Perhaps the most frequently taught speaking exercise is the role play. This technique is useful in any class because it allows the students to practice skills and words that wouldn't normally be used in the classroom, or in everyday situations. The idea behind the role play is simply acting. Two more more students get together and pretend they are in a specific situation, such as two tourists trying to rent a hotel room, or someone trying to set a good impression in a job interview.
Class discussion is also a useful tool when teaching conversation class, but the trick here is to choose an engaging topic. Selecting something that falls within the interests of your students is key. Potential topics include: specific countries, foods, cultures, laws, health, grammar and many more. Once you've chosen a topic, prepare specific questions about it to initiate and maintain discussion. For example, if choosing bread. What is bread? How do you make it? Is white or brown better and why? How important is yeast? These types of questions allow the students to think about the topic in detail and reply using specialized vocabulary.
The idea behind this exercise is that different students have different information to fit a number of categories. For example, the categories could be: name, occupation, birthday, hobbies and favorite movies. Each category has information about five or more different people but each student may only have 1/3 or 1/4 of this information. The student must then ask colleagues: "Who has a birthday on this date?" or "What is John's favorite movie?" This encourages conversation in a smaller, low pressure environment where the students don't have to speak to the entire class.
Questionnaires are just like they sound. They generally contain a list of different questions focused around a category like sports or hobbies. Students must then go around the room and ask the questions to a select number of peers and then write down the responses. This is a good exercise to combine speaking, listening and writing. When finished, each student can then select an interviewee and read his answers to the class.