Want to teach your students how to make small talk in English? Provide them with the following examples and questions to ask!

Light conversation is the important part of communication skills nowadays for college students especially. How to make these skills much more better? We have the answers on how to avoid awkward small talk.

Work-related questions:

How did you become a [job title]?

What surprised you the most when you first started working?

What was your first job experience like?

What would you do if you weren’t working here?

Would you rather have a workweek of five eight-hour or four ten-hour days with a three-day

weekend?

Weather related issues:

Do you always feel more depressed when the weather is bad or during long periods of rainy weather?

Do you prefer cold or hot weather?

How does foggy weather make you feel?

What is the weather like today? How do you feel about it?

Entertainment related questions:

What are some of your favorite accounts to follow on Instagram

What are the five best movies you have ever seen?

What fictional character from novels do you most identify with and why (any novel, any period, any language)?

What is a movie that made you both laugh and cry?

What is one app that you can’t live without?

Food related issues:

Do you have any secret recipe that you would like to share?

If you had to pick just one food to eat the rest of your life and nothing else, what would it be, and

why?

What are the best cheap eats around here?

What are the meals you would never eat?v

Travel related questions:

Do you prefer a relaxing vacation or an action-packed one?

If you could go on a free vacation anywhere, where would you go?

If you could take a workation or sabbatical, where would you go and what would you do?

What do you have planned for your next vacation?

Topics to avoid:

Age

Politics

Religion

Personal finance

Appearance

Past relationship

Death and disease

Gossip

Offensive jokes

Anything overly specific

Sexual topics