Making Suggestions ESL Activities, Worksheets, Role-Plays & Games
Let's Match It!
ESL Suggestions Game - Speaking: Matching, Forming Sentences, Controlled Practice - Group Work
In this dynamic making suggestions game, students practice making suitable suggestions for everyday situations using four common phrases. In groups, students take turns rolling the dice. If the student rolls...
Holiday Suggestions
ESL Holiday Suggestions Activity - Speaking: Asking and Answering Questions, Discussion, Communicative Practice - Pair and Group Work
In this communicative holiday suggestions activity, students suggest suitable places to go on different types of holidays, including where to stay and things....
Let's Make Suggestions
ESL Making Suggestions Worksheet - Vocabulary and Reading Exercises: Gap-Fill, Categorising - Speaking Activity: Role-Play, Freer Practice - Pair Work
In this handy suggestions worksheet, students practice various phrases to make, accept and reject suggestions. First, students look at pictures of eight birthday...
Saturday Suggestions
ESL Making Suggestions Role-Play - Speaking Activity: Asking and Answering Questions, Communicative Practice - Group Work
In this free making suggestions speaking activity, students role-play making, accepting and rejecting suggestions about things to do on a Saturday. Students...
Smart Suggestions Showdown
ESL Making Suggestions Game - Speaking: Forming Sentences, Guessing, Freer Practice - Pair Work
In this enjoyable making suggestions game, students practice making related suggestions for specific locations using 'Let's...', 'How about...?', and 'Why don't we...?' In pairs, students take turns...
Suggestions Race
ESL Making Suggestions Game - Grammar: Unscrambling - Pair Work
In this fun making suggestions game, students race to put words in the correct order to form suggestions about different things. There are ten suggestions in all and each suggestion uses a different phrase. One student from each pair comes to...
Turn Around
ESL Making, Accepting and Rejecting Suggestions Activity - Speaking: Asking and Answering Questions, Communicative Practice
In this productive making suggestions speaking activity, students make, accept and reject suggestions and give excuses using prompts on cards. Students...
What do you suggest?
ESL Making Suggestions Worksheet - Grammar and Writing Exercise: Sentence Completion, Writing Sentences
In this useful making suggestions worksheet, students practice phrases to make suggestions by completing and writing suggestions from prompts. Students read each statement on the...
Why don't we go on holiday?
ESL Suggesting Worksheet - Vocabulary Exercises: Gap-Fill, Categorising - Speaking Activity: Asking and Answering Questions, Freer Practice
This comprehensive making suggestions worksheet helps students learn how to make, accept and reject suggestions related to holidays. First, students...
A Day Out
ESL Making Suggestions Role-Play - Speaking Activity: Binary Choice, Role-Play, Writing and Presenting a Dialogue - Pair Work
Here is a rewarding making suggestions role-play to help students practice phrases for suggesting, raising objections, suggesting alternatives and accepting...
Can I make a suggestion?
ESL Suggestions Worksheet - Vocabulary Exercises: Matching - Speaking Activity: Asking and Answering Questions, Discussions - Pair and Group Work
In this free making suggestions worksheet, students practice making, accepting and rejecting suggestions using various phrases. Students begin by identifying...
Perhaps we could...
ESL Suggestions Worksheet - Vocabulary Exercises: Categorising, Writing Questions - Speaking Activity: Asking and Answering Questions - Pair Work
In this detailed making suggestions worksheet, students learn and practice a variety of phrases for making, accepting and declining suggestions...
Suggestions and Solutions
ESL Suggesting Activity - Speaking: Writing Sentences, Discussions, Communicative Practice - Group Work
In this engaging making suggestions speaking activity, students suggest solutions to problems and then work together to reach an agreement on the best solution for each one. First, students come up with...
What shall we do?
ESL Making Suggestion Activities - Vocabulary Exercise: Gap-fill - Speaking Activity: Asking and Answering Questions, Communicative Practice - Pair Work
In these enjoyable making suggestions activities, students make, accept and reject suggestions for different scenarios. First, students complete two...
The Secret of Success
ESL Making Suggestions Activity - Speaking: Discussions, Communicative Practice - Group Work
In this imaginative making suggestions speaking activity, students suggest the best way to do different things. In groups, students take turns picking up a topic card and asking, 'What's the best way to...
Using Suggestion Phrases
Making suggestions in English relies on a set of fixed phrases, each with its own grammar rule: 'Let's' and 'Shall we' take a bare infinitive, while 'How about' and 'What about' require the -ing form or a noun. Learners who mix these up, saying 'How about to go?' instead of 'How about going?', produce errors that native speakers notice immediately, which undermines the learner's confidence in real conversations.
