Five no-prep speaking fluency activities for

ESL students

Ewa|Mar 30, 2022

When asked why they study English, most students will
say it’s because they want to communicate. They might
also want to find a better job, pass an exam or simply be
better at English, but oral communication is what
students usually put very high on their priority list. What is
more, many foreign language students admit that the fact
that they can speak a language they couldn’t speak, say, a
year earlier, makes them feel extremely satisfied and
keeps them motivated. Whether you teach low-level or
advanced learners, use these five speaking fluency
activities for ESL students to help them communicate
better in English. You can use the activities as warm-ups,
fillers, and whenever you feel that your students (and you!)
need them.

1. Small talk

Used every day by people all over the world, small talk or
a quick chat is a great way to practise fluency, revise and
make students feel more confident about speaking
English. It can be used with students on all levels and
repeated regularly in different forms. You can simply ask
your students how their weekend was, or how they’ve
been, but you could also choose a couple of questions
from the list below to make the classroom small talk more
varied. Ask follow-up questions and encourage other
students to do so, too.
  Do you like the weather today? / Is it too cold or too
hot for you? / Do you think it’ll rain?
 What were three things you did before the lesson? /
Did you have to rush to get here on time?
 What time did you get up this morning? / What time do
you think you’ll go to bed tonight?
 What have you eaten today? / Who have you talked to
today?
 What’s the most exciting thing you have done today? /
How has your day been so far?
 What’s the most boring thing you need to do this
week? / What are you looking forward to this week?
 What have you heard on the news lately?
 Have you seen any good films recently? / Have you
seen any funny videos on YouTube?
 Have you spoken, watched or read anything in
English since our last lesson?
 What five words or phrases can you remember from
our last lesson? What do they mean or when do we
use them?

If you want your students to practise small talk more,

check out our lesson plan on small talk.

2. Photos
Visual aids are not only a great prompt for speaking, but
they also make the lesson more interactive and
engaging. Regardless of the students’ level, they are a
valuable tool for practising speaking. There are numerous
websites where you can generate random pictures
(like here or here) and use them to make your students
talk. Apart from the obvious ‘describe the picture’ part,
use the set of questions below to make the task more
interesting or more appropriate for high-level students.
The questions work with any picture, and develop not only
speaking fluency, but also the ability to think critically in
English.

 Why was the photo taken/the picture made?

 Where would you expect to see it?
 Would you set it as the wallpaper on your computer?
 What feelings does it evoke in you?
 Would you change anything in it to make it more
interesting?
 Have you ever taken a similar photo/made a similar
picture?

Do you think your students could benefit from such

speaking fluency activities? In this lesson for lower-level
students you will find tasks to help with picture
description, and at the end of this lesson for advanced
students you will find sets of photos with extra questions.

3. Would you rather…?

An oldie but a goodie. Everybody likes talking about their

preferences, and as teachers we can use this fact to get
our students talking. The rule here is that students must
explain why they prefer something over something else,
because that is when production happens. Use the
examples below, and once your students get the gist of
the activity, ask them to prepare more of the ‘Would you
rather’ questions in pairs. Give them a theme: holidays,
work, lifestyle, possessions, extremes, etc. They can then
answer other students’ questions.

Would you rather…?

 visit the Sahara or Antarctica

 spend a week without your phone or sleeping on the
floor
 be the richest person in the world or the most
beautiful person in the world
 study physics or literature
  be a shop assistant or a doctor
 live by the beach or in the mountains
 celebrate your birthday every week or never
celebrate it again
 live right next to a stadium or an airport
 be too busy or be bored
 be able to breathe underwater or fly

4. Don’t stop talking

This is one of the best speaking fluency activities for ESL

students to use if your lower-level learners still don’t feel
comfortable speaking English. The purpose is to let them
have a simple conversation with a partner, without
worrying about accuracy, and enjoy the fact that they are
able to communicate in a foreign language. Put your
students in pairs and tell them they will talk about a topic
you give them for two minutes. Tell them the point is to
keep the conversation going, and that they can say
whatever comes into their mind. That means they can
share their own opinions and experience, but also ask
their partner questions. You, the teacher, want to hear
them speak English and that’s all you ask.
Some possible topics for the two-minute conversations
include: weekends, food, films, pets, birthdays, shopping,
family, cities, travelling, school. If you want to make it
more interesting, choose some of these less obvious
topics: carrots, socks, dolphins, dentists, headphones,
windows, jars, islands, queues, coffee.

5. Is it something we have in common?

This simple activity creates lots of opportunities for

students to ask questions. The following are some
examples of what you might say to your students about
yourself. You can obviously adapt the sentences so that
they are true for you.

 I always listen to classical music in the car.

 I have four pairs of trousers.
 There is a lamp in the corner of my bedroom.
 I’ve had two cups of tea today.
 I finish work at 7 on Thursdays.
 I went abroad twice last year.
 I can make lasagne and sushi.
 I was at a friend’s birthday party last weekend.
After hearing or reading one of your sentences, students
talk in pairs or groups to establish if it is something you
and they have in common. It probably isn’t, so they will
get one minute to modify the statement so that it is true
for the three of them. This will require either asking their
partners questions (e.g. Where do you listen to music? Do
you listen to classical music? Do you always listen to
something in the car?), or talking about their own
experience, e.g. of listening to music and going places by
car, until the other students decide that it is also true for
them. (There might be students who, once they realize a
sentence is untrue for all of them, will simply turn it into a
negative, or change the beginning to ‘My English
teacher…’. Make sure they know that is not what the
activity is about.)