1. SPEAKING IN THE CLASSROOM A TESOL ITALY SEMINAR
ACTIVITY 1
Task 1: Read the following statements and put a tick in the column that best represents
your opinion.
totally partially partially totally
agree agree disagree disagree
1 Being able to speak fluently in English is important.
2 Being able to speak correctly in English is important.
3 Students enjoy speaking to their classmates in English.
4 Students want to be corrected when they speak.
5 Speaking activities pose classroom management problems.
6 Classroom speaking activities can easily integrate reading,
writing, and listening skills.
7 Classroom speaking activities can easily integrate grammar
and vocabulary learning.
Task 2: Decide which statement is most significant for you and tell your partner what you
decided and why.
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ACTIVITY 2 Inside Outside Circle
Instructions
- Find a partner. Join the circle. One of you is in the outer circle and one in the inner circle.
- Read your question together and make sure you understand it.
- The dance begins
- Every student in the inner circle will now move to the left - a new partner. The students in
the outer circle remain in place.
- Ask your new partner your question. Your partner must spend one minute answering the
question; now you must spend 1 minute answering your partner’s question. Take a few
notes of the answers you get.
- Then every student in the inner circle moves to the left again and the procedure is
repeated.
- The procedure is repeated until you reach your original partner. Share the information
you have gathered and prepare to report to the group on the most significant information.
1 Tell me about the last time you went shopping for new clothes.
2 What did you do in your free time when you were a teenager?
3 What can you tell me about your name?
4 Describe your favorite pasta dish?
Beth Ann Boyle 1
Letizia Corbucci
February 16, 2009

2. SPEAKING IN THE CLASSROOM A TESOL ITALY SEMINAR
ACTIVITY 3 Insistence Questions
(Simple questions to provoke thinking and talking)
Have a volunteer ask you the same question, eg. Where do you live? You give as many
truthful answers as you can, eg. In Poland. In Sopot. About three minutes from the beach.
Near a park. In a house with 10 rooms.
Ask the students to work in pairs. Student A repeatedly asks: Where do you live? Student
B gives between 10 and 20 different answers. Then ask the pairs to switch roles.
Students change partners and this time you change the question: What do you do in your
everyday life? You can continue the activity with as many questions as you like, such as:
What are you good at doing?; What do you believe in?; Who are you? - and so on,
according to age, level and time.
(Rinvolucri, M.; Baker, J.)
ACTIVITY 4 Linking ideas
(Conjunctions enrich thinking)
Ask a student to work with you and demonstrate the activity to the class. The student
thinks of something he/she really likes doing and is prepared to talk about.
Ask the others to write everything the volunteer says.
You (teacher): Tell me something you really like doing.
Student: I really like XX
You: You really like XX and…?
You: Why do you like it?
Student: It relaxes me. I go into a different world when I XX.
You: You go into a different world when you XX and…?
Student: and I forget all my worries…
And so on…
Have the students experiment with other connecters, for example: but, whenever, because,
and then, so, however, yet; according to age, level and time.
(Rinvolucri, M.; Baker, J.)
ACTIVITY 5 What Evidence?
(evaluating information, giving reasons)
Each team receives a copy of the handout (see ppt). The students now have to discuss
what evidence each of them would accept as regards the truth of each statement. They
should not discuss whether they believe that a statement is true but what evidence would
convince them. If students cannot agree on acceptable proof they should note down the
different opinions. At the end, each group reports to the class.
(Kippel F.)
ACTIVITY 6 Tongue twisters
(Use your memory and fluency)
Write a tongue twister on the board and read it with the students slowly at first, then
faster. Make sure students pronunciation is acceptable. If you want, after a while you can
erase a word or two to see if they can remember it correctly. Every time you erase a word
you should replace the word with a line, i.e. “Shy Shelly ____ she shall ___ sheets”.
Continue until the whole TT is erased.
- Give papa a cup of proper coffee in a
Eg. - A noisy noise annoys an oyster.
copper coffee cup.
- Shy Shelly says she shall sew sheets.
- Three free throws.
Beth Ann Boyle 2
Letizia Corbucci
February 16, 2009

3. SPEAKING IN THE CLASSROOM A TESOL ITALY SEMINAR
ACTIVITY 7 Joining words
Show where you can join a word ending with a consonant sound to a word starting with a
vowel sound using this symbol: then listen and practice the poem.
There was an old man called Greg,
Who tried to break open an egg.
He kicked it around,
But fell on the ground,
And found that he’d broken a leg.
(Hancock M)
ACTIVITY 8 Find the Differences
This is a well-known but always useful activity.
Students work in pairs. One student gets
picture A; the other gets picture B. Without
looking at their partner’s picture, the students
must find the differences in the picture.
(Ur P)
ACTIVITY 9 Guessing answers
Pair/Group work or teacher controlled activity
Ask your students to draw their own star.
Ask each person to write answers inside each space
and then ask the students to guess (in groups or in
pairs) what the questions could be. red
Variation: Write some answers on the blackboard.
Ask your students to guess what the questions
could be. This activity focuses on the content of the
answers and students don’t necessarily care about
the mistakes they make as long as they guess what
the question is. Adapt it to the level of your students.
Focus on grammar, vocabulary, tenses, etc.
Beth Ann Boyle 3
Letizia Corbucci
February 16, 2009

4. SPEAKING IN THE CLASSROOM A TESOL ITALY SEMINAR
ACTIVITY 10 (groups of five – group roles: secretary, spokesperson, “3 thinkers”).
Instructions
Thinkers: discuss 1) which activities from the list you could do with your classes, 2) if and
how you could evaluate your students’ performance, 3) and then which grids could be
used and in what situation.
Secretary: Listen to the discussion and take notes for the spokesperson to use.
Spokesperson: Prepare (with the secretary) to report on the discussion content.
ACCURACY-BASED ACTIVITIES FLUENCY-BASED ACTIVITIES
Aim: Aim:
'accurate', i.e. clear, articulate, 'fluent', i.e. flowing, natural
grammatically and phonologically language
correct language
Activities: Activities:
question-answer drills skits/role plays/simulations
substitution drills discussions / pyramid discussion
chain drills debates - e.g. balloon debate
elicited dialogues negotiations / meetings
split dialogues storytelling / anecdotes / jokes
information gap activities - e.g. find project work/ presentations
someone who* ranking activities
games - e.g. guessing games, sentence modification
anyone who .. interviews
pronunciation games - etc. games - e.g. 'talk for a minute'
personalized activities - e.g. personalized activities - e.g.
sentence completion sentence completion,
questionnaires and surveys questionnaires and surveys
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WEBSITES
Some activities
http://bogglesworldesl.com/bank_roleplay.htm (role plays)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8136/tonguetwisters.html (tongue twisters)
http://www.esldiscussions.com/ (100 ready-to-go A/B discussion questions)
http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/ (crossword puzzle generator)
http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/phrases.html (Conversation phrases/topics)
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/resources/illustrations/index.asp (drawings and photos)
http://www.weac.org/Multimedia/cartoons.aspx (cartoons)
http://www.eslflow.com/speakingandcommunicativeicebreakeractivities.html (activities)
Some rubrics
http://www.eslgo.com/resources/sa/oral_evaluation.html
http://teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/oralex/
http://www.necc.mass.edu/deved/pdf/ESLOralRatingForm.pdf
Beth Ann Boyle 4
Letizia Corbucci
February 16, 2009