Working from Home vocabulary and language exercises
“Working from home” is a great topic for English language classes. In the current circumstances nearly everyone has some experience of working from home. So it’s a great discussion topic, and it could also used for classes involving giving opinions, making comparisons (home vs office), teaching argumentative writing or discussing technological change. It also has its own fairly specific set of vocabulary.
1 Working from home vocabulary ( with audio and answers)
Working from home uses some a fairly specific and often repeated set of words. So it makes sense to teach these words business English language students as these words increasingly appear in the media, in writing and in everyday conversations.
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2 Working from home parts of speech
Working from home uses some a fairly specific and often repeated set of words. So it makes sense to teach these words business English language students as these words increasingly appear in the media, in writing and in everyday conversations.
The movement to “working from home” affects so many aspects of people’s lives. Consequently, it is a great topic for teaching any aspect of the English language as it is likely to engage students interest.
4 Working from home vocabulary (brainstorming and argument version)
This is such a good topic for discussions, arguments and debates that I made a second version (of exercise 1) with charts at the bottom for brainstorming the advantages and disadvantages of working from home versus working in the office.
The past continuous is one of the tenses used to tell stories as it helps describe actions and events happening at the same time in the past. And “used to” is interesting because it is used to compare the past and present.
1 “Used to” Q and A
The past tense form “used to” is quite interesting as it it is used to compare the past and present. Consequently, it can form the basis of of pretty interesting listening/speaking activities and discussions.
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2 Talking about childhood
This is a gap fill conversation and listening/speaking exercise about childhood featuring “use to/used to” to help English language students talk about the past.
This is a question and answer and listening/speaking worksheet to help students understand how to use the past continuous tense. The pictures are story pictures with two actions happening at the same time. Students can listen and answer the questions while hopefully using the correct grammar.
This is a past continuous complete-the-sentence or sentence starter exercise to help students practice communicating about past events with their own ideas.
I had to teach “used to” for the first time in ages and I remembered a cool speaking activity I got from a series of photocopiable books of communicative activities we used in the 1990’s. Astonishingly, I still have this set of books right next to my computer. I found the activity and adapted it into the speaking activity below. And it worked just as well as I remembered it. There is some kind of chemistry about talking about the past and present which is really engaging and fun. Uncorrected student’s answers are attached as an example.
Adverbs are quite fun to teach with photos that convey meaning and context. Moreover, pictures and listening exercises help make grammar lessons more entertaining.
1 Amazing adverbs (with audio and answers)
A listening/speaking activity for adverbs. It is quite fun teaching adverbs with pictures and audio. Students try to match the adverbs to the pictures and complete the sentences. Then they can listen to the audio.
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2 Common adverbs 1 (with audio and answers)
This exercise focuses on common adverbs. First, the students match the words to the pictures. Then they try to complete sentences using the adverbs. This exercise uses pictures to help illustrate commonly used adverbs.
This exercise is an alternative or extension of the one above. This is a bit a bit different in that audio conversations are not sequential. Students have to match the audio items to the pictures. So they have to listen to the audio and identify the context. Personally, I prefer this kind of exercise.
Viruses and Vaccines Vocabulary and Speaking Lessons
The news around the recent coronavirus includes a lot of vocabulary commonly used in discussions of epidemics. Viruses and vaccines is a good teaching topic for students studying in the fields of health and the medical sciences. Of course, it is such an important public health topic that it’s good for all students.
1 Expressing opinions about viruses and vaccines
This is a vocabulary and discussion exercise. It worked well in classes.
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2 Inventing a Vaccine to Save the World
Katalin Kariko and the story of mRNA
This is a reading comprehension exercise about the people who invented a vaccine for the coronavirus.
This exercise deals with some of the impacts and issues surrounding the coronavirus. It expands into vocabulary for dealing with a pandemic (a public health crisis) and an economic crisis.
I have been teaching the English language to medical technology students for many years so I have accumulated a lot of medical sciences related materials. In particular, I have a good library of images relating to medical topics. I realized that it would be quite easy to create a worksheet for the coronavirus.
