ESL Conversation Topics

How to pick ESL topics by level

Match the topic to what students can say without a dictionary. Beginner topics stay close to daily life and use simple words, like "Your morning routine on a normal weekday" or "The best part of your week so far." Students can answer them in the present tense with short sentences.

Intermediate topics ask for a story, a comparison or a reason, like "Cooking at home versus eating out" or "Small habits that make a day go better." They pull in past tenses, opinions and words like because, but and so.

There is no Advanced level here. For advanced classes, open the random topic generator, choose Conversation or Speaking (1 min), and set Difficulty to Deep. Those topics ask about values and tradeoffs.

A 45 minute conversation class with random topics

Random topics take the planning out of a speaking class. This plan fits 45 minutes and works with any level:

1. Warm up (5 minutes): show one Beginner topic on the board. Each student says one sentence about it.
2. Pairs (15 minutes): draw 3 topics. Each pair talks about the first one with the 2 minute timer, then moves on to the next.
3. Swap partners (15 minutes): students change partners and draw 3 new topics. Saying similar ideas to a new person builds fluency.
4. Report back (10 minutes): each student tells the class one thing their partner said. This practices he, she and the past tense.

Turn a topic into ESL discussion questions

Every topic here works as a set of discussion questions. Ask the wh- words in order: what, where, when, who, why and how. "A place you would love to visit one day" becomes "Where is it? Why do you want to go? Who would you take with you?"

For 80 of the 182 topics, Talking points already give you the follow-ups. "A meal you still think about years later" asks where you ate it, who you were with and why it stuck with you. Beginners can answer one point at a time, and stronger students can link all three.

When a student stops early, ask "Can you give me an example?" or "How did you feel?" Both get one more sentence without a new topic.

ESL topics for adults and for teens

Adults like topics about real life: work, money, cooking, travel and their town. Try the Work & money, Society and Everyday life categories. Topics like "Explain how to prepare for a job interview" give adult learners English they can use at work.

Teens talk more when the topic is about them and their choices. Try Sports & games, Technology, Imagination and Movies, music & books. "A superpower you would choose and how you would use it" gets most teens talking.

Both groups do well with About you and Food & drink, since everyone has something to say about breakfast.

ESL speaking topics for timed practice

Some topics start with Describe, Explain or Talk about, like "Describe what you can see from your window." These are short speaking tasks for one student. Set the timer to 1 minute and ask the student to keep talking until the sound.

For more short talks of this kind, see our 1 minute speech topics. For a single question to answer, the ESL category of the random question generator has more.

Need a quick opener to start the lesson? The ESL class situation in our conversation starters has questions like "How do you get to class every day?" For reading aloud, the random sentence generator makes sentences at three levels.

Using the topics online and in person

The same tool works in a classroom and on a video call:

• In the classroom: put the page on the projector and press Full screen. Press the Space key for the next topic.
• Online lessons: share your screen, or press Share and send the link in the chat. Students open the same topics on their own screen.
• Homework: send one topic with Copy and ask for a 1 minute voice message about it.
• Your favorites: press Save on topics that worked well. History shows what you drew earlier in this browser.