The conversations are between 2 and 4 people and are between, friends, going to the doctors, golf, at the airport, hair and beauty, talking on the phone, talking about the weather and various other things. When you have decided which lesson about conversation you want to view just click on the lesson of your choice.
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If you're just starting to learn English, there's no better way to improve your speaking skills than with basic conversation exercises. These simple role-playing games will help you learn how to introduce yourself, how to ask for directions, and more. With practice, you'll be able to understand others and begin to enjoy conversations in your new language.
All you need to begin are the basic conversation guides you'll find below and a friend or classmate to practice with. Be patient with yourselves; English is not an easy language to learn, but you can do it. Begin with the first conversation in this list, then move on to the next when you feel comfortable doing so. You can also use the key vocabulary provided at the end of each exercise to write and practice your own conversations.
Learn how to ask and answer simple questions in English with these articles. Key skills covered include basic questions, polite questions, asking permission, and providing personal information such as your name, address, and phone number.
Learning how to introduce yourself and greet people both formally and informally are essential skills in any language, whether it's your own or a new one you're studying. In these lessons, you learn how to say hello and goodbye, as well as vocabulary that you can use when meeting new people and making friends. Giving Personal Information
Even if you're just visiting an English-speaking country for a few days, knowing how to tell the time is important. This role-playing exercise teaches you the right phrases to ask a stranger what time it is. You'll also learn how to thank the person who helped you, plus key conversation words.
And if you're going to tell time, you'll also need to know how to express numbers in English. This article will help you out with all kinds of numbers, including weights, distance, decimals, and more. Finally, when expressing quantities, English uses uses either much or many, depending on whether the noun is countable or non-countable.
Phone calls can be challenging for people who don't speak English well. Improve your telephone skills with this exercise and vocabulary quiz. Learn how to make travel arrangements and how to make purchases over the phone, plus other important words. Best of all, you'll use the conversation skills you learned in the other lessons here.
Everyone loves to go shopping for new clothes, especially if you're visiting a foreign country. In this exercise, you and your practice partner learn the basic vocabulary that you'll use in a shop. Although this particular game is set in a clothing store, you can use these skills in any kind of store.
After you're finished shopping, you might want to eat at a restaurant or go to a bar for a drink. In these dialogues, you learn how to order from a menu and how to ask questions about the food, whether you're by yourself or out with friends. You'll also find a quiz to help you improve your restaurant vocabulary.
Security at most major airports is very tight, so you should expect to speak English with many different people when you're traveling. By practicing this exercise, you'll learn how to have basic conversations when you check in as well as when you go through security and customs.
It's easy for anyone to lose their way when traveling, especially if you don't speak the language. Learn how to ask simple directions and how to understand what people tell you. This exercise gives you basic vocabulary plus tips for finding your way. Finally, you'll want to know how to ask for a room at a hotel or motel once you've arrived at your destination.
Nothing is worse than not feeling well and not knowing how to communicate with a doctor. These tips, vocabulary lists, and sample dialogues can help you practice making an appointment.
These basic English conversations can also be used in a classroom setting. Here are a few suggestions for using conversation lessons and role-playing activities:
Your adult students crave conversation more than anything else.
Career-minded businesspeople, retirees and young adults itching to travel, immigrants living in a new country—they all want practical English that will keep them involved a meaningful discussion and not sidelined by the inability to engage.
A bit of conversation in the classroom goes a long way.
Listening, developing responses and putting critical English thinking caps on are among the trending skills that adult ESL students really want.
These are the skills that will let them get out there, survive on their own, navigate new places, meet new people and get anything done.
Give your adult students what they yearn for by utilizing a few, or all, of these fetching adult conversation lessons!
It is simple. Adult ESL lessons are often geared toward learning English for a specific purpose.
Career advancement is often the most common reason adult ESL learners will fill the seats of your classroom. There is usually a balance of these ladder climbers and general English learners (learning for learning’s sake) coupled with those who need English for conversation with family, friends, partners and natives met during travels.
As noted earlier, the element of travel may definitely be a motive for adults to take up English. You may have a handful of retirees breach your door’s threshold in search of vital travel English for their upcoming trip, or young adults ready to see the whole world.
So, combining the business topics with more general interest topics will give your adult ESL students the essential skills they need to communicate effectively with foreign friends, family, colleagues and/or clients.
When teaching adult ESL students, it is important to focus on practical English vocabulary. You want your adult students to be able to communicate efficiently, be understood and have the vocabulary comprehension to soak up sentences they may have outside the classroom. You may need to introduce a few words or phrases that may not be so grammatically sound, but that is all right for your adult students.
