TEACHING STRATEGIES

Best ESL Speaking Activities for Adults

22 April 2025/ By Zineb DJOUB

Speaking can be overwhelming in ESL contexts. Learners have to think about grammar, choose the right words, stay fluent, and somehow sound confident—all at once. For adult learners, the pressure is even greater. Interacting with others can feel daunting, if not risky. Many prefer to stay quiet to protect their self-esteem in front of others. But speaking skills can’t develop without practice. That’s why engaging, low-pressure, and well-structured ESL speaking activities for adults are essential.

In this post, I’ll walk you through my favourite ESL speaking activities for adults—organised into clear categories and packed with ideas you can try in class immediately.

1. Role plays for real-world communications

Role plays are among the ESL speaking activities for adults that can maximise their speaking time and develop their fluency.

They require learners to take on a role, imagine a situation, and improvise using their English.

Role plays are based on cards or situations described by the teacher. Therefore, for an optimal learning experience, consider situations your learners are likely to encounter, or they can draw on their own experiences.

Activity ideas:

• Situational dialogues include job Interviews, at the hotel/restaurant/store/hospital, etc.
• Acting out a story, or role-playing a scene, so that it has a different outcome.
• Talking about topics in groups where each member plays a role, such as ‘introducing the topic’, ‘giving advice’, ‘making suggestions’, etc.

2. Discussions with texts for deeper engagement

Using texts to generate discussion can effectively stimulate learners’ speaking skills. You can provide a text for your learners to read, after which they can discuss their opinions in pairs or groups, relating to its content.

To encourage conversation or debate in class, texts should outline:

• The main points of an issue or topic, for which students can suggest advice, a solution or a possible outcome.
• A narrative that encourages prediction of what might happen next, raises questions, or presents moral dilemmas.
• A description of life or people in the past which can be compared to the present.

 

Ensure that the selected text is neither too long nor too challenging for the learners’ level, and that it’s relevant to their age and experience.

However, it’s not enough to read a text and then ask learners: What do you think? There should be more structured tasks to ensure that everyone is involved in the discussion. You need to:

• Help them understand the meaning of the text by using prediction exercises such as keywords, visuals, or questionnaires.
• Personalise the topic by encouraging them to share their personal opinions and experiences.
• Provide a task for controlled debating by providing a list of pros and cons and supporting them with useful expressions to guide their discussions.

 

3. Speaking through projects and media

Involving learners in creating projects and presenting them in class can be quite engaging, as it taps into their creativity and interests.

They can, for instance, solve a problem, design a product, plan a trip and use technology to enhance and deliver their work.

Activity ideas:

#Mini-podcasts

Decide with your learners on a topic. You can provide guidelines to help them structure their talk (e.g., agree/disagree plus two reasons).

Then, each one uses their mobile phone to rehearse and record a brief talk expressing their opinion on the topic at their own pace. They upload their talks to a shared platform like Blackboard or Google Docs.

Learners then listen to and comment on each other’s talks, while you also listen and provide feedback.

# Storytelling projects

Collect a variety of magazine cut-outs or printed images showing people in different settings — someone waiting at a train station, a person holding a suitcase, a family at a picnic, etc.

Give each learner or pair one image and ask them to imagine: Who is this person? What are they doing? What will happen next?

Ask learners to create and record a short spoken story (2–3 minutes) based on their image.

# My video/post

Ask each learner to select a short video clip (1–3 minutes), social media post, or blog article that they find interesting, funny, controversial, or inspiring.

Then, they give a short spoken presentation (2–4 minutes) introducing the content, explaining why they chose it, summarising the key message or story and sharing their opinion.

You can use a “Talk Show format” in which the student is a guest and peers are the hosts, asking questions.

4. Fluency training techniques

Fluency activities aim to improve speed, ease, and flow of speech. Repeated tasks under timed conditions can make speaking more automatic and much easier.

Activity ideas:

#The 4/3/2 technique

In this technique, learners work in pairs, with one acting as the speaker and the other as a listener. The speaker talks for 4 minutes on a topic while their partner listens.

Then the pairs change, with each speaker giving the same information to a new partner in 3 minutes, followed by a further change and a 2-minute talk.

So, the speaker speaks three times, each time with a different listener. Each listener listens to three different speakers.

#Pass and talk technique

In this activity, each learner has a card with a task on it.

The tasks can involve describing something in a picture or the classroom, saying something about another person in the group, mentioning an item from the current news, or expressing an opinion on something.

The cards are passed around so that each learner performs the task on the card that they are holding. The passing around should happen several times, meaning that the same tasks are repeated several times.

#Speed dating

The learners face each other in pairs, arranged in two lines. Provide them with a topic, statement, or question to discuss for 20 seconds.

Encourage them to greet each other before starting the discussion on the given topic.

After 20 seconds, those in one line rotate to meet a new partner and discuss a new topic (or repeat the same topic for added fluency practice).

For advanced groups, ask them to share what they have just learned about their previous partner when they meet their new partner.

5. Games speaking activities

Speaking in front of others is often a stressful experience for learners, and this can make them unwilling to speak in class.

Using games, therefore, can help reduce anxiety and make speaking fun.

Activity ideas:

# Conversation Bingo

Learners draw a 3×3 grid on paper and choose a topic. They write one word or phrase related to the topic in each of the nine boxes on their grid.

Next, they get into pairs or small groups and start discussing the topic, without reading from their Bingo card.  They must listen for those words during group conversations.

When they get three words in a row, they call out “Bingo!” to win. You can then check their card and keep chatting or start a new round.

#Four truths and one lie

The learners work in teams to devise four true statements and one lie. They present their statements to another team, who has to guess which one is false.

# The nosy ghost

Set up the classroom with two lines of back-to-back chairs, ensuring one chair is missing for the ghost.

Prepare a list of interesting speaking topics that range from daily life to more abstract ideas.

Play some music and encourage the students to shimmy or dance around the chairs. When the music stops, everyone should sit down.

The learner who does not find a chair (the ghost) chooses one of the topics for the learners to discuss in pairs for 1-2 minutes. Keep the music playing while they talk to create a relaxed atmosphere.

The ghost floats around the room and listens to everyone’s conversations, then interrupts a conversation to comment or ask a question.

Get feedback from the ghost about the task you set, and rotate the role of the ghost every round so different learners can have that experience.

Final thoughts

These engaging ESL speaking activities for adults are essential for building confidence and encouraging communication.

However, we should also include consciousness-raising tasks that help learners notice how fluent speakers use language by drawing attention to features like formulaic expressions, discourse markers, pauses, and hesitation devices.

For example, learners may be asked to audiotape and transcribe a short conversation between two native speakers, identifying any fillers in the speech such as “you know,” “like,” or “I mean”.

As a follow-up, they can record a similar conversation with a peer and compare their use of fillers to those of native speakers.

Not only do these activities help learners develop their speaking fluency, but they also encourage them to reflect on their formal speaking, noting what they do well and where they need to make improvements.

What other ESL speaking activities for adults would you suggest? I’d love to hear from you.