Exit interviews

Richard | Mar 23, 2026Mar 22, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this ESL lesson on exit interviews are to:

• discuss and analyse the exit interview process;
• pracitse diplomatic language for feedback;
• watch a video about exit interviews.

In this lesson, students talk about reasons for leaving a job, discuss exit interviews and share opinions and experiences. They watch a video on exit interview questions, examine potential responses and explore phrases for softening feedback (e.g. It seemed to me as if…). Students also practise creating diplomatic answers, listen to a recording and role-play an offboarding interview at an IT company.

WARM-UP AND VIDEO

This ESL lesson on exit interviews starts with a warm-up. Students examine pictures of people in different situations and talk about motivations for changing jobs. Afterwards, they do tasks where they discuss exit interviews. Moving on, students look at various ways exit interviews can be conducted (e.g. an anonymous online survey). They debate their pros and cons and say what interview type they would be most and least comfortable with. Students also mention their own experiences. Afterwards, they look at different categories (e.g. management and support) and think of questions that could be asked at an exit interview. Then, students watch a video and answer questions to determine what is not mentioned and identify the most important question. They then examine questions from the video and complete gaps. Following that, students watch the video again and check their answers.

USEFUL LANGUAGE AND ROLE-PLAY

In this part of this ESL lesson on exit interviews, students discuss experiences and strategies. After the video, they examine potential responses to offboarding questions from the lesson. Then, students match the responses to the questions. Moving on, they look at the responses from the previous task again. Students analyse diplomatic language (e.g. From my perspective,…) and choose the correct option to complete statements about their function. After that, they examine five less diplomatic answers from exit interviews and use the phrases from the previous exercise to create more diplomatic responses. Next, students choose three diplomatic statements they created and rewrite them using a different diplomatic phrase. They then listen to an exit interview and answer questions about it. Following that, students discuss its effectiveness and outcomes. Finally, they work in pairs. Students role-play an exit interview at an IT company, using the target language from the lesson.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This ESL lesson on exit interviews also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students use phrases for softening feedback to complete the gaps in sentences. They then choose three responses and create questions for them. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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