Free EFL/ESL Conversation Activity/Game: The Topic and the Relationship

As an experienced ESL/EFL teacher, I know how difficult it can be to get ESL/EFL students to speak in English. Because of that, I’ve developed a free ESL/EFL activity/game that sparks conversation and gets ESL/EFL students to practice their oral communication skills. “The Topic and the Relationship” creates conversation by making use of students’ guessing and reasoning skills. It requires students to guess what the topic is and encourages them to explain what the relationship is between the topic and a set of word pairs that describe the topic. “The Topic and the Relationship” can be used as standalone material, together with ESL/EFL coursebooks or as an additional activity/game to render a foreign language lesson more interesting for students.

Step 1: Think of several themes/topics in the form of an object, concept, idea, definition or stereotype. They should be thought of beforehand. Don’t share them with students, at least not yet.

Step 2: Come up with a list of word pairs to describe each topic. For example, if one of the themes/topics were “war”, the list of words paired together could be: “battle /skirmish, gun /knife, soldiers/ uniform.” Another example could be a concept such as “love” and the list of words paired together could be: “interest/dislike, good/evil, warm/cold, strong/weak.” Keep in mind the words don’t necessarily have to have anything in common with each other. They’re just put into pairs to give students hints about what the topic is.

Step 3: Write the list of word pairs on board/flipchart. Write the words for one topic at a time.

Step 4: Have students try to guess the topic. Repeat the procedure for the other topics until topics have been guessed.

Step 5: Invite students to orally explain the relationship between the words and the topic. Get students to use the words on the board/flipchart. Do this for every topic. For example, if the topic were “war” and the list of word pairs were “battle/skirmish, gun/knife”, some answers might be “During war, soldiers usually carry a gun and are often required to use a knife. “Battle” and “skirmish” are similar words with “war”.

Step 6: Have an open discussion about one of the themes/topics. Note any mistakes and/or improvements that could be made during the discussion. Go over them with the whole class.


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