A selection of English ESL socializing or small talk printables with discussion starters, speaking cards, speaking practice

Discussion starters, speaking cards

Socializing or small talk

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

The objective of this worksheet is to practice Past Simple and Present Perfect by completing questions and then using them actively to interview another student. Topic: general, ranging from family, travel and life experiences to work and study. 

Past Simple vs Past Perfect

This fill-in-the-blanks mock Facebook profile is intended for beginner level high school students. It can be used in an introduction class or for a lesson about social media. To turn it into a listening/speaking exercise, students could fill out a profile for a classmate.

My Facebook Profile Worksheet

I prepared the worksheet to introduce making suggestions, offers and invitations to my students. Many suggestions are connected with Paris, because this subjects combine in Smash 2- the textbook I'm using this year. I hope it will help :)

Suggestions, offers, invitations - shall we, wuld you like, let's, why don't we

This design is from HappyNN's. She is a smart girls who give me the idea to create this material. Some cards to practice speaking by yes/no questions. Some of them are crazy, the idea is the students have to answer them without know the vocabulary. It is funny!

YES NO QUESTIONS SPEAKING CARDS

I created this beginner worksheet for all my new ESOL learners who will first be learning how to greet people using the given phrases. There are three activities to build their confidence to use them independently.

Greeting Phrases: How to Greet People

This is a detailed reading comprehension worksheet to practice the different dialogues for when you are going or are at the doctor's office. It focuses on a number of common expressions and questions. It practices possible symptoms and questions. It includes 4 different dialogues all of which have custom comprehension questions to ensure the students understanding and engagement. After completion, this Worksheet could also be used to speaking drills or role-play activities amongst students. It is the ultimate lesson plan for practicing conversations for the doctor's office!

At the Doctor's Office Dialogue Practice, Common Expression and Vocabulary

Two beginner level present perfect simple tense dialogues focusing on personal experience. I try to use simple words while adding colloquial expressions. Below the dialogues are several questions for practice. Hope this helps!  

Present Perfect Simple Tense (Experience): Dialogues with Speaking Practice

In this activity, students will practice 3 small talk dialogues. They will also do a fill-in the blanks exercise and talk about starting and closing a conversation and being polite.

Making small talk

This worksheet is in preparation of students beginning an online English conversation class. Students should review the typical questions asked in a self introduction and then practice three situational conversations between a student and teacher, an exchange student and host family, and an exchange student with a fellow student. Following the dialogues are a set of listening/reading comprehension questions.

Self Introduction Situational Dialogues

This is a speaking and conversation worksheet based around the topic of making decisions. The worksheet starts with a questionnaire in which students ask each other about future plans and record whether their partner has already made a decision or not. There is also a short reading activity to provide some vocabulary revision before finishing off with a speaking activity. Ideally suited for one-to-one lessons or small groups, but it could also be adapted for larger groups. Answers included.

Decisions, Decisions

This is a worksheet for Intermediate students that incorporates an 'Autocomplete Interview', in which a famous person, in this case Daniel Radcliffe, is asked to answer popular questions from the Internet. The main focus of the worksheet is to provide conversation and speaking practice, as well as to give students experience at asking and answering slightly more unusual questions than they are probably used to. It can be used as either an intro or review activity for a more comprehensive lesson on question formation. Answers included.

Celebrity Interview

This worksheet is to help show the reasons why it's difficult to understand native speakers and also to help fluency. I did a similar worksheet before but with this one there are some tracks to help. Simply click here to download. https://www.dropbox.com/s/0482hsp8e36uywa/linking20and20elision203.zip?dl=0 

Answers are on the back. The worksheet can also help your students to start pronouncing whole sentences with better fluency and help them to stop trying to pronounce absolutely every letter in the words they are speaking, as some of them are wont to do. Some of the tracks are my friends and some are from podcasts and audio books. 





25 Socializing or small talk, Discussion starters, speaking cards, Speaking Practice English ESL worksheets pdf & doc