It has been over 18 years since I started teaching English to students in the UK and South Korea, with varying degrees of success. In the following video, I share ten different ways to get your students speaking either in an online or face-to-face environment.

1. Themed Discussion Questions

The first tip for anyone new to teaching English and getting students to speak would be to focus on teaching themes or topics with students. When you get students studying such themes or topics, then they will be geared to discussing such aspects. If you are unsure about how best to get students talking, then head over to ChatGPT or use Preply’s AI tool to get some suggested discussion questions on such a topic. I always recommend that you spend a little time editing and adjusting the questions to best suit the students.

2. Twenty Questions

This speaking activity was a favourite of mine when I was teaching English to either teens or young adults, particularly as a way to review language. It is a simple activity where students ask closed questions and the nominated student at the front of the classroom can only answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Obviously, you choose a student randomly to sit at the front of the class, show them a word or a picture that they have learned together during the lesson or week. Students gain a point if they successfully guess the word or picture. This works best should the word be a noun, so students are able to ask questions such as ‘Are you an animal?’ or ‘Do you live in the sea?’. Get your students asking questions and keep an eye on whether questions are formed correctly.

3. Change The Question

Another creative question formation activity would be for when students generate a new question by changing or adding one word. It heightens awareness of grammatical constructions with students developing questions. This speaking activity can be done either one-to-one or as a class. If you are teaching one-to-one, you first of all ask a student a question and they answer. Next, tell the student to change or add a word which they ask to you. You answer and then change the question. If teaching a group of students, you get students to sit in a circle and you ask a student to your right (or left) a question, they answer, and then adjust the question, asking a student on their right (or left). This continues until all students have adapted the questions until it comes to you. Keep a pen and a piece of paper handy to make a note of any corrections or language that could be developed further. It is a simple yet engaging activity and can be useful for first lessons and getting to know the students.

4. Describing Two Pictures

The fourth speaking task is a simple activity which involves sourcing two pictures which are similar in theme or appearance with some key differences. For those familiar with the Cambridge suite of examinations, this activity is similar to one of the speaking tasks where a student describes the similarities and differences between two pictures. It is simple and can be used either for exam preparation or for simple speaking tasks. If you want to make it more complex, you could source two completely different images and students, who are either being taught one-to-one or as part of a group, have to come up with a story or how the two images are connected. This makes things challenging yet encourages learners to be as creative as possible.

5. Show And Tell

This speaking task is where students bring along an object from their home to the classroom and describe the object to other students (or the teacher if you are teaching one-to-one). It makes sense for the teacher to demonstrate the activity the lesson prior, so students can prepare for the task. Bring along an object to the class: it could be something small or personal. You explain to students that you have something special to share with the students, and encourage them to ask questions about the object. Respond to questions, making a note of any language that could be developed or scaffolded. Once you have completed the task, tell students that their homework for the next lesson is to bring along something that is special or sentimental for them to class. If you are teaching a class of students, place students into small groups – twos or threes – and then monitor students as they ask and respond to questions. One final task could be for students to present their object in a minute or two to the rest of the class.

6. Story Cubes

For this task, you could either use physical Story Cubes or an online alternative, such as ESL Story Dice or Dave Birss’ Story Dice. Students roll the dice and then have to come up with a story – it usually works best if you are teaching groups of students. However, if you are teaching individual students, you could help monitor and support learners with language when they need it. Once students have formulated a story, they then tell this to other groups or the teacher. This task could be extended so that groups or individual students write up their story. It is a wonderful activity and getting a few physical Story Cubes are great as a Show And Tell activity, as suggested in the previous activity.

7. Taboo

The seventh speaking activity is a favourite amongst English language teachers. Essentially students have to describe a word but not use any of the words suggested below the key word. The other students have to guess the word and it encourages students to be rather creative when describing it. It can get a bit energetic when learners are shouting out answers and there is minimal preparation required when getting things together for this task. I have added one worksheet should you wish to print it out and cut up the taboo cards.

As you will note from the worksheet, you can print these out for students or create your own with language that has been taught in the lesson.

8. Sell Me A Product

This speaking activity can be arranged with minimal preparation, with students having to sell a product on the spot. You can either prepare a PowerPoint with images of weird and wonderful inventions, otherwise you could get students to pick their own objects to market to the class. It can either be a small task that you organise or a mini-project that students plan and develop over the term of the course. There is no limit to this project with students having the opportunity to even create a video marketing their project which could then be shared to the class. It is a wonderful activity which would really engage learners and also get students communicating in English, either in their groups or with the rest of the class.

Should you wish to make this activity a short one to fill the final ten minutes of class, students could stand at the front of the classroom where they have to promote a product which is shown on a projector via PowerPoint (as suggested before). Students would then have no idea what the product they are attempting to sell but it could cause for some rather funny ad hoc moments in the classroom where learners focus on communicating and forget about making mistakes.

9. Ranking

The ninth speaking task that you could incorporate into your lessons would be where students have to organise selected objects and place them in order of preference, convenience or another chosen variable. It is a simple activity where you can elicit nouns from students on the topic that you are teaching, board them up, and then get them to place them in order individually.

If you prefer to organise some material, then you could use the downloadable template and change the topic and their corresponding nouns. It is a simple activity which gets students discussing and sharing opinions with minimal preparation needed from the teacher.

10. Balloon Debate

One of the most popular speaking activities is balloon debate. You could either get students to come up with a range of famous and well known individuals, such as politicians, musicians, film stars, or writers, otherwise prepare to share a range of people to students. If student decide to come up with their own ideas, you could board up their ideas up on the whiteboard and ensure you have at least ten people on the board.

The next step is to explain to students that all these famous people are on the same hot air balloon but it is now slowly losing altitude over a crocodile invested river and they need to decide on five people that must be thrown off the hot air balloon to spare the remaining individuals. If they do not decide on five people, then everyone will perish. There is no right answer but all students must agree and provide a suitable reason, and they only have 20 minutes to make a decision.

Monitor students and check that they are on task and provide some input or correction where necessary. After 20 minutes, get students to the front of the class to share their ideas.


So these are the ten speaking activities that you could incorporate into your online or face-to-face lessons. What are your favourite speaking activities? Feel free to share in the comments.

If you are interested in more activities for your lessons, then I would highly recommend Discussions and More: Oral Fluency Practice in the Classroom by Penny Ur.