It is also vital to focus on practical conversations in your adult ESL lessons. Think about your own personal conversations with colleagues, clients, friends and family. What do you talk about? What type of language or tone do you use in different conversational settings? Recording a few of your daily conversations could make a great deal of difference to you and your adult students when reviewing native English conversations in class.
During your career as an ESL teacher, you may find a myriad of diverse adult students, with diverse skills and needs, filling the spaces around your classroom table.
The degree of challenge you will implement in your adult conversation lessons will most certainly depend on your students’ levels.
The differences in vocabulary may not be so different, but the sentence construction and focus on grammar might be. For example, while focusing on the words “job” and “work” with your students, the context, depth and sentence structure for each word may vary. For example:
You can see the difference in how you would interact with your students in conversation.
Regardless of the level of language you are teaching, the emphasis on introducing vocabulary with context and practical usage for the future is quite possibly the most foundational aspect of teaching adult ESL conversation lessons.
Let’s take a look at five wonderful ways to converse effectively with your adult students of different English levels using various topics.
This conversation lesson is exceptional for your beginner adult students. It implements key vocabulary that is easy to follow while discussing the target topics of work, jobs, likes and dislikes. The essential ESL skills that are built during this lesson include reading, listening, communication, informative discussion, vocabulary and developing questions and answers that bolster practical conversation.
You will first focus on the reading and listening comprehension involved in this activity. Your beginner students will read a short text, after you read it out loud first in order to develop listening skills vital to conversation.
Sample Text:
Tom is a banker. He works banking hours, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the National Bank of Ohio. Tom truly likes his job and attended university for his degree in finance and accounting. Tom really likes his colleagues. He likes working with them, and he likes discussing their weekend experiences on Monday morning with them too. Tom also likes the people who come to the bank, especially his regulars.
Sample Comprehension Questions:
The simplicity of the comprehension questions is important for your beginner students. You want to keep them engaged without discouraging them with challenging questions right out of the gate. Here are a few more examples for this beginner conversation lesson here.
Now that your students have a handle on Tom’s job and can answer questions relating to it, open the floor for them to discuss their work. This is when the practical conversation comes into play.
Ask them about their work. Even if you have already discussed these topics, your students are much more warmed up this time around. You can also record the follow-up discussion and discuss that with your students later.
Sample Conversation Questions:
Conducting a grocery shopping ESL lesson with your adult students may seem elementary, but it is a daily task that is actually a large part of how your student may navigate simple conversation.
If your students begin to doubt your abilities when you mention this lesson, thinking it seems like far too simple a topic to need covering in class, take those students to the grocery store—or make up a faux grocery store in your classroom with printed pictures and food items—and begin asking them multiple questions in English. They will soon find the importance of such a seemingly simple lesson.
For this conversation lesson, you will need to build a dialogue surrounding grocery shopping. Maybe you could even record your next shopping experience with a friend or family member to get some more creative ideas as well, capturing things that naturally unfold during a routine shopping trip.
Communication, dialogue, vocabulary building and snappy English thought are all ESL skills represented in this wonderful conversation lesson for your adult students.
Sample Dialogue:
A: What do we need to get?
Ecotect autodesk. B: I forgot our shopping list at home.
A: Are you serious? Don’t joke with me.
B: I did, I am really sorry. Can’t believe I did that again.
A: Well, I think we need carrots, chicken, butter…
B: And milk and eggs, don’t forget those.
A: Right!
B: Should we get ice cream?
A: Remember the last time we got ice cream? It was delicious, but we ate too much!
The value of this example dialogue is to show your students how many questions and answers are commonly found in English conversation. People will often ask you things, from the small to the very, very big.
It also highlights areas of not so proper grammar, but is still how many native English speakers converse.
Sample Comprehension Questions:
Once you and your students have built a solid foundation of understanding with these questions, practicing with a few great dialogue scripts, like this similar example you can also use, takes it all to a real-world level.
As suggested before, at this point you could accompany your students to a grocery store or create a pretend grocery store in your classroom. Either way, this is a great environment to begin a natural, free-flowing discussion surrounding shopping, cooking, what they eat normally or any other related topic that comes to mind.
Sample Conversation Questions:
This conversation lesson has plenty of discussion opportunities built into it.
Discussing superstitions, especially the bizarre ones, can bring about all sorts of colorful conversations. This lesson is excellent for your intermediate adult students with a focus on new vocabulary, discussion, reading, listening, opinions, storytelling and creative English expression.
First, you will want to set the stage for the superstition communication to take place. It is possible that your students know what superstitions are, but have never known the word to describe them until now.
