Hello again!

Hello again!
For me, speaking tip 7 is the most important one - my students actually see all that grammar/vocabulary being put in use. I would wholeheartedly recommend (if not the course book itself, then at least the method) Face 2 Face, second edition. It is a course book mainly for adult learners. It relies heavily on speaking, while still paying respect to other skills. In these books, almost every activity has speaking as its base - I will give you some examples:

I had a/the/ rice for lunch yesterday.
Students have to choose the correct article and afterwards comment on whether this sentence is true or false in their case. They are expected to expand on their answer a bit (as much as they are able to, of course) - ''No, I didn't, but I had...''

-If you ___ (be) rich, what countries ___ (you visit)?
Same task here, practicing II conditional.

- what/on/do/Sundays/you/do/usually
Make a question and answer it immediately.

Most of my students enjoy it because they see the immediate use of language. It becomes personalised for them, others can add something if the question/task is interesting, and ''modelling'' is provided by the course book itself. If we have shy students, they tend to invent an answer and still be happy that they are participating in the activity.

I would love to hear some more ideas/recommendations/comments!

Comments

  1. Walton BurnsNovember 16, 2017 at 10:52 AM

    You can definitely use those kinds of exercises as the basis for a speaking drill. Or a short conversation. And it's great that you let students make the answer up. Some students don't want to say that they had something weird for lunch, or they weren't hungry and they don't want people to be concerned. I always tell my students they can just make something up if they don't want to talk about themselves. Some of the more creative students can really go off with their pretend answers: "Well, I already visited all the countries, so if I were rich, I would buy Brazil. And play soccer every day!"

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  2. Jelena RuzicNovember 18, 2017 at 6:25 AM

    Thanks, Walton! It certainly depends on how open they are for communication, but I do think that students have fewer problems with general questions (What did you have for breakfast) rather than the ones related to feelings (How do you deal with your fears). I also think that there is greater retention if they use a personal example - I would always remember the word ''resent'' if I associate it with public transport in my country instead of just learning ''John resents being late''.

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