Expanding Business English with Parts of Speech Practice
Business English can also be taught through parts of speech. This is pretty useful to help improve students’ grammar. Listening/speaking exercises with visual cues can help these kinds of exercises or lessons more entertaining.
1 Verbs for business English 1
A listening/ speaking exercise for practicing using business English verbs.
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2 Adjectives for business English
This is an exercise focusing on useful adjectives.
Expanding verbs for business English vocabulary is a pre-intermediate worksheet with vocabulary-picture matching and questions aimed at improving students’ language skills with enjoyable and relatable tasks.
Expanding adjectives for business English vocabulary is a pre-intermediate worksheet with vocabulary-picture matching and questions aimed at improving students’ language skills with enjoyable and relatable tasks.
Parts of speech sorting exercises also work well for specific topics. For example, it’s a useful addition to exercises trying to improve students Business English grammar and vocabulary.
Write a Conversation Exercises for Speaking and Listening Classes
1st July 2024
Create-a-conversation worksheets help students practice new vocabulary, build speaking skills and develop confidence using a second language.
1 What’s your house like?(talking about houses & neighborhoods)
This is a conversation writing exercise which could be the basis of a speaking activity or role play. Students get to talk about and describe their houses and neighborhoods.
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2 Comparative adjectives conversation
This is a listening/speaking exercise to help students practice and understand the use of comparative adjectives.
3 Write a conversation exercise: plans for the weekend (with examples and audio)
“Plans for the weekend” is a future tense conversation exercise. It requires students to understand language for talking about the future. But the good thing about these exercises is that students can choose words and phrases they can manage.
This is a gap fill conversation and listening/speaking exercise about childhood featuring “use to/used to” to help English language students talk about the past.
6 Write a conversation: what are you doing at the end of the year?
Students can watch the video or listen to the audio and complete the gap fill conversation. Then they have to use at least 6 of the most common words or phrases to make their own conversation.
“Going Out” is another good conversation topic. When students write these dialogues in pairs or small groups they automatically fall into a role play mode without any direction from the teacher.
9 Write a conversation exercise: routines and daily activities with dialogue and audio for a listening exercise
Write-a- conversation exercises work really well for many topics including routines and daily activities. I always get the students to perform just for me …not in front of the class..as they are more relaxed and I get a close up and personal look at their performance. Also, I can ask them to repeat the conversation easily if it is not fluent enough.
Staring a business is a popular topic with teenagers and university students. They have lots of ideas and opinions. This includes example conversations (restaurant and laundry service) with audio.
This is a listening/speaking exercise for describing people. This exercise focuses on a missing woman. Students can completer the listening exercise and then write their own conversation.
11 Write a conversation exercise: simple past tense
Writing conversations with language cues is one good way of getting into the past tense. Students have to think about a past tense context and and create a role play for this context. The language cues give them some assistance in guiding and developing their ideas. Also, there are 2 example conversations that can be used as listening exercises.
12 Making an appointment telephone conversation (with answers)
This is a dialogue or role play exercise for students s to practice creating complete telephone conversations . Students use the cues in the boxes to write appropriate conversations.
Here, students have to write a health and illness conversation or dialogue. Writing a dialogue about health is one of the best ways to get students using health vocabulary, which can cause quite a few pronunciation problems.
15 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.
Writing a conversation exercises work really well for some topics and personality is one of the best. This works best with lower level students of course, but with advanced students you have to encourage them to build on their ideas.
One of the best conversation writing topics is food. Students instantly start creating fun role plays. Also, vocabulary around food and eating brings in a lot of interesting pronunciation challenges.
19 Write a conversation exercise: problem/solution
Here, students have to compare the past and present using “used to”. It’s a fun and interesting conversation writing exercise for students with some fluency.
Speaking Activities for Really Elementary ESL Classes
Super elementary speaking activities are a really good way to get students speaking at a low level. They have to be designed so they are easy to explain and understand. If an activity works, the class is much more entertaining, fun and helps students get over their reticence to speak English.
