Idioms: speed

This ESL worksheet helps learners master common English idioms related to speed. Through engaging dialogues, personalised discussion questions, and speaking activities, students develop confidence using these high-frequency expressions in everyday conversations.

In the first activities, students are introduced to idioms such as at a snail’s pace, take your time, before you know it, gain momentum, keep pace with, and Rome wasn’t built in a day through a natural dialogue about starting a business. They then match each bolded idiom to its correct definition before reinforcing their understanding by completing sentences with the target expressions in the correct form.

Next, learners personalise the language by completing open-ended sentences with their own ideas, encouraging them to connect the idioms to real-life experiences. A second set of dialogues introduces additional expressions, including spread like wildfire, in the blink of an eye, a mile a minute, racing against the clock, at lightning speed, dragging your feet, and pick up the pace. Students match each idiom to its definition before practising them in context through multiple-choice gap-fill exercises.

The worksheet also includes a variety of communicative speaking tasks. Students answer discussion questions using specific idioms, talk about their own experiences with deadlines, technology, rumours, and long-term goals, and describe how quickly they perform everyday activities using guided sentence stems. These personalised tasks promote fluency while helping learners use the target expressions naturally and accurately.

In the final section, students discuss opinion-based statements about technology, success, productivity, and modern life, expressing agreement or disagreement while incorporating the idioms into extended answers. These activities encourage critical thinking, spontaneous speaking, and greater confidence with figurative language.

This worksheet is ideal for upper-intermediate and advanced ESL learners who want to expand their vocabulary with natural, native-like idioms related to speed, time management, change, and progress, while improving both speaking fluency and conversational confidence.

For more speaking practice, pair this worksheet with the printable conversation cards.