• learning a wide range of collocations to be able to grasp and express different shades of meaning

Like teaching at any level, the effective teaching of English to advanced learners requires understanding the requirements of the students. At this stage, students are by and large familiar with the main grammar structures and have mastered some sophisticated ones. Although they sometimes ask their tutors to help them revise grammar points, vocabulary development which is ‘at the heart of language learning’ —is probably the primary issue that should be addressed when teaching such students. Judging from experience in teaching English at MGIMO University at an advanced level (at the top end of the C1-C2 levels of the CEFR Framework [2]), language users with such a command overlanguage usually strive to achieve more flexibility and a higher level of fluency and aspire to become ‘more effective autonomous learners.’ This target can be achieved by undertaking the following:
• studying a large number of idioms and phrasal verbs that can improve the understanding of complex texts, especially the ones of an informal register,
• learning a wide range of collocations to be able to grasp and express different shades of meaning,
• learning a number of equivalents of a different register to be able to convey the same meaning in different discourse as well as stylistic devices such as metaphors,
• learning discernible patterns in word building that can help learners come up with derivatives,
• acquiring the knowledge of important adverbs, e.g. stance adverbs that may add to the accuracy of the students’ language but seem to be rarely used by them.
While it’s important to get your ESL students talking, it’s even more important to get themtalking well.But how do you do it?Pair work seems like the obvious choice, as students get a lot of talking time when they’reone-on-one. The downside is that this can be difficult to monitor, even if you have the righttechniques. There are just too many conversations going for you to pop in on everyone andprovide ample feedback.On the other hand, if you attempt to get speaking practice in when students are in a big groupsetting, each student doesn’t always get the opportunity to speak, and shyer or weakerstudents tend to fade into the background.While you can often work around this by calling on students at random when they’re beginners, with advanced ESL students it’s nice to be able to prompt a real, fluid discussion instead of forcing students to give brief responses to lecture-related questions.Luckily, there are a few options that will allow you to ensure that each of your students is progressing as he or she should.
Challenges to Consider When Teaching Advanced ESL
Maintaining motivation
The language journey is a long one, so many can fall by the wayside long before reaching fluency. Those who continue into the more advanced stages will have already overcome peaks and plateaus. They’ll likely possess the thousand-yard stare, infamous among those who have engaged in linguistic contortions for years on end.
So, motivation could be a problem. The beauty of discussion is that you can easily build your lessons around the interests of your students. Context is everything, however, so while a discussion on the abolition of the monarchy might be a perfectly acceptable topic for discourse in the U.K., for example, in Thailand it will likely result in your imprisonment.
But, giving consideration to all things contextual, cultural, religious, societal, etc., you should easily be able to find some juicy topics for discussion that will see your students enthused and you still at liberty! (Some good ideas for topics are here and here.)
Catering to a range of abilities
Now if you’re the observant type, you’ll have noticed reference to “advanced” in the title of this post. “What makes discussion an advanced activity?” you might well ask. The truth is, of course, discussion can be a useful tool at intermediate levels as well. The difference is qualitative.
Whereas discussion at intermediate levels may necessitate the pre-teaching of related vocabulary and phrases, at advanced levels it’s more about students thinking critically in the target language and expressing their own thoughts and opinions with fluency.
That said, differentiation in any group will still be required. Don’t be afraid to help your weaker students with support materials such as sentence starters (i.e. “In my opinion,” “It seems to me that ~ is ~ because…,” etc.), and to give consideration to groupings. Remember, also, that differentiation is multi-directional; it’s important to keep the stronger students challenged too!

