Pronunciation: recording your own voice – for EFL / ESOL and IELTS

   

It’s impossible to listen to your own voice when you are speaking. So, why not use your mobile phone to record yourself speaking in English? Here is a sample task for you to improve your pronunciation.
You’ll need something that will record your voice. Use the ‘audio recorder’ on your mobile phone.
Read the text below three or four times. Then, read it again and record yourself on your mobile phone.

“Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity Kitai. Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice. We are all telling ourselves a story and that day mine changed.”

Now listen to it again. Are you happy with your pronunciation? What things did you say wrong? Could you have said any of the words better?

Now listen to the same speech by Will Smith here from the 2013 film 'After Earth'.



Compare your pronunciation with the ‘correct’ version.
REMEMBER

• You DON’T HAVE TO sound  EXACTLY THE SAME as the recording!
• There are many different accents and sounds in English and they are all ‘correct’.

Try this again with any other speech in English that you like!

Please let me know if there are any other speeches from films that you'd enjoy doing! Post a comment!

Talking heads - role play with masks - for teenagers and young adults

Ok, so this is a bit off the wall but it is a quite a good laugh if you have a young class or students who have a sense of humour. This is a simple role-play class using masks of famous people.

How to run the class
The biggest part of getting this class to run successfully is how well you sell it to your students. It is a kind of drama activity and yes, it is a bit wet, but, your students will only think that if you don't sell it to them correctly.

Say and think this :Make no bones about it, speaking and using English language creatively are absolute cornerstones of learning a language and by delivering this class you are doing your job well and the students are learning.

Don't say or think this: this class is a bit of messing about where we all get to make up stupid dialogues and laugh at each other.

Development
Put students into groups of three and give them a copy of the masks from here: http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/masks-of-famous-and-interesting-people.docx. You can ask students to cut them out or stick them on cardboard if they're a little younger. If you can laminte them it will make them a little more durable. You can also cut out their eyes if you want, but you don't need to.

Tell your students they have ten minutes to make a dialogue, they are going to hold the masks in front of their faces and  then speak as the famous or interesting person. They can use all of them, or just three of them, they can change their character at any time. They can use any subject they want as long as it's not rude or offensive.It all depends on you if you want them to write their dialogue down or just try to remember it. I get them to try and remember it and ad lib.

Write these three headings on the board and explain them to the class before they start:

Introduction: There needs to be a starting point, the characters can tell us where they are and what they are doing. Where are they? In the forest, at home, in their office? Tell us.

Conflict: There needs to be something that the characters have to come up against, they need some conflict to make the dialogue interesting. This could be against each other or something else. Are they at war? What problem do they have to solve? Do they have a problem with each other?

Resolution: Finally, whatever problem they have, there has to be a resolution. It has to finish and come to an end.

Now ask students to work together on their dialogue. Some groups won't be able to do this because they are not creative enough, you have to circulate and help them. Offer any ideas you come up with and encourage them. This is a crucial stage and if you don't help them a little bit, the results won't be great.

When students have made their dialogue, ask them to perform them for the rest of the class. If this is too hard, ask them to perfom it for another group.

Variations
I tried to pick people that my students would know but you could use any face you like. Just go to http://www.googleimages.com/ and search for 'famous person's name mask' and you'll find loads of faces that might be more relevant to your students.

Further ideas
You could video them doing this and stick on http://www.youtube.com/ .
You could use themes that you want them to develop. You could ask them to make a patient going to see the doctor role-play or a shopping role-play or anything that fits in with what you're studying.

Teaching English using anecdotes - some ideas

An anecdote (to quote OALD) is a 'a short, interesting or amusing story about a real person or event'. They are a great way of learning English, they are fun, entertaining and whether you are listeing to them or telling them, they offer a real chance to practise language.

