A selection of English ESL pair activity printables

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

This is a questionnaire to be done in pairs, with a match-up activity on page 2. If you prefer, the students could answer the questions in writing on an individual basis. 

Back to school!

Students complete  the  conversation  with  the  corresponding words.  Later  they  can  practice  the  conversation  in pairs. Hope  they  enjoy  this activity.

CONVERSATION: SUPERMARKET

This is  a short, communicative matching activity in which pairs or groups can work together in order to discover some "unusual customs" from around the globe by matching verbs and picture hints.

There is also a speaking activity that explores how to describe plans, resolutions and wishes for the upcoming new year.

A writing question based on the need for my Japanese JHS students to practice for their Level 3 / Pre-2 EIKEN exam is also included and can easily be adapted to your students' requirements or even into another speaking activity.

*I will try to upload the accompanying PowerPoint slides under the same title.



NEW YEAR TRADITIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

I've made those to practice the Passive Voice. The countries were chosen at random. There are only 6 students in my class, so you can use these cards in pairs or groups, or maybe design a few more! Here's how to use them:



- Give each student a card.

- They must find out what country their classmates have in hands. In order to do that, they must ask the questions on page 2.



My students are not so good at Geography, so I have to write the names of the countries on the board before we begin. It's up to you, though!

Guess the country (Flash Cards)

This can be a quick ESL warmup activity in 2x3 minutes or you can devote more time to it if it fits your lesson aims, since it is an activity that sparks students' imagination and is guaranteed to keep them engaged.



Recommended for highschool students and adults, as the activity presupposes ability for abstract thought and working with symbols. 



How to do this warmer activity:



1.	Put students in pairs, then tell them about the activity: "You’re going to act out psychologist and client. The client is supposed to tell the the psychologist about his/her dream. You will interpret the dream together. You will take turns in being the psychologist and the client."



2.	The psychologists need to close their eyes. You then show the clients one of the three “dream scenes”. 



3.	Next, they should describe the dream to their partners by adding some more events to the dream scene depicted in the photo. 



4.	Finally, they should interpret the dream and the symbols in it together. 





Follow-up:



1. You can check the meaning of the various symbols in the dream scenes and discuss it with students:

http://dreammoods.com

Warmer: Interpreting dreams #2

(ON THE USE OF THE PRESENT CONTINUOUS)



This is an activity to be used along with the Everybody Hates Chris' episode "Everybody Hates the English Teacher" (found HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRExoizkiBw)



You may use it in two ways:



1. If you have a big class AND have the time (the episode alone is about 20 minutes, but the activity may take longer): have your students sit back to back in pairs - one of them facing the television, the other on the back to him/her. Both have the worksheet. The student facing the television should tell the student behind him/her what's happening according to the sentences on the sheet, so that both can check the correct sentences. By the middle of the video, they may change places, and continue.



or



2. You may simply handle them the worksheets and have them checking the correct sentences according to the video. It's up to you! Have fun!



(it's editable, so you may remove the header!!)

Video Worksheet: "Everybody Hates the English Teacher"

This worksheet works as a warm-up or as wrap-up activity. It can be used to practice simple present with wh-questions. Give nine students (feel free to add new boxes to suit the number of your students) the cards of the worksheet. Give them some time to read, then put them either in pairs or groups or let each one of them introduce him/ herself in front of the class to have more interaction. Let the student with the card either read the card to students to guess the secret or let students ask wh-questions to guess the secret of the student. Enjoy

What is my secret?

These worksheets are to help students distinguish between the unvoiced 's' and voiced 'z' sound. Practise the pronunciation of each pair of words with the class, highlighting the difference between the sss and zzz sound in each pair of words. Then give them the picture sheet and students match the pictures to the right pairs of words. I used lots of example sentences to clarify the meaning and also show the correct pronunciation, I think it worked pretty well. Hope you find this useful.

Minimal Pairs - pronunciation of s and z sounds with picture activity

There are four houses. Students work in pairs. One student chooses one of the houses (out of four) and describes it, the other student has to guess which house he/she is describing 

speaking activity "the house"

This is a worksheet to practice to be and have got in order to distinguish them. It works very well in the classroom after both concepts have been practised. Firstly I worked the first activitiy in the whole group and later they worked in pairs.

to be and have got remedial worksheet

Jobs - a speaking activity. Students work in pairs. They look at the worksheet and ask each other questions. They can choose any question in any order they wish.It can also be done as a whole class activity. Students stand in two lines facing each other. The teacher asks a question and the students discuss it. Then students in one line move to the right, so that they face   a new students. The teacher asks another question and the students discuss it. Then the same students move to the right again etc... 

Jobs 

This activity is on greetings and leave takings, find the pairs and form the word, it is a cut and paste activity, where the students have to identify the phrases.  

832 Pair activity English ESL worksheets pdf & doc