Benefits of Discussion for Advanced ESL Students

Organic vocabulary practice
One of the greatest benefits of classroom discussion comes from its unscripted nature. Students will draw on their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge to express opinions, agreeing and disagreeing in an organic way that closely simulates “live” situations, but with the advantage of the supportive classroom environment, familiar faces, helpful peers and teacher.
Increased speaking confidence
Practicing discussions regularly in class will also bring the students confidence as their abilities grow. This confidence is a transferable skill too, not limited to expressing themselves only in English.
Improved body language
There is an art to discussion. Making a point is not the mere sum of the meaning of the words employed. Through discussion ESL activities, you can encourage your students to consider the importance of their body language when making their point.I find watching videos of history’s great orators, such as Martin Luther King Jr., very beneficial. Remember too that not all gestures mean the same thing everywhere. The thumbs up, for example, has a very different meaning in Iran than it does in the U.S.!
Opportunities for real assessment
Using discussion activities in the classroom affords excellent opportunities for undertaking some real assessment. That fact that these activities lend themselves to being student-led means that you’ll have many chances to listen to the conversations of your students. You’ll be able to spot areas of difficulty and use this information when planning for future lessons.

5 Action-packed Discussion Activities for Your Advanced ESL Students

1. Discussion: Speed-dating Style!
This is a fun one that can be used as a main activity or as a warm-up to a lesson. First you’ll need to rearrange the classroom a bit, if you’re able to in your teaching environment.
Organize your class into two concentric circles with chairs from the outer circle facing in, and chairs from the inner circle facing out. The structure of this activity is much like the deeply romantic modern courtship ritual of speed dating. Choose one circle to be “mobile.” After three minutes of discussion, students in the “mobile” circle will cycle clockwise to speak to a new partner.
There are a number of ways you can organize the topics they will discuss. You could call out a new topic every three minutes, or, to really get your students to develop an opinion, you could have them discuss the same topic with each person in the opposite circle.
Time is of the essence here; it’s best to keep your topics fairly straightforward, as there won’t be much space for reflection as the seconds tick away. I find relatively light topics such as “Is it really that good being young?,” “Which are better: cats or dogs?” and “Should students wear uniforms?” to be very effective for this format.
When teaching a course on discussion and debate at the Thai university where I work, I always use this activity as an ice-breaker for the students to get to know each other. It warms them up and helps them become comfortable with each other, which can be very important in encouraging students to express their opinions to each other.
2. Think-Pair-Share
Also called “Talking Partners,” this activity begins by giving the class a topic to think about. They can think quietly about the topic for a few minutes and are then assigned a partner.
Students will discuss their opinions about the issue with their partner. After a set number of minutes is up, pairs can share their opinions about the topic to the class as a whole.Possible topics for Think-Pair-Share might include “Nurses should be paid more than lawyers,” “Alcohol should be made illegal” and “Money defines success in life.”This activity lends itself to easy differentiation: You might pair up a weaker student with a stronger one, or decide to partner two strong students together to keep them challenged.Likewise, when each pair is sharing their opinions with the class as a whole, you may wish to have each student explain the position of their partner rather than their own opinions. A kind of “devil’s advocate” then can be a useful exercise to lead into more formally organized debates.
3. Pros and Cons