There are loads of ways you can use them in your class. First you need a good source of stories you can use.  Everybody has their own life stories and funny things that have happened to them, but, as a teacher you might not like to share what happened to you when you were fifteen or that blunder you made at a friend's wedding.I've pasted a nice one at the bottom of this blog post which I took from the fabulous ELC study zone. Here are three good places to get your anecdotes:

1. The local library. You'll find something if you look!
2. One Stop English has a whole section of anecdotes based around the classroom. Don't bother googling for stories, you'll just end up reading a lot of rubbish.
3. Get yourself a nice anecdote book from Amazon. I've pasted a few examples below
 Anecdote Books

How to use anecdotes in the classroom.

1. Anecdote homework. Tell students a good, long anecdote (like the carpet fitter below) in your own words and explain to students that for homework, they have to find an anecdote to share with their partner in the next session. Explain that students won't have to tell the whole class (but they can if they want to) and will only have to tell their story to a partner. Also, remind them that anecdotes don't have to be true.

2. Anecdote reading and telling. Find two good anecdotes and print them out.  Put your students into pairs and pass one the first story and the second to the other. Ask the students to read the anecdotes and understand what they mean. When both students have finished, ask them to turn over their anecdotes so they can't read them. Now students have to tell the anecdotes to each other from memory.

3. Finish the anecdote. Find a nice story and cut off the ending. You could use the one at the bottom of the blog. Get your students to read it and guess the ending.

Eddie the Carpet fitter (taken from ELC study zone )
Eddie was a carpet fitter, and he hated it. For ten years he had spent his days sitting, squatting, kneeling or crawling on floors, in houses, offices, shops, factories and restaurants. Ten years of his life, cutting and fitting carpets for other people to walk on, without even seeing them. When his work was done, no-one ever appreciated it. No- one ever said "Oh, that's a beautiful job, the carpet fits so neatly." They just walked all over it. Eddie was sick of it.
He was especially sick of it on this hot, humid day in August, as he worked to put the finishing touches to today's job. He was just cutting and fixing the last edge on a huge red carpet which he had fitted in the living room of Mrs. Vanbrugh's house. Rich Mrs. Vanbrugh, who changed her carpets every year, and always bought the best. Rich Mrs. Vanbrugh, who had never even given him a cup of tea all day, and who made him go outside when he wanted to smoke. Ah well, it was four o'clock and he had nearly finished. At least he would be able to get home early today. He began to day-dream about the weekend, about the Saturday football game he always played for the local team, where he was known as "Ed the Head" for his skill in heading goals from corner kicks.
Eddie sat back and sighed. The job was done, and it was time for a last cigarette. He began tapping the pockets of his overalls, looking for the new packet of Marlboro he had bought that morning. They were not there.
It was as he swung around to look in his toolbox for the cigarettes that Eddie saw the lump. Right in the middle of the brand new bright red carpet, there was a lump. A very visible lump. A lump the size of -- the size of a packet of cigarettes.
"Blast!" said Eddie angrily. "I've done it again! I've left the cigarettes under the blasted carpet!"
He had done this once before, and taking up and refitting the carpet had taken him two hours. Eddie was determined that he was not going to spend another two hours in this house. He decided to get rid of the lump another way. It would mean wasting a good packet of cigarettes, nearly full, but anything was better than taking up the whole carpet and fitting it again. He turned to his toolbox for a large hammer.
Holding the hammer, Eddie approached the lump in the carpet. He didn't want to damage the carpet itself, so he took a block of wood and placed it on top of the lump. Then he began to beat the block of wood as hard as he could. He kept beating, hoping Mrs. Vanbrugh wouldn't hear the noise and come to see what he was doing. It would be difficult to explain why he was hammering the middle of her beautiful new carpet.
After three or four minutes, the lump was beginning to flatten out. Eddie imagined the cigarette box breaking up, and the crushed cigarettes spreading out under the carpet. Soon, he judged that the lump was almost invisible. Clearing up his tools, he began to move the furniture back into the living room, and he was careful to place one of the coffee tables over the place where the lump had been, just to make sure that no-one would see the spot where his cigarettes had been lost. Finally, the job was finished, and he called Mrs. Vanbrugh from the dining room to inspect his work.
   "Young man," she began, as he climbed into the cab of his van, laying his toolbox on the passenger seat beside him, "while you were working today, you didn't by any chance see any sign of Armand, did you? Armand is my parakeet. A beautiful bird, just beautiful, such colors in his feathers... I let him out of his cage, you see, this morning, and he's disappeared. He likes to walk around the house, and he's so good, he usually just comes back to his cage after an hour or so and gets right in. Only today he didn't come back. He's never done such a thing before, it's most peculiar..."
     "No, madam, I haven't seen him anywhere," said Eddie, as he reached to start the van.
     And saw his packet of Marlboro cigarettes on the dashboard, where he had left it at lunchtime....
     And remembered the lump in the carpet....
     And realised what the lump was....
     And remembered the hammering....
     And began to feel rather sick....
MDH 1994 -- from a common urban legend

