50 ESL Discussion Questions About Relationships and Family

Relationships and family are topics where every student has lived experience and strong feelings. A question about friendship can unlock five minutes of fluent speech from a student who barely speaks during grammar exercises - because they're talking about something real.

Here are 50 discussion questions organised by CEFR level, designed for pair work.

YapYapGo is a classroom speaking practice tool that includes relationships and family as one of its discussion topic categories, with questions matched to age group and CEFR level. For tips on getting quieter students to open up on personal topics, see our post on making speaking less terrifying for shy students.

A2 Elementary (questions 1–10)

1. How many people are in your family?
2. Who is your best friend? How did you meet?
3. Do you prefer spending time with family or friends?
4. What do you usually do with your friends at the weekend?
5. Do you live with your family or alone?
6. How often do you talk to your parents or grandparents?
7. What makes a good friend?
8. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you get along?
9. Have you ever had an argument with a friend? What happened?
10. Who do you talk to when you have a problem?

B1 Intermediate (questions 11–25)

1. How has your relationship with your parents changed as you've got older?
2. Do you think it's harder to make friends as an adult?
3. Should friends always be honest with each other, even if the truth hurts?
4. How important is family in your culture compared to other cultures you know about?
5. Do you think social media has made friendships stronger or weaker?
6. What's the biggest challenge in maintaining a long-distance friendship?
7. How do you deal with conflict in a friendship?
8. Do you think people should live with their parents until they get married?
9. What role do grandparents play in your family?
10. Would you rather have one very close friend or a large group of friends?
11. How has the definition of "family" changed in recent years?
12. Do you think couples should live together before getting married?
13. How do you balance time between friends and family?
14. What was the best piece of advice someone in your family gave you?
15. Do you think arranged marriages can work?

Tool tip: YapYapGo's Topic Discussion mode pairs students automatically with level-appropriate questions on relationships and family. New partners each round means students hear different cultural perspectives on the same topic.

B2 Upper-Intermediate (questions 26–40)

1. To what extent should parents influence their adult children's life decisions?
2. How has technology changed the way families communicate?
3. Is it possible to maintain a genuine friendship entirely online?
4. How do cultural differences affect romantic relationships?
5. Should family obligations take priority over personal ambitions?
6. How has the role of fathers changed in your lifetime?
7. Is it better to have a small, close family or a large, extended one?
8. How does economic pressure affect family relationships?
9. Do you think people are getting married later because they're wiser or because they're more selfish?
10. How should parents handle disagreements about raising children?
11. What makes some friendships last decades while others fade?
12. How has divorce become more or less acceptable in your culture?
13. Should adult children be legally required to support elderly parents?
14. How do power dynamics affect relationships?
15. Is it possible to be friends with an ex-partner?

C1 Advanced (questions 41–50)

1. How does the romanticisation of the nuclear family in media and politics ignore the reality of how most people actually live?
2. To what extent are our expectations of relationships shaped by cultural narratives rather than genuine emotional needs?
3. How does economic inequality affect who people form relationships with and how those relationships function?
4. "Friendship is the most undervalued relationship in a society obsessed with romantic love." Discuss.
5. How should society support non-traditional family structures without undermining the structures that work for others?
6. Is emotional labour in relationships a feminist issue or a universal human one?
7. How has the commodification of dating through apps changed the way people approach relationships?
8. To what extent is loneliness a personal problem versus a structural one?
9. How should we balance individual autonomy with the obligations that come with family membership?
10. If you could change one thing about how your culture approaches relationships, what would it be?

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Free tools for your next lesson

• Topic Generator - Random conversation questions by category
• Student Picker - Pick random students with a slot-machine animation
• This or That - Generate quick "this or that" prompts

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Sources:

• Long, M. (1996). The Role of the Linguistic Environment in Second Language Acquisition. Handbook of Second Language Acquisition.
• Foster, P. & Skehan, P. (1996). The Influence of Planning and Task Type. Studies in Second Language Acquisition.