Top 5 ESL Speaking Activities with Cards

Tired of worksheets? Try cards instead!

If you’re looking for engaging ESL speaking activities with cards, you’re in the right place. Card-based activities are a fantastic way to break away from traditional worksheets and bring more movement and interaction into your classroom. Although there’s some upfront prep involved — like cutting, laminating, and organising — the rewards are well worth it. Once your cards are ready, you’ll have reusable, low-prep resources that make lesson planning much easier. Whether you’re planning a lively mingle or a simple pair or group task, card-based games are flexible, effective, and fun. In this post, I’ll share my top five favourite card activities that my students love — and that consistently get them speaking.

1. What Should I Do?

This is a great activity for practising modal verbs of advice. It’s simply a set of 24 dilemma cards. Students take turns picking a card and reading the dilemma aloud. Then each student in the group tries to give advice. It’s a simple activity, but my students absolutely love it and are always thoroughly engaged. That’s why it earns a spot on this list.

2. Congratulations! You Must Be …

The first time you introduce modal verbs of deduction and speculation, it can be tricky to ease in gently. There’s quite a bit of grammar involved, and to make things more challenging, there are far fewer good activities for the present form than for the past — which you’re unlikely to be covering at this stage.

That’s why this simple mingle activity has become a firm favourite. Each student has a double-sided card: on one side is a piece of news (e.g. “I’m going to see my favourite band tonight”), and on the other is an adjective. Students walk around the classroom sharing their news. The others respond with suitable comments, such as “Oh, wow! You must be excited.”

They practise using the structure “You must be + adjective” to deduce how someone is feeling. It’s a quick, effective way to introduce the concept early in the lesson.

3. Recipe Game

Taking a break from blowing my own trumpet — this one isn’t my own creation! In fact, it’s probably the oldest resource I still use, and it’s been a favourite for over 10 years. The Recipe Game comes from the Cutting Edge Elementary teacher’s resource book (second edition, published around 2006). I laminated the cards years ago, and they’ve been used countless times since.

As you might guess from the title, the Recipe Game is all about food, with a focus on countable and uncountable nouns and quantifiers.

Each student gets one recipe card and one ingredients card — but the ingredients don’t match their recipe. They need to mingle with classmates and ask questions like “Do you have a/an …?” or “Do you have any …?” If a classmate has what they need, they can agree to swap.

It’s a brilliant and lively way to practise food vocabulary and quantifiers, which is why it still makes this list. (If you’re wondering how students write on laminated cards, I keep a stash of old marker pens just for this kind of activity.) Incidentally, I couldn’t find this activity in the third edition of Cutting Edge. If you know otherwise, let us know in the comments! Your school might still have a copy of the second edition — and it’s also available on Scribd and possibly elsewhere online.

4. What Are They Doing Now?

Understanding the difference between present tenses can be tough for beginner learners. That’s why this activity — which clearly contrasts the Present Simple and Present Continuous — is such a handy addition to any teacher’s toolkit.

What Are They Doing Now? includes a set of 18 double-sided cards. On one side is a picture of a person and their job. On the reverse is an image of them doing something on their day off.

Students mingle and use the following dialogue:
A: What does Helen do?
B: She’s a doctor. What’s she doing now?
A: She’s watching a movie.

It’s a simple but effective activity, and it looks fantastic if you can print the cards in colour and laminate them. That said, they still look great in black and white.

5. Passive Voice Quiz Cards

After teaching from dozens of coursebooks, you come to appreciate flexible resources — and this next one really delivers.

When teaching the passive voice, some books focus only on the present passive, while others cover both the present and past forms in the same lesson. That’s why I love these two sets of Passive Voice Quiz Cards. Each set includes 32 cards and can be used on its own, or combined for practice with both tenses.

Put students in groups and get them quizzing each other. It’s an easy and effective way to reinforce the grammar point, and students really get into it.

Ready to try these in your classroom?

If you’re looking for easy-to-use, engaging card-based activities, be sure to check out the Card Activity Bundle in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It’s packed with versatile, reusable games designed to get your students speaking — with minimal prep after the first use.

Want to try one of the individual activities mentioned above?

Here they are for easy access:

Have a favourite card activity of your own? I’d love to hear it! Drop a comment below and share what’s worked well in your classroom.

Looking for other low-prep speaking activities?

Check out this post on how to use ESL board games for effective language practice — a fun and flexible way to get students talking!