One key to having students relate to your lesson is to pick good conversation topics for teens. However, a relevant issue might not necessarily be one that you find interesting! For example, choosing a university or further education path might be a suitable topic. That said, please remember to include trades, creative arts, and further alternative education, not just the predictable academic routes. Try this game with your students:

Choosing a university from a list of six

What are the criteria you consider when choosing a university? For some, the nightlife in the town and the size of the city or town might be necessary. Others will only be focused on the course content for their future career. There are other elements such as whether the University is also well-known for sports or music. Others might want the campus to be beautiful or close to nature. Will students have to live at home and therefore can only go the University in their home town, and so on.

The game is called Persuasion. First, choose six students to act as the University Directors. These directors will try to recruit as many students as possible from the class. They will use their best powers of persuasion to encourage the students to enroll in their University. The Director who recruits the most students wins!

Try this link to help you with descriptive words and phrases about the top 5 UK universities!

Other topics

To use the game with other conversation topics for teens, pick something relevant to your B1 students (in accordance with their ages and interests). Next, find a resource to use for words, facts, and phrases about that topic. For example, you could have travel agents trying to get tourists to holiday in particular countries, or how about shopkeepers trying to sell their latest products to shoppers? These examples will involve using descriptive words and vocabulary, which can help students simulate real-life situations that they may face very soon.

Try this link to help you with descriptive words and phrases about the top 5 UK universities.

Great resources to engage teenage students

If you are looking for even more engaging ESL games for teenagers and adults, please see my book, in download or paperback. For classroom teachers, I also suggest my plays and skit for teens. For online teachers, I recommend my ESL Online Games.

Further reading: This post is on how to use teen-speak and cool teen tools to make your English classes more appealing to teens.