Let’s get started. It’s time to begin sharing.

22 Feb

Teaching a conversation class to adult learners of ESL requires to use the adequate techniques so that the teacher and the students could feel satisfied. Some of the tips are:

  • Find topics that the students are interested in. The age group and the cultural background of the students are to be taken into consideration.
  • There are some websites on the internet that could help you choose conversation topics. Let me suggest only two with the intention that you can contribute more:

         http://iteslj.org/questions

         http://www.compellingconversations.com

  • Once a topic is chosen, prepare the key vocabulary and a couple of questions in case you need to “break the ice” to get started.
  • Remember that your job as a teacher in a conversation class is that of a moderator, but one that corrects and stimulates conversation. The class is for the students to talk, and for you to listen.
  • Avoid topics related to religion and politics.

Can you contribute any other tips, ideas, websites?

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“The written wo…

21 Feb

“The written word has its limits and its challenges, for the primal sound in the whole world is that made by the human voice.”
Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China:Self-Portrait of K’ang-Hsi.

Speaking is one of the four essential skills taught in order to acquire any language in addition to listening, reading and writing. Many people who learn a foreign language are especially interested in learning it for conversation.

A difficulty that many foreign language teachers encounter is getting their students to talk, especially if their students are adults. Speaking a language other than their mother tongue can be somewhat intimidating. As they do not have the necessary confidence, they are generally afraid of making mistakes in front of their peers. This is typical of most of the people who are learning a foreign language.

” You learn to …

21 Feb

” You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”
Anatole France

The objective of this blog is to gather ideas, opinions, suggestions and all the valuable tips that teachers, professors, instructors, linguists and students alike would be willing to share in order to make the foreign language teaching/learning process, especially the speaking skill, more practical and enjoyable.