Describing People - A quick ppt show

Here's another PowerPoint show with loads of different types of faces and people for your students to describe. I've put down a few ideas on how you could get more out of it below, but if you just want to get straight to the content, click below.

Portraits http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/portraits.pptx

How to run this lesson
This ppt will work best to help practise vocab and structures used to describe people. You can pretty much use it with any level, higher students will be able to say more and lower students will be able to say something like 'He's got...'

1. Split your students into pairs and explain that the first student is number one and the second number two. Tell them that they are going to have two minutes to describe the face/person to their partner. Depending on how good your students are you might like to have them focus on one special aspect of the person, such as
- What they look like
- What their life history might be
- What their personality migfht be like.

2. Now show the PPT to students. Student 1 will talk about the first picture, then you tell them to 'swap' and the second student will describe the next picture. Repeat this until the end of the slide show.

3. When students have finished you can feedback on the language that you heard students producing (negatively or positively) or scroll back up to some of the more intereting faces and ask individual student to tell you what they think.

Here's the PPT file again : http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/portraits.pptx

Riddles for the English classroom

I've just found these old riddles on my hard drive and thought I'd share them.

Click here for the PowerPoint show http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/riddles-for-the-english-classroom.ppt

They'll provide a quick bit of speaking practice for pre-intermediate to intermediate EFL, ESOL or ESL students and you'll need to have an Interactive whiteboard or a projector to show the PPT show.

Put your students into pairs and ask them to discuss the riddles one by one before you reveal the answers. You might also find that students have their own riddles they would like to share with you and the rest of the class.

I can't remember where I found all of these, but three of them (numbers 3,7 and 8) come from the amazing and seminal English teaching book 'Challenge to Think' by Christine Frank, Mario Rinvolucri and Marge Berer' first published in 1982.

Here's the ppt file again http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/riddles-for-the-english-classroom.ppt

for more of the same visit

www.englishlanguagespacestation.com

The Vampire Lesson

Here's another lesson for your ESOL, ESL or EFL students tapping the now mainstream interest in Vampires. Get the worksheet straight away by clicking here - http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/the-vampire-lesson.doc

Whether your students enjoyed the seminal video game Vampire: The Masquerade - bloodlines a few years ago or they enjoy The Twilight series of films or the TV shows True Blood or The Vampire Diaries, this lesson might be up their street.

Not everyone likes vampires, so I'd suggest you be careful with this one. Don't use it with kids or those that are easily offended. Culturally, these kind of vampires are very 'western' and so if your students are not familiar with modern, American mythology then this probably won't work. The Chinese have their own versions of vampires and so do a lot of other cultures...

There's no special way to run the lesson, just follow the activities on the worksheet. There are broken lines around the worksheet so you can cut the sections up with a pair of scissors if you don't want students to do it all at once.

Here's the worksheet again - http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/the-vampire-lesson.doc

Banksy - Graffiti PowerPoint Presentation and Discussion

Here's the Banksy PowerPoint show http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/banksy.pptx

Many many years ago when I lived and taught in the industrial town of Szolnok, Hungary. Someone wrote a very large bit of graffiti across the bottom of our tower-block. In big, white letters, at least a foot high, the artist wrote 'I'm still love you'. Ever since then, I've been on the look out for incorrect English in graffiti, something with isn't confined to places that don't speak English as their first language.

