About ESL Newsletter: Speaking

 Speaking is the topic of this week's About ESL newsletter. For "dessert" ~ spooky talk. Poe's Raven and a candy haunted house for Halloween,

Speaking English well is the goal of all English learners. In this newsletter, you'll learn about speaking English on the telephone, speaking English in situations at work, and speaking English in everyday situations, also known as small talk.

Here are ten questions to help you 

start speaking English

. Each of these questions help to begin or continue a conversation. The questions are in two categories: Basic Facts and Hobbies / Free Time. There are also a number of questions that can help you continue the conversation after the first question.

Teachers can help students with lesson plans on practicing telephone English, and making small talk. Teachers will also be interested in this lesson focusing on how to get an ESL class conversing.

candy haunted house ~ how to make one

Finally, it's Halloween here in the United States soon. Have fun learning spooky English with the Halloween resources on the site, including a vocabulary quiz, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe and more.

Conversation questions and writing prompts

Use conversation questions to help you find writing topics for practice and journal writing.

"How?" you ask. Easy, just answer the question in writing. Questions ask for information. Write it out. You can also use the written answers to prepare your own scripts for speaking practice.

Turn some of the questions into journal topics and essay prompts. Pick a question from one of the lists at the link below and write a paragraph about it.

Conversation Questions Pick a question or make up your own, write and post your answer as a comment,

Audio Archive & Speaking Practice

First... listen...

The Audio Archive via Omniglot blog by Simon on 2/10/10

I came across the Audio Archive yesterday while searching for information about the pronunciation of English dialects.

The archive is part of an newsgroup about English and contains recordings by English speakers from around the world of a number of different texts.
Other collections of English dialect recordings including the British Library's Sounds Familiar? and Archival Sound Recordings, the BBC Voices project, Sound Comparisons, the American English Dialect Recordings at the Library of Congress, and the International Dialects of English Archive.

and then speak...

10 goofy ways to practise speaking skills from Rliberni's Blog by rliberni

I’ve been thinking about some quick ways in which you can practise English as you go about your daily life. I realise that not everybody is in a position where they are surrounded by English every day. For others they have very limited time to practise and need ‘quick fixes’ to keep their language skills moving. One area which poses a particular problem here is speaking.

I thought back to my early days of learning French, I was in a similar position with no French around me and without things like internet access that are available today!  I invented little tricks and tasks to do in French to keep the momentum going. I’ll share these with you here and I’ve added a few more that I have observed from other people.

So, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing you can do a little effective practice!

These will work with any language you are learning.

Warning – you might want to do some of these behind closed doors!
All the activities require a little imagination, do them when you are performing routine tasks.

Singing:
I love to sing and do these quite often. Great for in the shower, washing the dishes, cleaning or driving.
         1.  Choose a song you like and make up English lyrics – anything will do, wild and wacky or sad and sentimental.
         2.  Invent a ‘jingle’ to advertise your favourite chocolate bar, car, band etc.. let your imagination go wild!
         3.  Make up a rap about what you are doing.

OK, so how do these help anything, you may be asking. There’s spontaneity, which is something you also need when speaking – you don’t know what’s coming next. You can be totally uninhibited and try anything – true freedom of expression! It will help you drag out vocabulary from your boots, you’ll be surprised at what you know. You’ll also find out what you don’t know – no worries – look these words up in your dictionary later on.

Present a TV show!
          4.  Cooking is GREAT for this! As you prepare your dish/meal imagine you are on TV and show your audience how to make it.
        5.  Choose another task you are doing and imagine you are making a video to show others how to do it.

This is great practice for giving instructions and describing a process. Conjure up a team to help you and soon you’ll have your own TV studio!! Get into the part. You could even invite your friends to join in too!

Recite a poem:
         6. Learn a poem or verse by heart and then practise it while you go about your daily tasks. You can, alternatively, base it on a poem in your own language or even make one up.
When I was learning French at school we used to memorise poems and ‘perform’ them in class – great for pronunciation!!

Conversing with pets!
          7. Converse with your dog or cat! You have a real live partner for your conversation even if you get very quizzical looks! (I always did). It adds a dimension to your creativity and great for pronunciation.

Making speeches.
         8. OK, you need a microphone for this, so grab that washing-up brush, wooden spoon or shower gel bottle and make that speech to your invisible audience!!

Become a tour guide!
          9. Grab your  ’microphone’ again and pretend you are a tour guide and give a guided tour of your city, town or village!

        10. Get Gapfillers word of the day on your mobile phone. An effortless way to improve your vocabulary!

and keep practicing...

Make your language practice a part of your life!! Check out these posts to help you with your English practice.

• 10 ways to increase your vocabulary
• 7 virtues to help you write well in English
• 7  deadly sins to avoid in your writing
• Warning – mistakes cost marks!
• An A to Z of effective language practice
• Some tips for improving listening skills

New materials on speaking from "Splendid Speaking"

"Splendid Speaking" uses Skype as a learning tool for learning and improving English. They do a nice job, I think. Take a look at the newsletter and see for yourself.