This simple activity is very useful—whether as preparation for structured discussion or debate, or as an end in itself. It can also be a great way for students to reflect on a topic while forming their own opinion.Pros and Cons involves individually making lists of the pros and cons (or the for and against) of a given topic. It allows the student to weigh the different arguments and counterarguments in their minds.It can also provide a useful jumping-off point for extended pieces of writing. I sometimes provide students with word banks of target phrases, vocabulary and sentence starters during this activity, helping the students express their ideas more coherently.When the student has completed their list of pros and cons, they can use this as a basis for writing their arguments in the form of an essay or debate preparation. The list allows them to see points and counterpoints they can develop, and also highlights the fundamental differences between mere propaganda and a well-developed argument that has taken counterarguments into full consideration.“TV does more harm than good,” “Group English classes are better than private lessons” and “Celebrities are overpaid” can be good starting points to get that pros and cons ball rolling!
4. Rounds
An important aspect of discussion is empathy. The ability to understand things from another’s point of view can be crucial in helping us develop a more sophisticated opinion of our own. “Rounds” effectively does this by putting the student briefly in the position of playing devil’s advocate.Begin the activity by writing a contentious discussion statement on the whiteboard, such as “Zoos are a necessary way to safeguard endangered species” or “Third level education is not worth the financial investment.” Have the class divide itself along the lines of for and against, based on their actual opinions. The more contentious the issue, the more beneficial the exercise.Then, tell students that those who are “for” must now speak for 30 seconds against the statement, and those “against” must speak 30 seconds for the statement. You may wish to have a number of different statements ready to prevent students merely repeating the arguments of others.In this activity the opinions expressed are less important than the intellectual gymnastics required to understand the opposing opinion and formulate an argument against their own stated belief. The is also a useful skill to develop when undertaking formal debates.
5. Socratic Circles
A Socratic Circle is a more formal discussion method developed from the idea of the Socratic dialogue, whereby we arrive at the “truth” by a process of questioning and answering, then reflecting and critiquing, and finally resulting in a very refined argument or position. In the context of the classroom it usually revolves around responses to an open-ended question based on a written text.To begin, assign a suitable text or passage to the class for homework. The students should read, analyze and annotate the text with their own thoughts and opinions. Some very interesting articles to inspire discussion can be found here.In the next lesson, divide the class into two concentric circles, both facing inwards. Students sit in their assigned circles with their text.The inner circle then discusses the text, using their notes to help them formulate their ideas. You can use a series of prepared open-ended questions to simulate the discussion.The outer circle sits quietly while observing closely, and may take notes. After 10 minutes (or whatever time is appropriate for your group), the outer circle then provides feedback to the inner circle based on their observations. The groups then switch and the process repeats.This activity provides excellent training in listening and speaking, and bridges these skills to reading and writing. Generally the focus of the questions will be a moral dilemma of sorts. This does not mean, however, that it can only be used with older students. Important philosophical questions are raised in many children’s texts too, especially in fables such as “The Tortoise and the Hare.”As the teacher, you can also differentiate the complexity of the questions in line with the maturity of your students. Usually the text will be a short thought-provoking piece. While fables work well with younger students, strong opinionated newspaper editorials are great for older students.Discussion activities are a great way to bring life into any advanced ESL classroom. When our students are passionate about a topic, their passion motivates them to push the boundaries of their language limits in a desire to express their opinion.And that’s a huge part of what this whole language learning business is all about, isn’t it? So use one of these discussion activities today, and you’ll witness your students growing and learning!

