Assessing Speaking - An Alternative Method I believe one of the most challenging skills to assess and grade is a learner’s speaking skill. I have worked at institutes that have had devoted meetings to this topic and it can be been controversial. Indeed, I have been in meetings that have lasted several hours as rubrics have been proposed, amended, and protested against. I recall one particular meeting, where we the teachers, became engrossed on the wording of one particular item of a speaking rubric. One of the main issues assessing speaking is that it is so subjective. There are many other factors to take into consideration. So, how can you possibly assess speaking? What is the alternative then? I think if I am to adopt a constant evaluation for speaking skills, I need to make the learners fully aware of the expectations I have for the course. Neil Millington is the founder of
Picture Description Lesson Plan | Tim's Free English Lesson Plans This is a fun lesson plan in which students work in pairs describing and drawing pictures. It will be useful for students preparing for Cambridge exam speaking activities. You will need this handout: Pics for describing Put the following picture on the board and hand out other copies to the class: Ask students what they can see in the picture. What’s in the background? What’s in the foreground? Go through the following vocabulary on the board: In the background/foreground we can see………….. On the left/right At the top/bottom He’s wearing…………….. He’s facing left/right/the camera He looks happy/sad/ etc. Prepositions: Next to/beside, above, below, in front of, behind. Now tell students that you are going to describe a picture and they have to draw it. Describe the following picture to them: Try to give as much detail as possible. Now put students in pairs, tell them that one person is going to describe and the other is going to draw. Follow up activity: Like this: Like Loading...
Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom If this is your first time here, then read the Teacher's Guide to Using These PagesIf you can think of a good question for any list, please send it to us. Home | Articles | Lessons | Techniques | Questions | Games | Jokes | Things for Teachers | Links | Activities for ESL Students Would you like to help? If you can think of a good question for any list, please send it to us. Copyright © 1997-2010 by The Internet TESL Journal Pages from this site should not be put online elsewhere.Permission is not required to link directly to any page on our site as long as you do not trap the page inside a frame.
SPEAKING:ROLE PLAYS It´s me again. ON THE TOPIC OF HOUSES. I found this yesterday. Como construir una casa con palets en un sólo día 23 octubre, 2015 Como construir una casa con palets Los diseñadores en del estudio i-beam Design crearon el proyecto de casa con palets inspirados en un hecho simple pero increíble: el 84% de los refugiados del mundo podrían tener una pequeña casa como la que ellos han diseñado con los palets que se desechan solo en Estados Unidos. La casa de i-beam Design fue concebida como un refugio transitorio para los refugiados al regresar a Kosovo. La casa de palets La casa depalets simplemente proporciona una gran flexibilidad en términos de configuración. La casa de palets1 Puesto que la casa está hecha de palets de madera, es fácil conseguir los materiales para construirla. La casa de palets2 No sólo eso, además la casa es muy sencilla. La casa de palets3 Se podrían añadir a la construcción de la casa otros materiales que se tengan a mano, como láminas de plástico o metálicos, o lonas.
Using a "Three-Two-one" Speaking Activity Using a "Three-Two-One" Speaking Activity English-language teacher trainer and author Paul Nation has developed the “4-3-2″ Fluency Activity. In it, students line up (standing or sitting) facing each other. Each one must be prepared to speak on something that they are already quite familiar with. It’s a great idea, and I think my colleague Katie Hull Sypnieski (my co-author in The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide) and I were able to build on it and make it even better in our classes. Here’s what we do: We tell students they are going to pick any topic they wanted, and prepare to speak about it first for three minutes, then two, and finally one (we thought that reduced time is more realistic for a first try, though extend it the next time). Next, students are allowed two minutes to review their notes, and are told we will begin the 3-2-1 activity — without their notes in front of them. It always turns out great, and the question-asking helps a lot. Did you like this activity?
