Archive for the ‘Speaking’ Category

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.

Looking for TEFL Xmas activities is like writing the list of presents you want from Santa- once you start there seems to be no end…

One really nice real-life task (because Santa exists in real life!) - sending emails to Santa. Students will also get a reply, apparently:

(more…)

So, I might have left this list of Xmas links for TEFL purposes a bit late, but here goes anyway:

(more…)

First of all, just because it’s funny, here’s a native speaker who wouldn’t pass the IELTS Speaking Part Three:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

To make sure your students aren’t reduced to such levels of incoherence, here is a whole stack of IELTS speaking materials:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/efl-exam-worksheets-ielts/

I’ve also got a whole stack of Part Two and Part Three exam questions on various topics if that is of interest to anyone. Just put a request in the comments box and I’ll put them up:

Thanks to Appy Linguist for mentioning the PPP approach while talking about the CELTA because I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while. The question is: should teachers still be trained to teach PPP and it’s offshoot (or bastard offspring, depending on your point of view) TTT? First of all, to recap what they mean:

In PPP (presentation, practice and production), you present a language point, students do some controlled practice of the language and then they are given a freer speaking task to do where they can produce the language you have presented and practiced if they wish. TTT (test, teach, test) is similar, but you test the students on their knowledge and ability to use the language you want to teach first, see where the hole in their language is and then do the stages in PPP. The possible things you can do at each stage are:

Presentation

1. Write an example of a grammatical form up on the board and translate it into the students’ language
2. And/ or write an example of a grammatical form up on the board and explain what the name of the form is, how it is used and what it means (in English or in L1*)
3. Do the same as 1 or 2, but eliciting the translation or explanation from the students
4. Do the reverse of 1 or 2, providing a sentence in L1 for translation or giving the name or meaning of the form and getting students to provide an example sentence
5. Do the same as 4, but eliciting the form with a cue such as a picture, a story, a gapped sentence or a timeline*
6. After a listening, reading or video watching activity, pull examples of the form you want to teach out of the text and do the same as 1 to 5 above
7. Do the same as 6, but providing the explanation, translation etc. as asking students to find examples in the texts
8. Students do any one of 1 to 7 above, but individually or in pairs from their textbooks or a worksheet. Check answers as a whole class.

Once you are sure that all the students understand the meaning and construction of the form you want to teach (this stage usually includes a few concept check questions to make sure that is in fact the case), you are ready to move onto the practice stage

Practice

1. Students are drilled on more sentences similar to the one used in the presentation, making sure their pronunciation is okay 
2. Students translate more sentences with the form in to and/ or from English
3. Students complete multiple choice, gap fill etc. written tasks including the form being taught
4. Students produce examples of the form based on prompts provided by the teacher or textbooks (e.g. book- I like reading books, flower- I like picking flowers etc.)
5. Students produce examples of the form to answer questions by the teacher or in the textbook (When did uyou have breakfast? I had breakfast at 8:15), either their own real answers or based on cues in the textbook
6. Students ask questions with the form being taught to match answers given by the teacher or in the textbook (I was walking down the street- What were you doing when you last met your best friend?- That’s right)
7. Countless other speaking and/ or writing games that involve a limited range of language
8. Any of the production activities below, but with students being told to use the form being taught or even to only use the form being taught

It is possible to use two or more of the practice activities above, often moving from very controlled (e.g. drilling) to freer (e.g. language games).

Now that students are capable of making some correct sentences with the form being taught, they are ready for the next stage. In the practice stage above, even when the tasks are, in the best of cases, genuinely communicative (that is, students learn some real information about each other they didn’t know before) they still use an unrealisitically limited amount of language. Hopefully, the students are now ready to try to use the same structures in a situation where a lot of other different language could also come up.

Production

1. Roleplays
2. Writing longer texts like stories, letters etc.
3. Problem solving and logic puzzles
4. Many many more which don’t spring to mind at the moment

I’m going to deal with the criticisms of PPP in PPP RIP? Part Two, but before I forget a point that has just occured to me, I would like to say that modern so-called PPP classes, textbooks and teacher training courses tend to include just as much emphasis on skills development as on items of language taught through PPP- a point often forgotten by both critics and defenders due the fact that the name is not PPPPS (PPP plus skills) or such like. It’s amazing how much a snappy acronym* can change history

*L1- The students’ first language, e.g. Spanish

*Timeline- A picture of wiggly lines, straight lines and crosses that is supposed to show the time connections of different tenses

* Acronym- Strictly this is not an acronym because it is not pronounced like a word (like NATO), but I don’t know what it really is, so on this blog an acronym it remains

Here are some game-like resources for teenagers and adults who are going to travel and/ or are working in the travel industry:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-accomodation-rules-guessing-game-modals-travel-english/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-air-travel-mimes-collocations/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-travel-english-what-are-you-going-to-do-future-household-vocab/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-travel-english-compound-nouns-blackjack/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-air-travel-compound-nouns-articles-dominoes/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheet-travel-advice-country-guessing-game-modals-culture-uk-auz-nz/

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=58025&docid=153941

All tried and tested, but feedback still gratefully received