Here's a PowerPoint presentation for intermediate learners on the much loved and hyped graffiti artist, Banksy.http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/banksy.pptx

I'd highly recommend his website http://www.banksy.co.uk/ and his book 'Wall and Piece'. Instructions on how to run the lesson are below.

1. Before you start ask students what they think about graffiti in general, do they think it's art or just vandalism? You might like to talk about any specific bits of graffiti you all know about.

2. Put students into groups or pairs and show them the slide show. Get them to discuss the following questions for each picture.

1.Describe the picture to each other?

2.Is there anything strange about the picture? What?

3. Is the picture trying to tell us anything political

3. When students have seen and discussed all the pictures, go through them again and elict any interesting information from the students. Lots of the pictures ARE political and need quite a lot of explaining.

ELT course books that will never get published

Here's my list of  EFL courseboks that will never get published.

1. GunPoint - A new pre-intermediate course book dealing with all aspects of international criminal English. 10 hard hitting chapters cover vital criminal skills such as extortion, weapon vocabulary, hacking, robbery and how to deal with police interrogation. The free DVD contains twenty of cinema's finest criminal moments from movies like The Godfather and Pulp Fiction.

2. Hat Trick - International football player English, includes comprehensive swearing index. Specialist chapters deal with telling lies to your partner, having a diva strop like a man and advanced press conference skills.

3. Spirit Level - Builder's English including a pull-out section on dirty jokes and chapters on how to avoid paying tax.

4. Pick Up - how to attract and pick up member of the opposite sex in English. Includes a section on body language and social etiquette. Also including a large selection of chat-up lines.

5. Boiling Point- all aspects of cookery, equipment and brutal swearing included in this intermediate course for English learners with an interest in the kitchen

6. Darling! I love it! - An intermediate course book for English learners who need to know everything about the fashion industry with sections on substance abuse, catfights, bitchy gossip and frocks.

7. International Geek English - for those learners who need to be able to discuss physics, comics and the combat system for the 4th edition of dungeons and dragons. This course book includes how to use the Socratic method of discussion, witty put-downs and search engine techniques containing Boolean logic.

8. Cheers! - Drinking English. From the earthy, base language of the backstreet public house to the refined, gentile prose of the English country pub, this three-part course book covers what to say in almost every type of drinking establishment in the world, with chapters on anecdotes, pretending to be interested and how to deal with hangovers.
 

Any more ideas?

The Google Translate Challenge

Language students routinely turn to the web to do their translating and there's not much better than Google Translate. It effortlessly handless data and will translate into different scripts like Arabic and Russian, it can even translate some idiomatic phrases. It's still a long way from being perfect, however and it gets a lot wrong.

I wanted to see if my human students could do better that the automated, super fast machine that is Google Translate. Here's what I did.

1. I found a simple story, wrote it out in English and then pasted it into Google translate. I then translated it into the languages that my ESOL students can speak, Swahili, Arabic, Polish, Russian, Latvian, Hungarian and French.

2. In class, I handed students a copy of the story in their language and asked them to try and translate it into English. If there were two students, I asked them to team up and try to translate the story together. I told them where I got the translations and that there might be some mistakes in, but they should try to translate it the best they can. Also, before they started I pre-taught the word 'worth' and gave them some example sentences, this word is the key to the whole story.

3. As a group, I now asked them to shout out their translations, sentence by sentence before I showed them a copy of the real story in English.

Here's the story I used and a link at the bottom to the translations from Google Translate.

Joe and the rich man

Joe was in a bar when a rich man came up to him.The rich man looked very healthy and sun tanned. He wore an expensive black suit and a silk tie.  He looked at Joe with a frown.

“How much do think I’m worth?” said the richman.

“I don’t know,” said Joe.

“Come on, guess how much I’m worth.”

“Okay,” said Joe, “I think you’re worth $100”The rich man laughed.

“Ha, that’s just the priceof my suit.”

“I included that in my answer,” said Joe.

