Month: October 2017

Fears and phobias speaking and vocabulary

This page focuses on essential terminology related to fears and phobias. It consists of a variety of vocabulary activities and speaking tasks that will help students practice expressing thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to fears and phobias.

1 The science of fear vocabulary

This a great way to introduce the vocabulary of fears and phobias. This helps students understand fears and phobias through visuals and multiple choice.

The activity consists of two parts:

1. Picture/Vocabulary Activity: In this section, students will be presented with a series of images depicting various fears and phobias. Their task is to identify the fear or phobia represented in each image and learn the associated vocabulary. This will enable students to better express their thoughts and feelings on the topic and expand their understanding of different fears and phobias people may experience.

2. Multiple Choice Exercise: This part of the activity will test students’ comprehension of the new vocabulary and concepts they’ve learned in the picture/vocabulary activity. They will be presented with multiple-choice questions related to fears and phobias, where they will need to select the correct answer based on the information provided.

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2 Fears and phobias vocabulary

This is similar to the above but focuses more on language use. The vocabulary section is for more advanced students (the grammar of fears and phobias is quite difficult).

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See the YouTube video

3 Fears and phobias ranking and collocation exercises

Ranking and collocations exercises help explore the topic further. The ranking exercise will help you students recognize the differences between various fears and phobias. The collocations exercise will help improve vocabulary, fluency, and overall communication skills.

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4 Fears and phobias grammar exercises

This exercise helps students understand the rather complicated grammar related to fears and phobias.

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5 Fears and phobias speaking

This is an ESL speaking exercise for talking about fears and phobias. Students match the vocabulary to the pictures and then interview a classmate about their fears and phobias.

(download PDF)

Related Speaking Skills Resources:

14 Write a Conversation Exercises

Socializing Speaking Lessons Home

10 Role Play Speaking Activities

11 Classroom Debate and Discussion Language Activities

5 Cracking Complaints and Annoyances Language and Speaking Exercises

12 Brilliant Business English Speaking Skills  Activities

Listening exercises for all levels

Movie magic activity

1. Elicit

First, draw a suggestive picture on the board and write the question template below.

Title: ??????
Location: ??????
Main Characters: ?????
2 Main Events: ????
Ending: ?????????

Then elicit first the questions and then answers imagining the students were entering a competition to create a scenario for a movie . The only guideline is that the picture is central to the movie. This is a fun and class warming exercise.

2. Group Work

Next, you need some pictures, one per group of three. Select some pictures which might be suggestive of stories for movies. It’s a good idea to try and select:

one action picture

one romantic picture

one comedy picture

one horror picture etc

to match as many film genres as possible. Try to choose larger pictures- poster size- because they will be put up on the walls around the classroom. Distribute the pictures and and tell the students to answer the above questions about their pictures in note form.

3. Speaking

Finally, put the “movie posters” up around the walls of the classroom. Ask one student from each group of three students to remain with his or her picture with the “movie notes”. The other two students walk around the room asking the questions above and choose the best movie story. At the end of the activity count up the votes to find a winner.

Movies home

Movie magic

Titanic lesson

Brainstorming movies

Directions lesson idea

1 Elicit answers and vocabulary

Car   get in or get on  ??

Bus   get in or get on…..?

Road   (look at the map..)

elicit vocabulary…

go along, up, down, cross, go past, turn right…etc.

eg. “I want to go from ….to………..so first I………”

Building  elicit vocab such as  “take a lift”

……………”go upstairs”…….escalator…… “in front of” etc. ..

through a mini role pay….you as ignorant customer in department store and a student as information assistant.

2 Speaking in groups

Choose  yourself as  “First” and 4 other capable students to be:

Next, Then, After that, Finally

1. Model  a  situation

“First, go to the bus stop opposite….” (some place everyone knows)….the  “Next” student  picks up the story……. they can go anywhere

2. Model another situation

“First  go into…”( a building ie. airport, hotel , department store)

3. Finally, put the students in groups to do the above……..

First,…….

Next,……..

Then,……..

After that,…..

Finally,….…

Celebrations & Festivals lesson

This is an ESL speaking and writing lesson for practicing basic language for talking about celebrations and festivals. First, students complete the sentences with the vocabulary at the bottom of the page. Then they ask and answer questions about the different celebrations and festivals. 

(download PDF)

Related Cultural Resources:

5 intercultural body language, gestures and etiquette language exercises (PDFs)

Culture home

Body language and gestures vocabulary exercises

8 Entertaining and Merry Christmas Vocabulary and Speaking Exercises

5 travel and tourism language and vocabulary lessons

Family-Related Vocabulary Worksheets

 1 Write a conversation exercise: talking about families

Talking about the families is another easy topic for dialogue/conversation writing for elementary English learners. This exercise includes 3 example conversations and one conversation (audio file) that can be used as a listening activity.

