Role playing can be highly structured, where students copy a simple conversation from the board onto a conversation card, or it can be more open-ended. Open-ended role playing might include giving students a situation that they can act out in English, such as meeting their children's teacher for the first time at school. More structured role playing is helpful in lower level classrooms, whereas the open-ended type is better for more advanced students. You can also write part of the conversation on the board but incorporate spontaneous answers from students into the conversation. For example, you could write, "Student A: Hi! How are you today? Student B: I'm doing well, and you? Student A: I'm all right, thanks. What did you think of the president's speech last night on TV? Student B: I think that_____________." This type of activity encourages students to provide their opinions on a topic in a conversational manner with little preparation beforehand.
Have each student in your class develop a list of five to 10 interview questions she will ask a partner in the class. Write question words that encourage descriptive answers on the board, such as "Where," "Why," "How," "What" and "Who." Have students write down their partners' answers and then write a short paragraph about them.
Another way to get students communicating out loud in English is to prepare an information gap activity. Two students will work together to find out information about each other. For example, Student A has a worksheet with a chart of information along with some blank rows. The blank rows might ask for names of people, and the columns could include activities, such as occupation, hobbies and weekend plans. Some of the cells in the chart will be filled in, and others will not. The other student has a similar chart, but where the other student has blanks, Student B has the answers. Where Student A has filled-in cells, Student B has blanks. Students ask each other questions to get the information they need. Student A might ask Student B, for example, "What does Susie like to do on the weekends?" Student B reads the answer from his chart: "She likes to play tennis."
Any type of communicative activity you do in a TEFL classroom should be realistic in nature. Use situations that are of interest to students in their everyday lives. Keep conversations authentic-sounding and encourage a conversational tone in student exchanges. Students will be more likely to want to participate and remember the conversations they have about realistic topics than they would if the topics were less so.