A selection of English ESL talk for a minute, minute topics printables

I introduced the lesson by asking students to talk to their partner for 2 minutes (or 3) then I had them change partners and talk again for 2(3) minutes. Afterwards they reported what their partners said. 



Next we explored the small talk topic with a listening gapfill. 

Afterwards students worked together to complete the various activities. 



This lesson was designed for a 2 hour class of adult intermediates. 

It seems simple, but the students really enjoyed practicing small talk. 

Conversation lesson on small talk and finding something to talk about

This worksheet has some cards with questions about grammar topics. Cut them out and laminate them. I handout a set for a group of students to spend 10 minutes on if they are left with some time. They like to check what they remember about grammar.

Talk about grammar 1

A comprehensive 60-minute lesson material for advanced students. It talks about how languages were created, a fun and interesting topic. It includes a vocabulary section, a reading comprehension section, a grammar and spelling section, and a speaking and discussion section. The questions are creative and encourage critical thinking with pictures.

How Languages Were Created

This activity aims at pushing the student to discuss on questions dealing with the future. 

I personally use it the way a speed-dating works: 2 minutes for each student and then they change. They have to try and speak as long as possible on the topic chosen by their classmate.

Talking about the future

This Expressions related to Friendship lesson includes focus on the phrases in context, a gap-fill exercise, conversation questions and mini-dialogue writing activity.


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Friendship Expressions (Phrases and Idioms related to Friendship)

This Expressions related to Friendship lesson includes focus on the phrases in context, a gap-fill exercise, conversation questions and mini-dialogue writing activity. Perfect for marking International Friendship Day (30th July)

 
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Expressions related to Friendship Lesson

This is a timed conversation activity: There are two columns on the paper; one for sentences and one for conversation topics. Cut each section into strips and place both sections into separate envelopes entitled "sentences" and "topics." Students are divided into pairs and then one student takes a strip of paper from the "sentences" envelope while the other takes one from the "topics" envelope. The student with the topics paper then announces the topic they are going to talk about for the next three minutes. The student with the "sentences" strip of paper keeps their sentence secret but must introduce the sentence as naturally as possible into the conversation during the next three minutes. The rest of the students must try and guess which sentence the student had to introduce into the conversation. A good student will make the sentence appear to be a natural part of the conversation and therefore difficult for the others to detect. They don´t have to have the sentence perfect, word for word.

What was the sentence?

This ´Taboo Vocabulary Game´ is great for revising vocabulary and developing fluency. Students can work in groups and play as individual players or they can play in teams against other groups in the class.


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Vocabulary Taboo Game for A1-A2 Level

This ‘Olympic Sports Activity’ is great for building Olympic sport vocabulary while developing fluency in describing things. It also provides an opportunity for practising relative clauses. Students take turns describing the sports on their card to a partner, and their partner must guess which sport they are describing.


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Olympic Sports Activity

The aim of this game is to improve your speaking skills by giving you hints in order to increase your fluency when speaking.

The game starts with a “Hot Potato” dynamic, the person who gets the potato has to take one of the cards and talk about the topic for at least one minute. The cards include hints to give you ideas for what to talk about. The person who speaks the longest time is the winner of the round.

One minute speaking 

This Mini-Presentation Activity features eight topics, including prompts to help your ESL students prepare for the task. The students choose a topic to do a mini-presentation on and spend some time preparing before doing their presentations for the class. Topics include an interesting festival, my dream career, a famous person I admire, and more.


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Mini-Presentations Activity

With this board game students will practice speaking about familiar topics (house, family, favourites etc). Although this board game was designed with lower-level learners in mind, it could be very useful for higher-level groups as well in order to consolidate vocabulary and improve fluency as most topics are vital for having a friendly chat with strangers. You could also set a minimum speaking time (say 30 seconds for Elementary students and 1 minute for Intermediate students) depending on your class. I also strongly suggest you encourage other students to ask follow-up questions in order to keep the conversation going.

Board Game - Let's Talk About (Elementary)

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

28 Talk for a minute, minute topics English ESL worksheets pdf & doc