Tips for building advanced ESL lesson plans

First off, you need to know your audience. Are you teaching adults in Asia? They likely aren’t going to be too keen on hearing pop culture based on Justin Bieber’s new hit. Are you teaching kindergarten kids overseas who are interested in Business English? No, you’re not. Keep it fun and keep it relevant! You have to know who your students are and then can start making some stellar advanced ESL lessons plans.
Follow ESL teaching models. Remember what you learned in your TEFL class a while back? You know, that part about slacking on your advanced ESL lesson plans, making sure to increase your teacher talk time, and to give multiple pop quizzes to the students…. Of course not! Make sure to follow the methods you learned or the ones that your school director gives you. If you’re not quite sure where to start, at least think of the the three “Ps”: Presentation, Practice, Production. (P.S. If you still need that TEFL certificate, International TEFL Academy will help you out!)
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Being creative is excellent, but no need to reformat the entire way that past teachers have taught. Keep it simple while also throwing in a dash of your own unique twist to the advanced ESL lessons. Find that smooth balance between creative and practical. If in doubt, you can scour the internet to find advanced ESL worksheets and tips to use for your lessons.
Keep it active. Nothing is worse than having students who are either dozing off, have that deer in headlights look, or are downright bored. There’s a fix for that. Move around. Get up. Mingle. Role play. Advanced ESL lessons that are student centered will be much more successful. It’s not about you, the teacher, it’s about the students being fully engaged and learning to teach themselves and their peers. Even just having them write on the whiteboard or move around a bit will keep the advanced ESL lessons much more engaging.
Even advanced ESL students love playing games. Who could disagree that games are the best? Teaching English needs to be fun. Even if you’re in a room full of business English adults, you can find ways to throw in some games. No one is too cool for games. NO ONE.
7 advanced ESL lesson plans that are ready-to-go
Adult with paint brushes Put your paint brushes down—it’s time for advanced ESL lessons and conversations!Just for fun, many of the following sample advanced ESL lessons and activities are based on—drumroll please—travel! We here at GoAbroad figure you can chat up a storm about that, correct? Regardless of your lesson aims of the day, you can always tweak them to fit the topic that you plan to teach. Keep in mind that the topic of the advanced ESL lessons will depend on your audience, meaning the students’ ages and their backgrounds. Be culturally sensitive if working with refugees or students living in poverty. An ESL lesson about traveling is not interesting to everyone. You’ll also have to check if the school you work for has required topics and materials for you to cover. In any case, whether you are building advanced ESL grammar lessons or just browsing for advanced ESL worksheets, you can be confident that you will have a kick-ass class.
1. Tell us about your dream vacation.
Skill focus: Speaking
Advanced ESL speaking activities can be really fun for students if you know what they like to talk about. In this case, project a map of the world on the board and ask students to think about where they would like to go on a dream vacation. Give them some time to answer prep questions that they can fill out before they discuss their ideas with other classmates. Easy ways to prep for this would be considering the who, what, where, when, and why? Once they have taken some time to prep and think about what they would like to discuss, have them chat with their classmates about their dream trip! Make sure they mingle, move around, and speak to multiple people.

Systems aims: Phonetics, vocab (new lexis—if you’re fancyyy)

Materials needed: Map of the world, prep questions, sample questions for discussion, pencil, paper
Make it even harder: Have some backup questions for these advanced ESL lessons. Conversations that go further in depth will be a bigger challenge. “What’s your budget?” “What activities will you do each day?” “What kind of food will you eat?” “What’s the most exciting thing you will do?” Additionally you can quiz them after their conversations with their peers to ask what they retained from their classmates. “Who wants to travel the furthest?” “Who wants to bring their family?” The list could go on!
2. Get published in magazine.
Skill focus: Writing

English learners love a good competition; why practice writing without a reason behind it? Before handing out the writing task, let students know how much time they have to prep, how much time they have to write, and WHY they are writing. If you tell the students that they are competing to get published in a famous online magazine, let’s say, GoAbroad.com ;-), it will get them more motivated. Woman carrying backpack to esl lessons Coming up with advanced ESL lesson plans for adults is different than how you’d approach it for teens or children.In advanced ESL lessons for writing, students should take 10-15 minutes to write about their dream vacation. You can prompt them with a few questions, but this topic should allow them the freedom to write creatively. After the time is up, hang the writing pieces around the room. Give the students time to read each other’s pieces and then vote on which one should be published. It’ll be a confidence booster for the winner and provide that “student centered” activity that they need while learning. Pro tip: Advanced ESL speaking activities and writing tasks can actually be planned almost EXACTLY the same. The only difference is if the end result is either a dialogue or a text.

Systems aims: Grammar, vocab (new lexis—if you’re fancyyy)
Materials needed: Sample prompt or sample questions, pencil, paper
Make it even harder: Before hanging up the students’ writings about their dream vacations, have them swap with their partners to correct any errors. This will give them the opportunity for peer revision and give them a chance to then correct their mistakes. Best of all, it keeps the lesson student centered!
3. Plan a holiday.
Skill focus: Listening

Have the students listen to a clip of two people discussing their upcoming vacation plans. Prepare some key questions for them to answer to check on their comprehension. To make it more fun, leave out the ending part of the audio conversation. The students then can come up with their own ending and share their ideas with the class. Listening tasks are fun because you can use TV show clips, song lyrics, Ted talks, podcasts, and moreSystems aims: Vocab (new lexis—if you’re fancyyy), listening comprehension Materials needed: Audio clip based on a vacation or any topic your students enjoy, prepared questions, pencil, paper Make it even harder: Once the students complete their “make and ending to the story” task, have them create questions that they would ask those who were speaking in the conversation. This gives them freedom and room for creativity. They can then share those questions with other classmates.