Write a conversation: family (PDF)

(see the YouTube video)

2 Family vocabulary matching exercise

    A family vocabulary and picture matching exercise and worksheet focusing on words used to describe aspects of family relationships.

(download PDF)

3 Essential family vocabulary

A dictation exercise. Dictate the words and the students write the words on the pictures. Or the students can match the vocabulary from the last page.

(download PDF)

4 Family/relationship survey speaking activity

  A fun and reliable elementary present simple tense speaking activity for a large class.  The great thing about it is that it works at really elementary levels. The teacher models the activity using the survey template drawn on the board.  Students then move around the classroom talking to at least five other students. During the survey part of the activity the teacher is free to monitor the students and also participate, having an opportunity to speak to students individually. As the students are finishing their surveys, the teacher can write a model report on the board.

(download PDF)

5 Brainstorming family vocabulary

An icebreaker to see how many family related words know.

(download PDF)

Tenses practice with timelines worksheets

 These worksheets aim to help students understand the different tenses using timelines, particularly the past, perfect and continuous tenses.

Tenses practice with timelines 1 (with answers)

(download PDF)

Tenses practice with timelines 2

(download PDF)

Tenses practice with timelines 3

(download PDF)

Related Resources

ESL Listening Activities Guide

Comparative adjective exercises

Teaching Gerunds and Infinitives

Indirect and Reported Speech

10  Adjectives Exercises Including Adjectives for People and Things 

Parts of Speech Exercises

6 Picture-Based Present Continuous Worksheets (PDF)

8 Preposition Exercises for Location, Time and Movement (PDF)

5  Useful Passive Voice Practice worksheets

7 Incredibly Useful Past Tense Simple Teaching Activities (PDF)

Great Exercises for the Conditionals (PDF)

       3 Future Tense Exercises

Champagne Story

INTRO This is a communicative story creation activity that can be adapted to
any holiday or festival in the year.

STEP 1 Draw a brainstorm template on the board. (see Below).

STEP 2 Brainstorm sets of words or write up pre-prepared sets of words. Actually, I like to mix the two together as it enables me to use target vocabulary and the brainstorm can be funny and spontaneous, warming the students to the activity.

SET A

reindeer Santa Claus shepherd 3 wise men angel

SET B
lost hamburger Year 2030 elephant broken heart

SET C
Bangkok sunrise Xmas Eve Thai dancing carol

SET D
earthquake broke confused complain disagree
etc……………………………………………………………….

STEP 3 You need a set of words per 3 students. Also, remember a good story needs at a minimum 2 characters and a dilemma or bizarre situation.

STEP 4 To elicit the vocab I often ask questions like…

“What’s the name of a person in this class?”
(putting students into the stories adds a lot more fun to the activity)
“Give me a number”
or ” Give me a negative adjective”

Supposing you wanted to do a Christmas lesson you might select or elicit the words as in the sets above.

STEP 5 Once you have sets of about 6-8 words form the students into groups of three and tell them to write a short story. I always model a crazy story to get them
in the mood. Supposing they had the words below:

MIDNIGHT, CARDS, DECORATE, GHOST, FRED FLINSTONE, CHRISTMAS EVE

you might tell the story;

“At midnight on Christmas Eve Fred
Flintstone couldn’t sleep. He remembered he had
forgotten to put his cards with his presents
under the tree. So he went downstairs and suddenly
he was wide awake. There was something white
decorating the tree ……..”etc

STEP 6 After the stories are finished stick the word sets to the walls around the classroom . One of the authors of the stories will stay to field questions while the other two will walk around the room to ask questions. To make this fun and a
game give play money to the people answering questions. The questioners can
only ask Yes and No questions and if they receive a “Yes” they will receive
some money. It’s a good idea to elicit or drill Yes and No questions first. For example questions that could be asked for the story above might include:

Did Fred Flintstone decorate a Christmas tree?

Was Fred Flintstone at home?

Did this story take place on Christmas Eve? etc.

The questioners walk around the class trying to make as much money as possible. Don’t let the answerers reveal the details of their stories. Keep this as a “finale” to
the class. Get everyone to sit down and the teacher or a student will read the
stories. This is fun because a great deal of suspense should have been generated
by the questioning.

Related Resources:

Story telling ideas

Past Continuous and “Used to” Exercises

10  Adjectives Exercises Including Adjectives for People and Things 

3 Parts of Speech Exercises

6 Picture-Based Present Continuous Worksheets (PDF)

8 Preposition Exercises for Location, Time and Movement (PDF)

5  Useful Passive Voice Practice worksheets

6  Present Perfect Language and Speaking Worksheets

Great Exercises for Conditionals (PDF)

Language and Speaking Activities for Songs and Music

1 Elements of songs & music vocabulary (with answers)

This is an English language listening/speaking exercise helping students learn language used to discuss music and songs. Students match the vocabulary to the pictures and then complete the sentences at the bottom of the page.