1 Daily Activities Speaking Activity
This is one of the most basic speaking activities to get students practicing with the verb “to do”. Students ask other students about their daily activities.
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2 Do you….”So do I” and “Neither do I”
Another exercise to get students speaking a little bit. And it also introduces them to negative and positive agreement.
This is a great way of familiarizing students with some useful adjectives in a personalized way. Students have to interview their partner and then match their personal preferences with a suitable job.
This is similar to the exercise above but it is using the verb “to be” and further expands students knowledge of adjectives. It’s also a really personal and quite funny exercise as students have to asses their partners/friends as possible roommates.
This is a bit more advanced than the two exercises above. It also focuses on adjectives It can be really successful in a talkative class. The adjective list can be greatly expanded on if the students are up to it. Sometimes I have assigned each student or a pair of students an adjective and found this a way of getting a great variety of questions and talking going on in the classroom.
Shopping is a great topic for any elementary English language lesson. This is a simple way to get some speaking done and getting students to practice using the verb “do”.
This is a little more advanced and a little more interesting than the exercise above. It explores shopping vocabulary in a matching exercises and the students create short conversations.
Movies usually (in my experience) get students motivated. Students have to match movie genres to the pictures and then think of movie titles for each genre. Then they can ask their partners the questions at the bottom of the page.
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.
23 Really! Practical ESL Classroom or Online Teaching Icebreakers
Updated: January 20th 2024
If you are teaching an ESL language class…..in the classroom or online …it pays to have a good set of icebreakers ready to go ! Just having something ready to go can make all the difference when you walk into a classroom ( sometimes I’m really blank…and it’s actually me that needs the icebreaker!). Or online, having an engaging, accessible way into a topic is essential.
1 Making decisions
If you are teaching language for deciding and choosing, this is a nice way to start.
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2 Gerund brainstorm
This is a good way to get into a discussion about gerunds.
Another good icebreaker technique is to brainstorm aspects (good, bad etc.) of a particular topic. My topic here is “taking risks”. So I tried to brainstorm many kinds of risks. This is a good icebreaker for adjectives and/or vocabulary associated with safety and danger. (see page 2 for example answers) This exercise can be adapted for any level and could be used 2 or 3 times a term before it comes boring (I think!?).
An almost failproof icebreaker is the survey. Surveys that relate to students’ personal lives easily engage their attention. It works as a comprehension and short discussion exercise. It’s a great way to introduce topics that relate to honesty.
“What would you do if you won one million dollars?”
Ranking icebreakers are a surefire way to engage students. They can be used for a whole range of topics. One good topic is money and spending preferences.
This doesn’t look like much but it’s cool! Students’ these days have strong opinions about online advertising and will come up with lots of examples (see the second page of PDF for a sample of student answers).
“Getting to Know You” is a pretty obvious idea. It’s a personal information exercise and allows the teacher to assess the student’s abilities. The only trouble I’ve had with this exercise is matching the questions to the student’s level of ability. The questions below seem to me to be suitably generic and have worked flawlessly in any elementary class I’ve taught so far (Thai students, Chinese students).
13 Brainstorming verbs and basic collocations: icebreaker for present simple and routines
This is another exercise that can be used with a variety of present simple exercises. I can be used to elicit language for making present simple questions or talking about routines. It helps to give the teacher a idea of the range of the students’ vocabulary. And it’s a useful way to get some vocabulary on the board for question writing activities.
14 What do you do on Mondays ?: icebreaker for parts of the day/days of the week
This exercise is another great exercise for really elementary students that doesn’t demand too much of them. It’s a good way to get into teaching the days of the week and prepositions.
15 Everyday brainstorm: icebreaker daily activities and routines
This brainstorm activity explores vocabulary associated with routines and time. I walk around the class asking students “What do you do everyday in the morning?” , “What do you do once a week?” etc. It’s a nice, friendly way to start a class.
16 Circle of frequency: icebreaker for adverbs of frequency
Following on from the previous exercise, this icebreaker can be used used to introduce and familiarize students with verbs adverbs of frequency. You might ask students questions like “What do you sometimes eat at a department store?” or “What do you often do on weekends?”.
