Archive for the ‘Speaking’ Category

Talking of TEFL jargon (as I was two posts ago, the brief aside in between is apparently technically called an “insertion sequence”, fnaah fnaah), am I the only one to notice that since Scott Thornbury wrote “An A to Z of ELT” his other books have suddenly become full of more jargon than you can shake a dictionary at? Has he discovered a marketing method that is even better than the recent tendancy of textbooks to “just happen to mention” graded readers and dictionaries from the same publisher?

I’m presently enjoying the feast of jargon that is Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy, a book you can read a surprisingly large amount of by clicking on the top link on this Google search page.

Backwards dialogues

Students write a dialogue and then read it out starting with the last line, then the second to last line and last line, then the last three lines etc- working their way towards the beginning of the dialogue until the other students in the class guess what the situation of the conversation is, e.g. who the telephone conversation is between or which kind of shop it is taking place in.

 ”Borrowed” from Clockwise Upper Intermediate Teacher’s Resource Pack, where it is explained much more clearly than this. Not much else to recommend that book (although the textbook is okay and the lower level teacher’s resource packs seem better), so keep reading here instead as I rip off every book in my new teacher’s room library and write up all the highlights here.

I have to fly away from my Yahoo BB internet connection now, and I may be some time. So while I am gone from cyberspace, you all have a chance to read the over 200 articles I’ve written elsewhere- starting with this month’s supply:

15 easy ways to bring change into the classroom

15 ways of dealing with students who pause before they speak

15 ways of dealing with pre-experience Business English and ESP students

15 ways to boost your teaching and lesson planning creativity

15 places to start getting published

15 ways to correct spoken errors

15 ways to bring lucky chances into your classroom and lesson planning

Done already? Well, I’m sure you’ve all been good and read the entire list of articles etc in the September list further down this page already, so the extra homework for the keen this month will be having a look at:

TEFLtastic articles (reorganised a bit to have more links to articles elsewhere on the same topics)

and

TEFLtastic worksheets (ditto)

More making up for the fact that Dr Johnson was never lucky enough to be a TEFL teacher, this time with one of my favourite TEFL games ever, Call My Bluff. In the classroom version you get the students to make up the wrong definitions to try and fool the other student or team with, but even on my last day in my previous job I wasn’t slack enough to get my students to write my blog for me so you have to choose the real definition from Dr Johnson’s dictionary via Henry Hitchings, not being fooled by the fake definition made up very quickly by me to stop wasting any more time on the TEFL otaku topic… (answers at the bottom of the page)

1. Is an amatorcultist (a) a little insignificant lover, or (b) a lover of the art of gardening?
 
2. Is a bellygod (a) one who makes a god of his belly, or (b) a drug that calms the troubled gut?
 
3. Is deosculation (a) the art of kissing, or (b) losing an eye or part of an eye?

4. Is kissingcrust (a) a crust formed when one loaf in the oven touches another, or (b) a soreness upon the lips caused by an excess of kissing?

5. Is gazingstock (a) a person gazed at with scorn or abhorrence (related to ‘laughingstock’), or (b) cattle that stare at you as you pass?

6. Is potvaliant (a) heated with courage by a strong drink, or (b) culinary adventurousness?
 
7. Is subderisorious (a) scoffing or ridiculing with tenderness or delicacy, or (b) contemptuous of someone below you?
 
8. Is vaticide (a) a murderer of poets, or (b) a murderer of popes?
 
9. Is rhabdomancy (a) divination by a wand, or (b) Scottish witchery?
 
10. Is suppedaneous (a) placed upon the feet, (b) connected to the evening meal?
 
11. Is anatiferous (a) producing ducks, or (b) the burning of phosphor? (more…)

Even with all the things written about Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, I think I might be the first to try adding some TEFL-style pointless elicitation. And so here goes… Try to work out which word he was defining in each case then scroll down the screen to check (it’s a bit like the classroom activities The Definition Game and Taboo):
 
1. belonging to an ass
—————
—————
————–
asinine
 
2. a hog dressed whole, in the West Indian manner
—————
—————
————–
barbecue

3. a stone in the bladder
—————
—————
————– (more…)

Updated, expanded and with many more links here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/telephoning/

Have done a bit more tedious reorganisation so that you don’t need to do so much tedious searching, and you can now find all the links to my stuff on said topics elsewhere on the internet as well as my exclusive TEFLtastic stuff here:

Teaching exam classes-articles and tips for teachers

and here:

EFL exam worksheets, lesson plans and tips for students

Comments or tips for other good sources welcome here:

I thought so.  Try these with your classes, then:

Student A: How are you?
Student B: Old

Student A: How are you?
Student B: How am I? How should I be?

Student A: How are you?
Student B: How should I be, with my feet?

Student A: How’s your brother?
Student B: Dead

Student A: What’s doing?
Student B: Nothing
A: Nothing?
B: Nothing.

Student A: How was your weekend?
Student B: It should happen to my enemies

Student A: What time is it?
Student B: What am I, a clock?

In case you haven’t guessed they are all from Yiddish, specifically mainly from the surprisingly readable popular linguistics book Born to Kvetch. More good stuff from there coming on TEFLtastic soon.

My first surprise was introducing students to the piece of ELT jargon “speech acts”, something I only vaguely remembered from my reading for my DELTA myself, but more about that when I get round to reviewing The Cambridge Grammar of English…

Some of the above were some I had never thought about, some are ones I still doubt, and the rest are just vaguely interesting (something that is worth celebrating when you are reading your way through a grammar book!) Any comments after testing these against your “native speaker intuitions” (also known as “TEFL teacher prejudices”) gratefully received:

“You must” and “you’ll have to” are often used to give non-specific invitations
 
“And you must come down to Barr at some stage or another”
 
“You’ll have to come round for a coffee”
 
What if…? is used for How about…? in “standard British and Irish English”
 
“What if I set the table?”
 
“What if we had it here?”
 
How’s about…? for How about…? in informal contexts in standard British and Irish English

Informal lexis softens a speech act:
“pop in” instead of “visit”/ “wee” in “a wee favour”
 
“Please” is usually used at the end of a question, but children often put it first:
 
“Please can I have some more bread?”
 
“so” and “then” are common in declarative clauses functioning as questions
 
“So you had a good day at work then?”
 
“Didn’t it just!” is part of a general pattern of interrogative structures used as explanations, like “Was I exhausted!” and “Hasn’t she grown!”

“Would you mind if one of our representatives comes and gives you a free demonstration?” Would you mind + present

“You want to sound-proof your room with egg boxes”- “want to” for advice in “standard British and Irish English”

I found the top one of this page of Langwich scool quite funny. That fact that I didn’t laugh at all of them was almost a relief- means I haven’t turned into a complete TEFL otaku yet… I would, however, 100% recommend the Puzzle Time books by the same guy (Jon Marks), and a look at the other links on the page.