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4. Read a travel guide.
Skill focus: Reading

Hello GoAbroad travel article archives. Pick an article for the students to read. Only give them the middle section and leave out the introduction and conclusion. Create handouts of a few options for intros and conclusions and have the students decide on which one is the best. If they are even more advanced, leave out your handouts and have them create their own intros and conclusions. To check on detailed comprehension, create questions about the article based on some of its key highlights. Pro tip: Reading lessons are the easiest to plan and facilitate!Systems aims: Vocab (new lexis—if you’re fancyyy), reading comprehension

Materials needed: Travel article, prepared intro and conclusion options, additional questions, pencil, paper Make it even harder: Give the students a travel guide that is based in the country you are teaching in. Ask them what is correct, incorrect, what can be altered, what they like, and what they don’t like. This is a great way to get them interested because it’s about their own home!Beautiful vaca spot Describing your dream vacation is one of our fave conversation topics for advanced ESL students.

5. Answer "If I had a million dollars, I'd..."

Skill focus: Grammar

Advanced ESL grammar lessons don’t have to be dull! What’s more fun than making up stories about different scenarios? Let’s think about conditionals as that is a more advanced ESL grammar technique. A fun activity would be to have the students sit in a circle. The teacher leads and says: “If I had a million dollars, I’d go to Paris.” The next student says, “If I went to Paris, I’d eat lots of crepes.” “If I ate lots of crepes, I’d…….” You get the picture. The students go around in the circle and create a story based off of conditional phrases that the student before them said. Systems aims: Grammar, vocab (new lexis—if you’re fancyyy)Materials needed: Flashcards or pictures with different situations for samples, prepared materials with different conditionals, pencil, paper Make it even harder: Switch it up. Mix up the activity with all of the different conditionals—zero, first, second, third, mixed—to make that the students think about different situations with different types of grammar.

6. Guess the word.
Skill focus: Vocab
Let’s say your vocab keywords are based on items to pack in a suitcase for a vacation. One game is to have the target vocabulary all on different pieces of paper. One student draws a word and describes it without saying the word. The other students compete to guess the word. Continue playing until all of the words are finished. Whoever guesses the most words wins!
Another way of doing a similar activity is to have two students sitting in chairs with their backs facing the board. The teacher writes the target vocabulary word on the board. The rest of the class then has to describe the word to the two students. Whoever guesses the word wins!Vocabulary lessons may seem easier to teach, but make sure to use lots of visuals,be very interactive, and keep the lesson student centered so that it sparks their interest. Vocab lessons are perfect for games. Systems aims: Vocab (new lexis—if you’re fancyyy), phoneticsMaterials needed: Planned vocab material cut out on different pieces of paper Make it even harder: If the target word is suitcase, create a challenge for the students by making the target vocab be “small black and flowery suitcase.” You can tweak the vocab on a case by case basis.
7. Ask for advice.
Skill focus: Functional language

Advanced students love love love learning how to ACTUALLY speak the language. This is more than the robotic: “Hello, how are you? I’m fine, and you.” English language learners want to speak as the natives do! This is where functional language is key so that they can sound more natural and have real life conversations. A fun activity would be asking for recommendations at a tourist office. The students could prepare scripts in groups of two or three. One of the students is the tourist office manager while the other one is the traveler. The students plan a role play for five to ten minutes and then perform for the class. Man and woman having an ESL

You can create an ESL advanced lesson for one-on-one students, too.To prepare the students for this activity, the teacher could give context and background. There could be sample phrases and sentences taught before the role play. In the case of seeking advice from a tourist office, some keywords could be: activities, events, tours, programs, times, prices, budget, etc. This will, of course, depend on your key aims of the lesson.