This page covers making suggestions across A1-A2, A2, B1, and B2 levels, with 15 resources including games, speaking activities, worksheets, and role-plays, with two available as free downloads.
The table below maps the most common functions in a making suggestions conversation to their typical phrases and example sentences.
| Function | Phrase Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Making a suggestion | Let's + bare infinitive | 'Let's go to the cinema.' |
| Making a suggestion | Shall we + bare infinitive | 'Shall we take a taxi?' |
| Making a suggestion | Why don't we + bare infinitive | 'Why don't we order pizza?' |
| Making a suggestion | How about + -ing/noun | 'How about going for a walk?' |
| Making a suggestion | What about + -ing/noun | 'What about trying that new café?' |
| Making a suggestion | We could + bare infinitive | 'We could check the timetable first.' |
| Accepting a suggestion | That sounds great / Good idea | 'That sounds great. Let's do it.' |
| Accepting a suggestion | I'd love to / Yes, let's | 'Yes, let's. I'd love to see that film.' |
| Rejecting a suggestion | I'd rather not / I don't feel like it | 'I'd rather not. How about staying in?' |
| Rejecting a suggestion | That's not really my thing | 'That's not really my thing. What about somewhere closer?' |
When to Use Suggestion Phrases
Planning activities with others: When two or more people are deciding what to do together, suggestions let each person contribute ideas without imposing them, keeping the conversation collaborative rather than directive, as in 'Why don't we meet at the station and take the train there?'
Offering solutions considerately: When someone mentions a problem, responding with a suggestion rather than a direct instruction softens the advice and respects the other person's autonomy, as in 'You could try calling them directly instead.'
Keeping negotiations moving: When a suggestion gets turned down, following the rejection immediately with an alternative keeps the conversation going and signals willingness to compromise, as in 'OK, if you don't fancy that, how about going somewhere closer?'
3-Step Framework for Teaching Suggestion Phrases
1. Build Accuracy with Controlled Practice: Start students off with a dice-based matching game where they roll to land on a suggestion phrase, then pick up a situation card and a suggestion card and build a sentence pair using that phrase, for example 'I am hungry. Let's go for a meal.' This ties the phrase directly to a real-world context and gives learners immediate feedback on whether their sentence structure is correct before they move into freer practice.
2. Push Fluency with a Production Game: Once learners have the core phrases under control, move them into a location-guessing game where one student uses 'Let's...', 'How about...?', and 'Why don't we...?' to describe a specific place, for example suggesting 'Let's find a quiet place to study', while their partner tries to name the location. Scoring decreases with each guess, so there is real communicative pressure to make suggestions that are both accurate and contextually logical.
3. Develop Real-World Discussion Skills: Round off the sequence with a problem-solving discussion where learners first write one or two suggestions to deal with each problem individually, then share and debate them in groups to reach an agreement on the best solution. This mirrors the real communicative demand of suggestion-making: learners must not just propose ideas but also listen, evaluate, and negotiate together.
Common Mistakes with Suggestion Phrases
Matching the wrong phrase to the level of formality: Students often use informal suggestion phrases like 'Let's' and 'How about' in professional or semiformal situations where a softer, more tentative phrase is expected, which can make them come across as pushy or presumptuous to a colleague or manager. Wrong: 'Let's move the meeting to Thursday.' Correct: 'I was wondering if we could move the meeting to Thursday?' or 'Perhaps we could move the meeting to Thursday?'
Using 'suggest' with a 'to' infinitive: Students often write 'I suggest you to...' by analogy with verbs like 'advise' and 'encourage', not realising that 'suggest' cannot take a 'to' infinitive and instead requires either a gerund or a 'that' clause. Wrong: 'I suggest you to try the pasta.' Correct: 'I suggest trying the pasta.' or 'I suggest that you try the pasta.'
Common Questions About Teaching Suggestion Phrases
What is a fun game for practicing making suggestions?
In the game Suggestions Race, students race in pairs to unscramble ten jumbled suggestion sentences, each using a different phrase. One student runs to collect the strip, both students write the correct sentence, then one runs back for checking. If it is wrong, they take it back and fix it. The first pair to finish all ten wins.
What is a useful worksheet for teaching making suggestions?
The free worksheet Can I make a suggestion? takes students from controlled exercises into real discussion. They identify suggestion phrases and match sentence halves to form accepting and rejecting responses, then move into a group discussion where they tackle everyday problems, accept or reject each other's ideas, and agree on the best solution before reporting back to the class.
What is an engaging activity for practicing making suggestions?
Students in the activity The Secret of Success take turns picking a card and asking the group 'What's the best way to (topic)?', for example 'What's the best way to find a job?' Each student suggests an answer, the group debates, and they write the agreed best suggestion on the card before moving to the next.
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