ESL Elementary Conversation Prompts

This is a simple activity to lead a conversation class with a low-level group of ESL learners. It may be adapted for a 1-1 lesson by simply the teacher being the partner.

Print and cut out cards. Separate into 2 groups - questions and answers, and sentence prompts and extra general questions.

Part 1 of the lesson:
Organise students in pairs.
Teach basic questions used when meeting someone for the first time by having students match questions to answers. Once they have matched pairs, have then organise the questions and answers into how they think the conversation would flow. Have pairs act out the dialogue.
Tell students to act out the dialogue again but only using the questions. They should use the dialogue answers as models to create their own sentences about themselves.

Part 2 of the lesson:
Put 2 pairs together from Part 1 in order to form groups of 4.
Hand out the second group of cards and tell students to mix them up face down. Students take turns drawing a card and must create a sentence using the prompt. If they draw a question card, they may ask anyone in the group the question. They should be encouraged to ask follow-up questions (depending on how strong the students are).