speaking activities, you can rest assured that it is useful in larger classroom settings and for one on one tutoring.

It is important to note that this lesson contains lots of information about Canadian culture, you might want to introduce it to students that plan on moving there. It is also a great lesson to use when you want to introduce some new actions and vocabulary words related to animals, food and geography. Though in general, I have noticed that most students are excited to learn about a new country— especially one that is home to so many different nationalities.

If you want additional lesson plans and support, including teachers’ notes, be sure to register for a free Off2Class account.

9 Questions and short answers, Discussion starters, speaking cards, Speaking Practice English ESL powerpoints