250 Quality Conversation Starters: The Only List You'll Need Here are some great questions for starting a conversation. There are a lot of random conversation starters to get you started and then conversation questions listed by topic. You can start with the random questions or find a topic that interests you. There’s no right place to start, just scroll down to wherever you want and get started! There are tons of ways to use these questions. The title would have you believe that there are 250 questions, but there are actually more. We have questions about TV / movies / books / music / apps / phones / sports / restaurants / travel / technology / clothes / goals / seasons / holidays / education / food we also have some weird conversation questions. This page and the page “Questions to get to know someone” are also available en español as a merged page. Random Conversation Starters Here are some conversation starters that span all kinds of topics. 1. Always fun to follow up on the question by watching the video they thought was funny. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
‘Get to know you’ questions I use this activity as a ‘get to know you’ with new classes and it can be adapted for any level. It can also serve as revision for question forms which I’ll come back to at the end. This idea originated from a development session I attended at IH ILC Brno and it has altered over time to become the activity below. ‘Get to know you’ I write the following on the right side of the board: Answers A: Newcastle B: London C: Madrid A: Japan B: Czech Republic C: Brazil The students work in pairs or small groups to think of questions about me that could lead to these answers. During this activity I answer any questions they think of that are logical but that don’t fit my set of answers. (Answers: A, B and A) The table above shows what I’m looking for, with the questions in green showing questions the class contributed. Next I write a question from my perspective (this example is given to make it clear that in the next part questions should be written using ‘I’ not ‘you’). How often do I drink tea? Links
Tell a story or personal anecdote Examiner: OK, Kelvin, so I’d like you to tell us a short personal story. Here are the topics. Please take one. Kelvin: Tell me about a great surprise you had. OK. Examiner: OK? Examiner: OK, Kelvin, you can start when you’re ready. Kelvin: OK. Examiner: Yeah, what a great surprise! Kelvin: Actually, no, because they hadn’t mentioned anything about my birthday before the match, so I hadn’t expected they would do this. Examiner: OK. Examiner: OK, Melissa, so now I’d like you to tell us a short personal story or anecdote and here are the topics. Melissa: OK. Examiner: What have you got? Melissa: Tell me about a time when you surprised someone. Examiner: OK, great. Examiner: OK? Examiner: OK, so you can start when you’re ready. Melissa: It was my best friend’s birthday and I decided to give her a surprise since we have been good friends since Form 3. Examiner: All right, what a great story! Melissa: Yeah. Examiner: OK. Examiner: OK.
A few discussion activities for English language students What discussion activities work in class? Tekhnologic, winner of the British Council’s TeachingEnglish blog award, shares a few ideas in one of our top five articles of all time, illustrated by artist Jamie Johnson. A discussion can bring out your students’ interests and motivate them; it’s a chance for them to talk about the things they really care about. Discussion activities encourage critical thinking, and are therefore excellent preparation for speaking tests, such as IELTS or TOEFL, which partly examine the ability to express and justify opinions in English. Perhaps most importantly, discussion activities can be great fun for students. Preparing for discussion classes The first thing you need to be aware of is the language ability of your students and how much they know about the topic under discussion. When setting discussion questions, make sure the language and topic aren't too demanding. Be careful with topics that may lead to embarrassment or offense.
Speaking game with personality adjectives This is a game for upper-intermediate and advanced students. It was designed as a speaking game and serves as a revision tool for two lexical sets: professions and personality adjectives. The main focus is a better understanding of the subtleties of personality adjectives through group discussion. Download the handout by clicking here This is a game developed using a format I outlined in a previous post – Apples to apples – adapting-games. Each player is dealt six cards from the professions deck. Here is an example round of the game: There are five players, four players who are competing and one judge. The four players select professions which fit this criteria and reveal their cards. The winner is given the personality card to show they won the round. The game is very simple to follow and generates interesting conversations and unusual arguments. The cards are available for download [Here]. Thanks for reading! Like this: Like Loading...