Ambition, goals, challenges, and the drive to succeed are interesting topics to discuss with older teens and working adults. You can use these motivation conversation questions to get your class excited about the future and what it could bring.
This speaking activity is best suited to intermediate-level ESL speakers and above. The most difficult terms in it include – achieve, inspire, affect, extreme, face/faced with, overcome, self-discipline, ambitious, and deadline.
The motivation conversation questions are –
1 – What is motivation? Do you think that you are a very motivated person?
2 – What made you motivated to get up this morning? What will it be tomorrow?
3 – What motivates you to achieve your goals? What do you want to achieve?
4 – Do you think that you should be more motivated than you are? Why or why not?
5 – Have you ever read a good book that motivated you? What was it about?
6 – Who is the most motivated person that you know of? What do they do?
7 – If you owned a company, what things could you do to keep your workers motivated?
8 – Are there any famous people that inspire and motivate you? What do they do?
9 – Does the weather ever affect your motivation? In what ways?
10 – How could you help a person who had no motivation in life at all?
11 – What kinds of jobs and occupations require an extreme amount of motivation?
12 – Do you set many goals in life? What do you do when faced with big challenges?
13 – What kinds of things can cause people to lose their motivation?
14 – Is there any kind of music that you listen to when you want to get things done?
15 – What is the biggest challenge that you have faced in life? How did you overcome it?
16 – What are some good ways that a person can improve their self-disciple?
17 – Do you exercise or go to the gym often? What motivates you to do this?
18 – What would you do if you only had a few months left to live?
19 – What is a proud moment or successful thing that you have achieved recently?
20 – How do you hope your life will be different in 10 years’ time from now?
21 – Do you think that a person can be too ambitious? What problems can this cause?
22 – In what ways can the people around you affect your motivation?
23 – Are you good at meeting deadlines? How do go about getting things done on time?
24 – Have you ever tried to quit something or go on a diet? Was it difficult to do?
25 – What would say are the 5 main things that motivate people around the world?