17 Pictures icebreaker: icebreaker for present continuous, routines and daily activities
For me, activities using pictures are perhaps the most consistently successful of anything I do in the classroom. They can be used in so many ways. They force students to think and use their imaginations. And they are open to interpretation which can often lead to unexpected discoveries about meaning or culture or individual differences.
18 Shopping brainstorm word map: icebreaker for talking about shopping
Shopping is a pretty fundamental topic in elementary textbooks. And it’s pretty easy to get students engaged and bring out some vocabulary with the exercise below.
20 House and furniture: icebreaker for discussing where you live/your house
Some icebreakers are so simple you might feel a fool for not having thought of them before. I certainly have. Brainstorming things…furniture …items…adjectives ..etc that might be used for parts of the house. What a no-brainer! But I didn’t think of it for 30 years of teaching. Icebreakers like this are great for setting up question writing exercises. Once the board is full of vocabulary, you can give a couple example questions, “What kind of furniture do you have in your living room?/ Do you have a big bed?/ Do you have a microwave in your kitchen etc…..” and ask students to create their own questions around the vocabulary.
Another really straightforward and easy brainstorm is a jobs brainstorm. This works with pretty much any level as even the most elementary students can name jobs. A really, really easy way to start a class.
Brainstorming about colors is an easy icebreakerl. You could almost use this icebreaker anytime but perhaps it could be good for introducing adjectives or for topics like fashion and advertising.
Another useful and east brainstorming and icebreaking activity is brainstorming places around town. Like “Colors” this exercise is painless and usually fun and often leads you down some interesting paths.
6 Elementary Conversational Expressions and Listening Exercises
Matching elementary and common conversational expressions and phrases to pictures is a great way of teaching students by giving visual context to language and vocabulary. Audio files are now being added to provide context and useful listening practice .
1 Elementary expressions for going out & socializing (with answers and audio)
This is another listening and vocabulary worksheet focusing on language used when people go out shopping and socializing. The instructions are the same as the exercise above.
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2 Elementary greeting, introductions and common expressions listening and vocabulary exercise (with answers and audio)
This is a great exercise for a really elementary class. It’s a listening and vocabulary activity. First, the students listen to the audio and write the correct letter on each picture. They audio should be played in a repeated loop until the students get a grasp of the task. Then, as a review and to reinforce the vocabulary, the students write the matching expressions below the pictures. Of course, it’s also possible to the vocabulary matching first and the listening second.
Common expressions for everyday socializing/everyday living
5 Elementary expressions for eating and talking about food (with audio and answers)
And here is some essential language used when people are eating, talking about food or going to restaurants. First, listen to the audio and match the items. Then, listen again (and again) and match the vocabulary to the pictures.
6 Common Socializing and Small Talk Dialogues Listening/Speaking Exercises
Socializing includes many varied and unexpected but common everyday situations which require competent speaking skills. Students of a foreign language have to be prepared to encounter these situations and be ready with appropriate responses. Pictures help give context to these situations and help students imagine how they might respond.
1 Common imperatives for socializing
This is a listening/speaking exercise for teaching imperatives used in every day situations.
2 Social Speaking Skills (with sample answers, audio and video)
This is a general socializing language listening/speaking exercise to help English language learners practice expressions and phrases used in everyday conversational encounters. Students can challenge their own speaking skills competency by trying to complete the conversational exchanges on the worksheet and then listening to the audio.
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3 Business socializing and talking on the phone (with sample answers, audio and video)
This is another socializing language listening/speaking exercise focusing on a business woman’s life.
4 Socializing with friends and family (with answers)
More short dialogues and speech bubbles for socializing with friends and family speaking skills exercise to help language learners improve their communicative fluency. Students look at the pictures and fill in appropriate questions and answers.
5 Socializing and common everyday situations (with answers)
Students learning a foreign language face unexpected but common everyday situations which require socializing skills. This worksheet challenges to find responses to some of these common experiences.
