Good manners are rarely universal. What counts as polite at a dinner table in Seoul can raise eyebrows in Mexico City, and your students have probably already figured that out the hard way. These etiquette and manners conversation cards give your adult ESL students 80 discussion questions to dig into the cultural side of social behavior, from table manners and greetings to gift-giving and what counts as rude.

Having all the cards centered on one theme means you can drop them into a unit on culture, social norms, or everyday life without scrambling to find something that fits. Your students do the talking. You facilitate.

WHAT'S INSIDE:

✅ 80 etiquette and manners-themed conversation starters, each on its own card, ready for small group discussions

✅ Teacher suggestion page with tips on how to use the cards plus links to additional resources

✅ Easel version with one discussion prompt per slide for whole-class discussion or paperless classrooms

HOW TO USE THESE CARDS

When using these etiquette and manners discussion cards in your classes:

Before class, flip through the cards and pull out a handful that match your students' level and interests. Some prompts work well as warm-ups; others will take a full discussion period.

Divide students into small groups or pairs and give each group a card or two. Ask them to discuss the question, share their own cultural experience with the topic, and listen to what their classmates say. The cross-cultural angle almost always gets things moving on its own.

Use the Easel version to put one prompt on the screen at a time for a whole-class discussion, as a writing prompt at the end of class, or as a quick conversation starter when you have ten minutes to fill.

THIS WAS CREATED FOR YOUR ADULT ESL STUDENTS

Your intermediate to advanced adult ESL students bring their own cultural backgrounds into the classroom, which makes etiquette and manners one of the richest topics you can put in front of them. These cards give them the structure to share those perspectives and genuinely learn from each other.

They also work well for older teen students who are thrown into unfamiliar social situations in a new culture.

GRAB IT AND GO

Download it, print the cards, cut and laminate if you want, and you're ready. Or pull up the Easel version and skip the printing entirely. Either way, you've got 80 conversation starters on one of the most personally relevant topics you can teach.

Questions? Drop them in the Q&A section.

If you teach conversation classes regularly, take a look at my Adult ESL Discussion Topics MEGA Bundle. It pulls together over two thousand discussion questions across 28 themes, so you'll always have something on hand when a conversation stalls or you need to fill time. 

You may also be interested in Expressions for Opinions to ensure that your adult ESL students can use a good variety of expressions to ask for and give opinions.

How about some etiquette and manners role-plays?

• Etiquette and Manners ROLE PLAYS for Adult ESL