Responsibility

This topic touches on everything from personal accountability to social obligations, which gives students a chance to talk about their values and real-life situations. Works well for discussing work, family, community roles, and the choices we make every day.

Questions are organized by level from beginner to advanced. A printable PDF of all the questions is available at the bottom of the page.

Beginner (A1-A2)

1. Do you take care of a pet or a plant at home? What do you have to do for them?
2. When you were a child, what chores did you have to do? Did you like doing them?
3. What do you do when you make a mistake? Do you say sorry right away?
4. Who taught you to be responsible? What did they teach you?
5. Do you keep your room or home clean, or is it usually messy? What does it look like right now?
6. Have you ever taken care of a younger child? Was it fun or stressful?
7. Do you help your neighbors with anything? What do you do?
8. Have you ever forgotten to do something important? Tell me about it.
9. Have you ever broken something valuable? What did you do about it?
10. Have you ever had to take care of someone who was sick? What did you have to do?
11. Have you ever been late for something important because you didn’t plan well? What happened?

Elementary (A2)

1. What are some of your responsibilities?
2. Who is the most responsible person you know? What do they do that makes them so responsible?
3. Do you prefer to work alone or in a team? What’s good about each?
4. What is the biggest responsibility you have right now? What makes it so important?
5. What responsibilities do you have at work or school that you didn’t have a few years ago?
6. Do you pay your own bills, or does someone help you? Why?
7. Are you good at saving money, or do you spend it quickly? Why?
8. Do you share the chores with the people you live with, or does one person do most of the work? Why is it like that?
9. Are you the kind of person who finishes things early, or do you wait until the last minute? Why?
10. Have you ever been responsible for planning a trip or an event? What was the hardest part?
11. When your parents trusted you to do something for the first time, like staying home alone or going somewhere by yourself, how old were you? What did they tell you before they left?

Intermediate (B1)

1. What responsibilities do university students have? How about children or adults?
2. At what age do you think someone becomes responsible for their actions? Why that age?
3. What should companies do to protect the environment?
4. How much responsibility should individuals have for protecting the environment? What are some things everyone should do?
5. Who has more responsibility for the environment, companies or individuals? Why?
6. Who is responsible for taking care of the poor? What should they do to help?
7. Do you think you are more or less responsible than your friends? Why do you think so?
8. What do parents in your country usually teach their children about responsibility? Why those things?
9. Do you prefer a job with a lot of responsibility or a simple job? Why?
10. What is one responsibility you wish you didn’t have? Why?
11. Should parents be held responsible for their children’s behavior in public? Why or why not?
12. What household chores do you think children should be responsible for? What do most families forget to teach?
13. Do you think people are more or less responsible now than they were 50 years ago? Why do you think so?
14. Should celebrities and influencers be held to a higher standard of responsibility than regular people? Why or why not?
15. When is it okay to break a promise? Give me some examples.
16. Do you think people are less responsible when they know others will clean up after them? How so?
17. Should parents let teenagers make their own mistakes, or should they try to protect them? Why or why not?
18. At what point should adult children stop relying on their parents for money? What do most people in your country think about this?
19. If a friend borrows money from you and doesn’t pay it back, whose responsibility is it to bring it up? How would you handle it?
20. Do you think you have enough free time, or are your responsibilities too heavy? How is it different from your parents’ generation?

Upper-Intermediate (B2)

1. How involved should governments be in individuals’ lives? Where do you draw the line?
2. Are criminals ever NOT responsible for the crimes they commit? When might that be the case?
3. Who is responsible for retired people’s welfare: themselves, their family, or their government? Why do you think so?
4. How has the rise of remote work changed employees’ sense of responsibility toward their employers? What do you think about those changes?
5. When someone makes a serious mistake at work, how much responsibility should their manager take? What makes it the manager’s responsibility versus the employee’s?
6. How is responsibility taught differently in collectivist cultures versus individualist cultures? How does that affect people’s behavior?
7. Compare how young adults take responsibility for their finances today versus 30 years ago. What has changed and why?
8. What are the psychological effects of carrying too much responsibility? How often have you experienced this yourself?
9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of making community service mandatory for high school students?
10. Some people believe that everyone is responsible for their own success or failure. Others say society plays a bigger role. What is your view, and what evidence from your own life supports it?
11. Compare the responsibilities of a leader (a boss, a president, a coach) with the responsibilities of the people they lead. How is it different, and where does it overlap?
12. In what ways does having or not having money change how much responsibility a person is expected to take for their own problems? How is this fair or unfair?
13. Companies often say they are committed to social responsibility, but critics argue it is mostly marketing. How can you tell the difference between a company that genuinely cares and one that is just trying to look good?
14. Technology companies collect enormous amounts of personal data, and most users agree to this without reading the terms. Who bears more responsibility for protecting privacy, the companies that design these systems or the users who accept them?

Advanced (C1)

1. In many countries, adult children are expected to care for their aging parents, but economic pressures often make this difficult. How is this expectation changing, and what do you think is being lost or gained as a result?
2. Social media allows people to publicly shame others for irresponsible behavior such as a racist comment, a parenting mistake, a bad business decision. When does this kind of public accountability cross the line into mob justice?
3. Some people argue that voting is a right, while others say it is a responsibility that should be required by law. What are the deeper consequences of making voting mandatory, both for individuals and for democracy?
4. When governments provide too much support (free housing, guaranteed income, universal healthcare), some people worry it reduces personal motivation. Where is the line between a safety net that helps people and one that creates dependence?
5. People often say they would act responsibly in a crisis, but research shows most people freeze, follow the crowd, or look out for themselves first. Why is there such a gap between what people believe about themselves and how they actually behave?
6. Some cultures emphasize individual responsibility ‘you are responsible for your own success.’ Others emphasize collective responsibility ‘we succeed or fail together.’ How does the culture you grew up in shape the way you think about blame, credit, and obligation?
7. How do modern parenting philosophies simultaneously demand more parental responsibility while reducing children’s opportunities to develop their own sense of responsibility?
8. Why do societies often assign more responsibility to victims of crimes or accidents to ‘take precautions’ than to potential perpetrators to ‘not commit harm’?
9. AI systems now help decide who gets hired, who gets a loan, and even what medical treatment someone receives. When these systems make a mistake, nobody feels personally responsible. How does this ‘responsibility gap’ change the way we think about accountability?
10. People disagree about whether addiction is a personal choice or a medical condition. How does the way a society answers that question change what they expect from the person struggling with it, and from the people around them?
11. When someone discovers that their company or government is doing something wrong, they face a choice between loyalty and responsibility to the public. Why do most people stay silent even when they know something is wrong, and what does that tell us about how we weigh personal risk against doing the right thing?

PDF: Download a PDF of all the questions