A selection of English ESL interview questions printables

Conversation questions for intermediate/advanced students. 



Get students to work in pairs/groups. Afterwards, ask them to tell the class about what they have learned about the person they interviewed.

Speaking questions: Getting to know you

Two sets of 13 questions that can be used to practise or reinforce basic verb tenses. Give students some time to prepare and then let them practise in pairs. They should not show each other their questions; this doubles as a listening exercises. Encourage students to answer the questions as well as they can. Follow-up questions should be encouraged.

13 Questions (4) - Am-are-is - Do-does - Have-has (Pair work)

This is based on Pixar's famous short Lava. You can use this as a listening and post-listening worksheet. It also features an interview and discussion questions. Use this for topic Love, Relationships, or as a Valentine's Day worksheet. 

Pixar's Lava worksheet

Role play cards related to news. Students pretend to be news reporters who are reporting news.

Students have 15-30 minutes to prepare a short news segment. They can then act it out together. 



Role Play 3 requires 2 people: The interviewer and the actor.

Role plays 4 and 5 could also use 2 people: The reporter could pretend to stop someone in the street and ask them questions.

Role Play: Breaking News

Here is a listening exercise I've prepared for a 13-year-old Taylor fan. It comes with a video interview with the singer, some multiple choice questions and 2 post-listening writing/speaking activities.   

Interview with Taylor Swift

Resume form filling and 20 questions to practice a job interview. Instructions included. Good to practice with teens and adults.

Job Interview Practice.

Two sets of 13 elementary questions that can be used to practise or reinforce basic verb tenses. Give students some time to prepare and then let them practise in pairs. They should not show each other their questions; this doubles as a listening exercises. Encourage students to answer the questions as well as they can. Follow-up questions should be encouraged.

13 Questions (6) - Do-does-doing (Pair work)

Prompts for 4 dialogues to practice job interviews. Recycles adjectives for personality, and asking and answering in the present simple. I distributed the roles in an 8-person group, had all the interviewers talk to all 4 applicants, and asked them to choose the best-fitting candidate. The locations of the jobs/applicants refer to districts in Budapest but can easily be adapted.

Job Interviews

Read the phrase, formulate the questions and interview each other about future plans. At the end, students should comment about their plans for tomorrow, next year, summer, etc.

Future Plans: BE GOING TO - Conversation Cards

A questionnaire used to talk about new year's resolutions/plans, it mainly foucs on practicing how to use be going to , studetns are encouraged to ask follow up questions to make people talk. After interview, students are expected to report the fingdings to group members.  

New Year's resolutions/ Plans

Harry Potter is on a special quest: He has to find question words: 

1. Find all question words,

2. Interview with Hagrid, 

3. Asking questions about Harry and his friends,

4. Sentence structure.

Harry Potter and the quest for question words

2nd set of questions - in case you have a large group and want to avoid boredom. In this role play we’re gonna pretend to go to a Green Card Interview. We’ll need three characters: A wife, a husband and an immigrations officer. Great for practising asking and answering past simple and continuous questions.



If you've seen the movie Green Card with Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell, you know that immigrants sometimes marry US citizens to get a green card to be able to stay and work in the States, and they have to pass an interview where they prove their marriage is real. 



Pair up students (husband-wife) and have them meet an immigrations officer separately. Before the interview they have 10 minutes to prepare their story together. They'll be asked 10 questions. In the interview both students have to tell the exact same story, because if the officer finds 3 differences in their stories, the wife will be deported back to her native country.

Green Card Role Play (2nd Set of Questions)

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

310 Interview questions English ESL worksheets pdf & doc