49 ESL Conversation Games & Activities - Jackie Bolen 2020

Conversation starters
English conversation games and activities for all levels

Skills: Speaking/Listening

Time: 10 minutes

Level: Beginner to Advanced

Materials Required: Nothing

Students often struggle with how to start a conversation and this is an activity that can help with this skill. It's particularly useful for beginners but it's also possible for advanced level students if you give the students a particular context relevant to them such as “at the water cooler” (business small talk) or “at the drink table” (party small-talk).

Write the beginning of a conversation on the PowerPoint or whiteboard. For example,

A: “How was your weekend?”

B: “It was ... . I ... .”

Or,

A: “What did you do last night?”

B: “I ... . ”

Or,

A: “Anything interesting happening with you lately?”

B: “Not really, I've just been ... . ”

Put the student into pairs and they have to engage in a short conversation for about a minute using the starter. With adults, ring a bell after one minute is up and then they have to quickly find someone else that they haven't talked to yet and start the conversation again. With teenagers, it can get a little chaotic to do it that way so I recommend forming two opposing lines. One line stays stationary while the other line moves one person down the line for each round.

Teaching Tips:

An important sub-skill that our students need to be proficient at is initiating a conversation. However, it can sometimes be a bit of a difficult thing even for English native speakers so it's really useful to provide our students with opportunities to practice it and also to give them a few set phrases they can keep in their English “tool-kits. ” It can be useful to do this activity at regular intervals (every month perhaps) and use different starters each time.

Procedure:

1. Think of a conversation starter. Put it on the powerpoint or whiteboard.

2. Have students find a partner, either in a line or by themselves.

3. Students have a one minute conversation using the starter.

4. Ring a bell and students have to find a new partner, either by mingling or moving one space down the line to face a new partner.

5. Students have another short one minute conversation. Repeat as many times as desired with the same or different conversation starters.