49 ESL Conversation Games & Activities - Jackie Bolen 2020

Only 1 Question
English conversation games and activities for lower level students

Skills: Listening/Speaking

Time: 15-20 minutes

Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Materials Required: Pen, paper

In pairs, students have to think of one single question about a certain topic. For example, if about holidays, they could use any of the following:

✵ What's your least favorite holiday?

✵ What did you do last winter vacation?

✵ What do you think about Valentine's Day?

There are many possibilities but I usually make a couple rules that it must be interesting and also that it can't be a yes/no question. I circulate around the class as this is happening to avoid any repeat questions.

Once students have done this, each pair has ask at least 10 people their question and quickly record their answers with 1-2 words. I generally require that one person is the “interviewer” while the other person is the “recorder” and takes notes.

After the time is up, each group tabulates the answers and can quickly report to a small group what they found out about the topic (big classes) or the entire class (smaller classes).

Procedure:

1. Give students a topic and have each pair makes one interesting question about it. Give them examples of interesting versus boring questions.

2. Each pair talks to 10+ students, using the same question. They quickly write down answers with 1-2 words.

3. Students tabulate the results and report them to a small group of 4-6 people (or the entire class if fewer than 10 students).

4. Elicit some of the most interesting things students learned during the activity.