Adult Language Class Conversation Topics

Resource for ESL and for other Foreign Language Lesson Plans

Feb 6, 2009

ESL Class for Adults, Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Chris Schmidt

Here is a list of questions and topics for ESL teachers, and for other foreign language teachers, to encourage students to talk freely in language classes.

This list of conversation topics and open questions to students is a great tool for ESL teachers to build quality lesson plans. It is important when teaching English as a foreign language, or when teaching any language as a foreign language, that students are motivated to use their language in unprepared exercises. These topics offer motivated language learning at its best.

How to Use these Questions and Topics in ESL Conversation Class

ESL teachers may simply choose a question or two at appropriate points in a lesson plan. Alternatively, place each question and/or topic onto a small slip of paper and put selected questions into a box or bag, asking students to pull one question or topic out each. This has the advantage that you can discard each topic or question once it has been asked. Another, similarly random, approach is to number each question or topic, and ask each student to choose a number, without revealing the list!

Teachers will, of course, wish to adapt and select this list to suit the level and interests of individual groups of students. These questions and topics may also be used in one-to-one language tuition.

Open Questions for ESL Teaching

What is success for you?
If you had $1000 that you had to spend today, what would you buy?
Who would you most like to meet, and why?
Do you enjoy sport? On the TV, yourself?
How do you relax after a busy week?
What is the best thing/the worst thing about your country?
Do you prefer the town or the countryside?
To live in [a country in which the target language is spoken] – a dream or a nightmare?
Do you enjoy your own company?
What is your favorite breakfast?
What is your favorite website?
Do you eat to live, or live to eat?
Who do you most admire from history?

Topics to Spark Discussion when ESL Teaching

My ideal day.
My indispensable luxury.
The pleasures and challenges of my job or studies.
What I did this weekend.
My best ever vacation.
My ideal vacation.
The happiest moment of my life.
A failure that turned out well.
Three objects that I would take with me onto an isolated desert island, and why?
Three CDs that I would take with me onto an isolated desert island, and why?
Three books that I would take with me onto an isolated desert island, and why?

Topical or Controversial Issues

Some controversial topics will almost certainly spark discussion, but should only be raised at the teacher’s discretion once he or she knows the class well.

Is religion or spirituality important to you?
What is your opinion on [current debate in the news]?
Who should win the next Nobel Peace Prize?

As your relationship with a class builds, build on this list by adding questions on topics of particular interest, ensuring that questions are open and require more than a one word answer. You will find these questionsof great benefit to your students.