Oral language is the foundation of reading and writing. If you can’t produce words you will have a hard time reading or writing them. 

The beginning of the school year is the perfect time to set routines in speaking activities that students find fun to play and that will improve students’ confidence in communicating in English. 

By playing games you are not only encouraging students to practice their speaking skills but also helping logical thinking and reasoning skills while improving your student’s vocabulary. 

Oral games are also a fun classroom activity to bond with your students. 

Top 5 No Prep Speaking Activities for ESL/ELL students

1. Story A – Z 

A student or teacher begins the story with a sentence that starts with A, for example, “Anyone seen my backpack?” The next student would continue with the next sentence, starting with the next letter in the alphabet and might say, “Beside the bookshelves.” The game goes on with each student adding to the story in alphabetical order. To help beginners you can brainstorm words that begin with that particular letter. 

2. Name Ten in Ten

A student chooses a category such as ‘School’. The other students have to come up with a total of 10 examples that fall under the category within 10 seconds. Students can work in teams and write the words or if you are time limited let them shout it out. The student who came up with the category will get to decide whose examples fit the best. The categories are a great way to review vocabulary. Most easy categories are fruit, school, animals, insects,school, food. The more you specify the category the harder it gets. 

3. Draw a Picture

This is one of my favorite speaking activities for students. This is a great way to review descriptive words. One student has a picture in mind that they need to describe, to their peers who have to draw it. Students most likely will come up with things like monsters, unicorns, princesses or aliens. Which  works quite well for this activity. Set a timer so students can have multiple turns. This activity is fun and interactive! Students will practice speaking and listening skills. The results can be beautiful or hilarious! 

4. Who Am I?

One student starts with a person, storybook or movie character in mind and asks, “Who am I?” The other student will then ask for clues and make guesses until they figure out the correct answer. I always make them write the person on a sticky note or they have to whisper in the teacher’s ear so the teacher can help prompting questions.

5. Two Truths and a Lie

This is a great icebreaker, especially at the beginning of the year but I play it all year round. I played this game on Mondays but related to their weekends; two truths about their weekends and one lie. After I while I would change the topic to for example family or vacations. For beginners, it is advised to use a sentence stem. One student thinks of three statements about himself/herself that they will share with the class. Two are true and one is a lie. For example, the student may say something like, “I have five cats, I’ve lived in three countries, and I’m a soccer player.” Then, the other students must guess which statement is a lie and if they can, explain why they think so. In the end, the student will reveal what the correct answer is.

What are you doing to increase oral skills ? Let me know in the comments.