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Splendid Speaking - http://www.splendid-speaking.com/

An easier and more effective way to improve your speaking skills and confidence in English.
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Sunday 27th January 2008
Welcome to the Splendid Speaking Newsletter. First of all, a big 'Thanks' for all the feedback we've received from our visitors over
the past few months. Your views will be invaluable in helping us develop the site further. This week we're pleased to announce some exciting changes and additions to our services. See our new Colloquial Vocabulary feature below and news of our new speaking task sheet for use in class and self study.
In this week's issue:
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• TASK SHEETS
• LEARN COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY
• DEVELOP YOUR SPEAKING SKILLS
• CONNECT WITH OTHERS
• SPREAD THE WORD!
  

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TASK SHEETS
This week we're pleased to announce the first of our new speaking task sheets. Each newly-designed sheet comes with two tasks: one presentation and one pair/group activity. We also include a vocabulary list and links to relevant recordings from our archive.
In addition, if you're looking to practise your presentation skills for work or your studies, preparing for an exam and will have to do a short talk then this week's featured recording, which looks at structuring a short talk will be of interest to you.
You'll find a link to the new task sheet, the featured recording and the transcripts from here: http://www.splendid-speaking.com/4.html
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LEARN COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY
Interested in improving your use of colloquial vocabulary? How many of the missing words below do you know? Visit our website on the dates below and use our three-stage quiz to help you learn the key words, understand the meaning and, most of all, remember the expression so you can recognise and/or use it later. Print this newsletter, then each day during week beginning 28 January 2008 fill in the gaps of any new expressions you come across. You can do the quiz here (Click 'Today's Vocabulary Quiz' - make sure your computer allows popups):
http://www.splendid-speaking.com/products/index.html
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Monday 28 January 2008. Topic: Communication
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1) If you need any help just ........ the word and I'll be round immediately.
2) Look, if there's something the matter just get it off your ........ and stop sitting there with a long face!
3) The builder was late again today. If he's not here at 9.00 tomorrow I'm really going to give him a ........ of my mind.
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Tuesday 29 January 2008: Agreeing and Disagreeing
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4) Sorry, but I've got to ........ issue with you over something you said earlier.
5) This discussion could go on for hours. Shall we just agree to ........ and move on? 
6) The two sides in the dispute are ........ odds over how to deal with the problem.
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Wednesday 30 January 2008. Topic: Money
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7) Frank used to make a ........ selling insurance before he went into teaching.
8) If you'd like to make a ........ buck do you fancy helping me with a job on Saturday?
9) We're beginning to ........ the pinch since Graham started to work part-time.
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Thursday 31 January 2008. Topic: Business
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10) I've just spoken to their sales department and they think they can supply us with what we need. But they have got a track record of not delivering the ........
11) We had a salesman in the office earlier trying to give us the ........ sell with a new photocopier. We just couldn't get rid of him.
12) I'm enjoying having my own business but if there's one thing I hate doing it's cold ........ to try to get new orders.
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Friday 1 February 2008. Topic: Learning
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13) Schools should go back to ........ and make sure children can read, write and do simple maths.
14) Nobody thought he would make the ........ but he surprised them all and ended up going to university.
15) I've been reading these instructions again and again but I just can't ........ my head around them.
Find out how to get immediate access to ALL 390 colloquial expressions!
http://www.splendid-speaking.com/products/expressions.html
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DEVELOP YOUR SPEAKING SKILLS
Are you preparing for an important English Speaking exam? Do you need to develop your speaking skills for work or university? The Splendid Speaking Course teaches you communication skills and strategies that will prove invaluable in your work or studies. It comes in two volumes ('Introductions and Small Talk' and Powerful Presentations') and covers 12 key strategies for communicating effectively, as well as a range of useful vocabulary and language topics. 'Splendid Expressions', our new three-stage approach to learning colloquial vocabulary, is also FREE to subscribers of the 'Splendid Speaking Self Study Course'. 
Find out more here: http://www.splendid-speaking.com/3.html
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CONNECT WITH OTHERS
Our new community on Facebook, the social networking website, is continuing to welcome new people with members from all corners of the world. If you're keen to meet up with others who want to develop their English speaking skills, why not join us? If you've never heard of Facebook before it's an extremely popular social networking site where you can create a personal profile, join groups, post photos and much more. To join our group:
1) create a Facebook account
2) join the Splendid Speaking group in Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2265574420
3) connect with our group friends
We look forward to meeting up with you on Facebook!
Read our 'Safety Guide' for safe use of communities such as this:
http://www.splendid-speaking.com/products/safety.html
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SPREAD THE WORD!
If you enjoy reading this newsletter and have a friend or colleague who you believe might also benefit from it, please forward it on.
That's all for this week!
Best wishes from the Splendid Speaking Team
Flo-Joe, Centre Court, 1301 Stratford Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, West
Midlands B28 9HH, UNITED KINGDOM