Sample Conversation Questions:
Since superstitions are rarely discussed in English classrooms, the vocabulary and conversation will evoke some serious English brain fuel to get things moving in the right direction. However, once it does, everything will begin to flow smoothly and so will the conversation!
Once the concept of superstition is developed, begin introducing some new superstitions that will provoke more discussion between students.
Pair your students up and give each pair a worksheet with several superstitions and their meanings. Each superstition will have a few questions your paired up students can utilize to spark up practical and inventive conversation.
Sample Conversation Questions Based On Common Superstitions:
You could even fold a personal writing activity into this lesson, having students dictate their conversation partners’ answers to the questions. You can utilize these great superstition examples for developing this lesson plan further.
This lesson is similar to the beginner lesson previously discussed. However, this lesson is more concentrated for listening comprehension, a valuable ESL skill in communication, and wonderful for your intermediate adult students.
The ESL skills involved in this conversation lesson include listening, communication, English thought and expression when answering questions during discussion.
For this lesson, you will need to develop a few short paragraphs explaining different people’s careers, similar to the previous beginner conversation lesson on jobs and work, but more robust in description.
First you will read the short career captions, having your students listen only. This will allow them to hone those vital listening skills! There are plenty of excellent examples you can draw from on the Internet, like this one, to make this lesson a home run for your adult students.
Sample Text:
Harry is a firefighter and he loves his demanding job. Harry wakes up very early in the morning, at around 5 a.m. on the days he works and drives 30 minutes to the fire station in downtown Los Angeles. He needs to know a lot about different firefighter techniques and tools. He also needs to have basic medical knowledge for emergencies. He really likes his fellow firefighters, especially Larry, his best friend. They completed firefighter training together. Harry works 24 hours straight and is then off of work for two days.
Sample Comprehension Questions:
You can develop several of these career-minded paragraphs and comprehension questions. After a few, let your students develop a short paragraph about their careers and have them read them out loud to you or to partners.
Break them down into pairs (if they are not already in pairs) and have them listen to each other’s job descriptions while they read them aloud again. Then they should take turns asking each other questions about those job descriptions.
Then your students can ask you a few comprehension questions to spark more conversation during this communicative conversation lesson.
This conversation lesson is perfect for your advanced students ready to discuss current events that may be controversial and trending on various news outlets.
The ESL skills your advanced adult students will gain from this exceptional communication building lesson are reading, listening, English expression, critical English thought, vocabulary and advanced grammar. You may even find it useful to add a few idioms or phrasal verbs as well, depending on your students’ comfort levels.
First you will need to find a controversial issue that may be of importance to your students. It is always a wonderful idea to find a topic that relates and/or will be of interest in order to keep your class engaged. You can use utilize the below example or check out this link for more great ideas.
Sample Text:
The overfishing of the Pacific Ocean has become a very serious debate over the last few decades. Asian countries have been the brunt of much negative press after fishing vessels in the Pacific pull up giant whales for the fishery market. Many North American and European activists are wholeheartedly against the business of catching and killing whales for food. However, many Asian countries maintain that it is part of their culture and subsistence practices.
Sample Conversation Questions:
Developing conversation lessons for your adult ESL class is essential to the growth and success of your students, both in language learning and professionally.
They will have the exceptional support and knowledge of you while they navigate practical adult conversations that will keep them in the discussion at work with colleagues and clients.
Your students will also develop faster response times to questions and begin honing their listening skills as conversations happen in real time, just like a native speaker.
Searching for fun, authentic videos to introduce your students to English conversation? Check out FluentU!
It’s got a huge collection of authentic English videos that people in the English-speaking world actually watch on the regular. There are tons of great choices there when you’re looking for songs for in-class activities. You’ll find music videos, musical numbers from cinema and theater, kids’ singalongs, commercial jingles and much, much more.
On FluentU, all the videos are sorted by skill level and are carefully annotated for students. Words come with example sentences and definitions. Students will be able to add them to their own vocabulary lists, and even see how the words are used in other videos.
For example, if a student taps on the word “brought,” they’ll see this:
Plus, these great videos are all accompanied by interactive features and active learning tools for students, like multimedia flashcards and fun games like “fill in the blank.”
It’s perfect for in-class activities, group projects and solo homework assignments. Not to mention, it’s guaranteed to get your students excited about English!
The full FluentU video library is available on any computer or tablet, and users can even download the app at the iTunes and Google Play store.
Stephen Seifert is a writer, editor, professor of English and adventurer. With over 8 years of teaching experience to students worldwide, he enjoys the many aspects of culture and traditions different from his own. Stephen continues his search for writing inspiration, boldly enjoying life to the fullest.
If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.