This intermediate conversation lesson about personality is designed to take at least 1 hour. It provides plenty of opportunities for speaking throughout, a bit of grammar practice, new vocabulary, and even an interesting short news story for you and your students to read and discuss in class.

Each lesson in our 25 lesson intermediate conversation unit follows a similar format to this free lesson 1, so if you love this lesson and want to use the full unit with your students, consider purchasing the complete unit for $9.99.

Intermediate Unit

This is a full conversation unit consisting of 25 lessons.

$9.99

Note: The time per step is a suggestion only. The lesson is designed to have more than 1 hour’s worth of material. If you feel that your student doesn’t need 10 minutes of vocabulary practice, feel free to skip that section. If you think they need more time to answer the discussion questions, that’s okay too. Any part of the lesson that isn’t finished in a 1 hour class, can be used as review for the next class or you can skip that section entirely if you feel it’s not useful for your class/student.

You can download the PDF and the answer sheet here!

Step 1: Warm-up (5 minutes)

You have 1 minute to think about the following prompt. Then you should speak for 1-2 minutes.

Describe someone you get along with.

• Who is he/she?
• What is his or her personality like?
• Why do you get along with him or her?

Step 2: Vocabulary (10 minutes)

Which personality traits are negative and which are positive?

Can you think of an antonym for each word?

Step 3: Discussion (15 minutes)

At work people can really click or their personalities can clash which makes the office an interesting place to see different types of personalities.

1. What personality traits do you think are important for a manager or boss? 
2. Which traits are terrible for a boss?
3. How about co-workers? Which traits would you prefer your co-workers have or not have?
4. Do you think your personality is different at work than home? Why or why not?

Friends can have similar or dissimilar personalities, which is why people say “birds of a feather flock together” but also that “opposites attract.”

1. Do you and your friends have similar personalities? Why or why not?
2. Would you be friends with a fussy person? Why or why not?
3. Are there any personality traits that you avoid when looking for a friend? If yes, what are they? If not, why not?
4. Do you have any stingy friends? If yes, how do they act?
5. How about gullible friends? If yes, how are they gullible?

Step 4: Reading (5 minutes)

Survey about growing distrust 

A new survey from the University of Oxford shows that 25% of adults in the UK are distrustful of others. 19.6% said they were generally distrustful of others, 5.3% of UK adults who answered the survey said they severely mistrusted others, and on top of that 5-8% of people were extremely paranoid. The survey leaders said that some of this distrust comes from social problems, like discrimination, and some of it comes from mental health factors. Many of the people who answered the survey said that they were scared of being gullible, but that they also wanted to trust people again.

Can you explain the reading in one sentence?

Step 5: Reading Discussion (10 minutes)

1. Why do you think people who answered this survey feel distrustful of others?
2. Are many people paranoid nowadays? Why or why not?
3. Do you think it’s better to trust or distrust others? Why?
4. How can people earn your trust?
5. Who is the most honest or loyal person that you know? How are they honest or loyal?

Step 6: Grammar (10 minutes)

Now practice the grammar! Put the questions into the correct order.

1. they/are/paranoid/?
2. people/fussy/he/does/like/?
3. so/why/gullible/he/is/?
4. an/person/she/is/organized/?
5. you/of/what/with/kind/people/friends/do/to/like/be?

Step 7: Grammar Discussion (5 minutes)

1. Would you describe yourself as a know-it-all? Why or why not?
2. Are you a know-it-all when it comes to a specific subject? Why or why not?
3. Are you a couch-potato? Why or why not?
4. Do you consider yourself a big mouth? Why or why not?
5. Do you think you can be a loose canon? Why or why not?

Step 8: Role Play (10 minutes)

All of these sentence prompts can be used to ask about personality. Can you finish each sentence prompt in your own way?

• Do you consider yourself to be (a)…?
• Can you be (a)…?
• What makes you (a)…?
• How would you describe…?
• How do you deal with…?

Now can you do the role play using the prompts above?

Optional: Vocabulary Practice (5 minutes)

Match the vocabulary words with a synonym.

Optional: Vocabulary Discussion (10 minutes)

We hope you enjoyed this 1 hour conversation lesson about personality!

Are you looking for the perfect conversation lessons for your online one-on-one class or your in-person conversation classes?

At Oscar Lessons we have a new unit with 25 lessons that you can use with your students for at least 25 classes in a row (more if you use every page or use supplemental material). If you enjoyed this free first lesson sample and want to use the complete unit with your students, then you can buy it for $9.99 here.

Intermediate Unit

This is a full conversation unit consisting of 25 lessons.

$9.99

Here is the PDF and the answer sheet for the personality intermediate conversation unit.