Here's the link to the translated versions:  http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/the-google-translate-challenge.doc

The zombie lesson - reading and discussion lesson for Halloween

 

Can't be bothered to read the blog?  I wouldn't bother either, here's the worksheet:  http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the-zombie-lesson.doc

I quite like zombie films and most of my pre-intermediate and intermediate students do as well. Here is a three part Zombie lesson to get them talking and reading about the most popular undead monster in modern culture.

Pre- reading. - You can dictate these questions or cut them up and ask students to read them together

Reading - You could dictate a few comprehension questions about this or blank out a few of the words to make it a gap fill exercise.

Discussion - ask students in pairs to make their own zombie apocalypse plan outlining what they and their partner would do to survive the zombies. I put a few sentences students could finish but they could write anything. Help them out by giving them some ideas. What would they do if there really was a zombie threat? Would they go to the supermarket to get food, the DIY store to get weapons? Where would they go long term? How would they really survive?

****WARNING**** I wouldn't do this lesson with students who aren't familiar with the Zombie genre, younger students or students who wouldn't like this kind of thing.

Here's the worksheet again http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the-zombie-lesson.doc

Let me know if this lesson worked or not.

More of the same from: www.englishlanguagespacestation.com

Learning English with Britain's Got Talent

Can't be bothered to read the blog? Get the worksheet here.

http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/britains-got-talent-lesson-plan.doc

Get more lessons like this at the English Language Space Station.com

Like so many, I have a love/hate relationship with The X-factor and Britain's Got Talent. I like watching it... but I hate watching it. I'll leave any descriptions as to how bad it is and how it is destroying the music business to those with more fire in their belly. I'm only concerned with how we can use it to teach English.

Here's the lesson.

1. Talk about the x -factor / Britain's Got Talent / Pop Idol. It's all over the world and in every country. Dictate these  questions.

- Do you have the X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent or something similar, in your country?

- Do you like it? Why?

- Would you appear on a show like this? What would you do? Sing? Dance?

- Do you think it's good or bad for young people to appear on talent shows like this?

2. Students read about the show and them fill in the worksheet about giving feedback. Get the worksheet here http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/britains-got-talent-lesson-plan.doc

3.Play some songs from youtube - students watch them and then comment on them very much like the judges in the show. You might also like to give students a card or a book which they can hold up when they are sick of watching the presentation.

The Royal Wedding ppt - a quick ten minute chat for your intermediate English class.

Can be bothered to read the short post?  - download the Royal Wedding PPT here.   (can you find the puctuation error?)



It's the most important wedding since the last important wedding but, like it or loathe it Prince William's marriage to Kate is big news and it might be a good subject to get your students chatting.

Here's my own royal wedding powerpoint that I've been using with my students. Click here to download the powerpoint.

Royal wedding lessons on the net

Breaking News English has a good Royal Wedding lesson here http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1102/110218-royal_wedding.html

The TES has a few Royal Wedding lessons but you have to be a member http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Royal-Wedding-Procession-Route-6073740/

Some great material for the Royal Wedding here at Michelle Henry http://www.michellehenry.fr/williamkate.htm

Really good lesson plans and a PowerPoint show from Guardian Teaching Resources, discussing, among many things constitutional changes. You must be a member to view these. http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/resources.aspx?q=The%20Royal%20Wedding

Good Wordgames as warmers / fillers or coolers from your English class.

In need of a quick warmer / filler or cooler for a lesson? Don't turn your nose up at word games, they are quick, easy and give students vital spelling and word practice.

Make words from these letters
This is an old favourite. Find a long word like 'democracy' and draw all the letters in a box like this:

d	r	c
a	e	o
c	y	m

Now get students to make as many words as they can from only these letters. You can use almost any long word you like

Make sentences from this box
Just the same as the above, but rather than using letters you use words and get students to make sentences. Like this:

jumped	fox	fence	fit	because
to	lazy	he	wanted	get
the	over	white	The	brown

The sentence is :  The lazy brown fox jumped over the white fence because he wanted to get fit.

Put the sentences in the correct order
Another old favourite is putting words in the right order in a sentence. Even though this quite dry and boring -lots of language students, especially those who use a different written script, need to practise their handwriting - even just forming the letters. An activity like this allows students to do this as well as testing their sentence skills.