Elements of songs & music (PDF)

2 Music likes/dislikes (elementary)

This exercise explores genres of music and asks students about their musical preferences. Similar to the speaking activity above, it is a great way to start off a class.

(Download PDF)

3 Talking about music (with answers)

This is an English language exercise helping students learn language used to discuss music and songs. Students match the vocabulary to the pictures and then ask  their classmates the questions at the bottom of the page.

Talking about  music (PDF)

Related Resources:

3 Exercises for Talking about Movies

10 Role Play Speaking Activities

11 Classroom Debate and Discussion Language Activities

5 Complaints and Annoyances Language and Speaking Activities

5 First Day of Class Activities

3 Great Icebreakers to Start a Class

8 Invitation and Request Dialogues for Everyday Scenarios

Speaking and Vocabulary Activities for Shopping

August 11th, 2023

Shopping is one of those topics that easily engages students if you have good exercises at the right level. Teaching activities might include: shopping role plays, dialogues about shopping experiences, and exercises matching shopping vocabulary words with pictures or definitions.

1 Bargaining

This is a lesson about shopping and bargaining at a market. It includes vocabulary/picture matching, brainstorming, a gap fill dialogue and open-ended questions.

Bargaining gap fill video (YouTube Shorts)

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Subscribe on Substack to get the complete lessons with PDFs, audio and video from eslflow.com. There are no ads in the newsletter and you will receive entertaining, high quality, and up-to-date teaching resources regularly. And, if you subscribe, you will be supporting the eslflow website.

2 Gift shop conversation and role play

A gift shop customer – salesperson role play is nice because there are so many kinds of gifts and a variety of interesting and creative conversations can be created by students.

(see the video on YouTube)

3 Expressing opinions about shopping

A vocabulary and critical thinking exercise for shopping. Students use the words at the bottom of the page to complete the sentences and then agree/disagree with the statements and give reasons for their choices.

(download PDF)

3 Talking about shopping

This is an elementary ESL speaking exercise for practicing language useful for talking about shopping. Shopping is a great topic for English language students  as it is universally accessible. Using pictures with the questions gives context. The vocabulary at the bottom of the page can be matched to the pictures as an icebreaker. Students can discuss and answer the questions in groups or in pairs.

Talking about shopping (PDF)

(see the YouTube video)

4  Common expressions for shopping (with audio and answers)

This is an elementary ESL shopping expressions and vocabulary listening/speaking exercise for practicing language useful for talking about shopping. Shopping is a great topic for English language students  as it is universally accessible. Using pictures  and audio gives context.

Common expressions for shopping (PDF)

(video mp4)     (video mp4 on YouTube)

5  Common expressions for shopping 2 (with answers and audio)

This is a slightly more advanced ESL shopping expressions and vocabulary listening/speaking exercise. I often like to make some pictures similar with subtle distinctions so students have to use their critical thinking skills.

Common expressions for shopping 2(PDF)

6 Common shopping conversations (with answers)

This is a fairly elementary exercise. It challenges students to understand the context of each picture and complete the speech bubbles.

Common  shopping conversations (PDF)

7  Brainstorming icebreaker for shopping: meanings of colors

A really nice breaker for shopping is brainstorming the meanings and associations of colors. This is a pretty fun and engaging way to start a class.

Brainstorming the meanings of colors(PDF)

8 Fashion and shopping word map

This is an elementary brainstorming exercise that aims to elicit some vocabulary and warm up the students for a lesson about fashion and shopping.  Try to get as much vocabulary as possible on the word maps  from the students and then ask them to complete the questions at the bottom of the page. Then they can ask and answers questions in pairs or groups.

Fashion and  shopping word map(PDF)

9 Talking shopping 2

This is a really easy elementary exercise for pretty low level English language learners to talk about shopping. Students match the words and expressions to the pictures and then have short conversations.

Talking shopping 2 (PDF)

10 Fashion choices and preferences brainstorm and speaking

This is a more advanced  exercise for students to talk about shopping choices and preferences. Students match the words and expressions to the pictures and then have short conversations. Once again try to get as much vocabulary as possible on the word maps  from the students and then ask them to complete the questions at the bottom of the page. Then they can ask and answers questions in pairs or groups. The students also need to understand how to use “Do you prefer…?” and “Would you rather…?”

Fashion choices and preferences brainstorm (PDF)

Related Resources

Online shopping listening/speaking and vocabulary exercises

3  Clothes, Accessories and Fashion Vocabulary and Speaking Exercises

5 Cool Advertising & Branding Vocabulary & Language Exercises

6  Describing People and Appearance Vocabulary and Language Exercises

7 Brainstorming and Speaking Activities for Routines, Interests and Hobbies

7 Essential Speaking Activities (PDF)