Here's my sample PowerPoint for arranging mixed up sentences, save it and change the words to whatever you like http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/arrange-the-sentences-directions.ppt

Online wordgames to show on your IAWB
Of course, the internet is abound with word games you can play in your browser. Send these to students as homework, play them in the computer room (in pairs is best) or play them together in the classroom on the interactive whiteboard or projector.

BBC Skillswise - many great word games here http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/spelling/

Blocks with Letters on 3 - Amazing game to play with the class http://www.gimme5games.com/play-game/blocks-with-letters-on-3

Bookworm - make words from letters - very nice - http://www.popcap.com/gamepopup.php?theGame=bookworm
 

Optical Illusions for your language class - any level

Can't be bothered to read the short post? Download the lesson here...http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/optical-illusions.ppt

Click here for optical illusions from Amazon

Optical illusions are a great warmer, cooler or filler for your class. Here's a powerpoint show that I made from pictures I found on Google. It takes five to ten minutes depending on how chatty your students are

I ask students to look at each picture and answer three questions.
1. What is the first picture you notice?
2. What is the second picture you notice?
3. Do you like this picture?

http://chrisspeck.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/optical-illusions.ppt




Click here for optical illusions from Amazon

Using Board Games with your language students

Playing a board game is fun and requires more than a little bit of language. You have to explain the rules, give advice on how to play, ask for tips, encourage, cheat, discuss and generally chat while you play. All the perfect ingredients for a language activity that might not be good for a full class, but might be great to fill a tutorial hour with a small group or engage an 'English Conversation Club'. Here are my best board games to play with your students

Scrabble
The king of board games where player make words to score points. This has the added bonus of already 'looking like' it will be good for learning English. Get students to play together and allow them to use a dictionary to help them - it's not cheating!
Risk
The world conquest game is legendary. Simple, fierce and easy to learn, it will have your students engaged straight away. Use the goal cards with higher level students to encouarage sneaky tactics.

Monopoly
Complex, iconic and involved. What better way to learn a language than to engage in trade? Encourage students to make deals with each other by buying and selling the properties they have. Also, you must use the 'Free Parking Rule' - this puts lots more cash up for grabs.

Card Games
Pontoon (or twenty one) - Quick game to encourage speculation and guessing. Lots of opportunity for fun and laughs, good for lower level students who need to practise numbers.

Games I wouldn't recommend
Chess - too much thinking and not enough chatting. It's a bit like boxing in that both players just want to crush each other - not good for a friendly language activity.

Poker - again, too much frowning and not enough chatting.

Purely dice games like snakes and ladders or ludo, there's no chance to speak here.

Anyone know any other good board games to play? Or can I hear my voice echoing round an empty virtual hall?

Valentine's Day and Relationships - complete PowerPoint Lesson

Valentine's Day soon...

complete lessons using only PowerPoint slides.

Can't be bothered to read the post? Get the lesson here

http://www.englishlanguagespacestation.com/powerpoint%20lessons/Relationships.pps

I think this lesson on relationships fits in really nicely with Valentine's Day, especially since the audio features a lady dumping her boyfriend. It's for pre-intermediate learners and should take about an hour. You only need the PowerPoint show above and working speakers to play the audio, students only need a pen and some paper.

Slide 2

Elicit different types of relationship from the class before you show the slide - mother, father etc. Now show the slide, students have to write their own explanation for each word.

Slide 3

Students match the phrasal verbs to the meaning.

Slide 4

Ask and answer the pre-listening questions as a class before listening to the girl dumping her boyfriend. Students answer the gist question.

Slide 5

Now students listen again and answer the more detailed questions

Slide 6

Students ask and answer these questions in pairs or small groups. You can monitor and give feedback at the end.

Here's the PowerPoint lesson again

http://www.englishlanguagespacestation.com/powerpoint%20lessons/Relationships.pps

You can find more lessons like this at http://www.englishlanguagespacestation.com/complete_PowerPoint_Lessons.htm