Talk A Lot - Spoken English Course (Book 2) E-Book

Matt Purland

• Herausgeber: My Ebook Publishing House
• Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 178

Beschreibung

Complete 12-week spoken English course
All materials, instructions and answers are included
Brand new and unique learning method
Learn and recall questions, answers and negatives using 8 common verb forms
Learn 400+ essential vocabulary words
Hello, and welcome to the second Talk a Lot course book for Elementary level!
This book is a companion volume to Book1 and features ten exciting new lessons topics:
Crime, Sport, Music, Weather, Animals, Cars, The Human Body, Colours and Numbers, Life
Events, and Nature. The lesson topics in this book can be used alongside those in Book 1,
according to your needs. For example, it is now possible for your to plan a longer Talk a Lot
course, using lesson material from both books!
A great new feature in Book 2 is the inclusion of information exchange activities.
Once again, the aim of this book is to teach students to think in English and Talk a Lot!
The Talk a Lot course objectives are very simple:
Every student talking in English
Every student listening to and understanding English
Every student thinking in English, and
Every student taking part in class
Talk a Lot is structured so that every student can practise and improve English grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, word and sentence stress, and interpersonal skills, by
working in pairs, groups and one to one with the teacher.
The main benefits of Talk a Lot are:
Students have to think in English during lessons in a controlled and focused way
Students learn how to memorise correct English structures naturally, without abstract
and unrelated grammar lessons
Students learn how to construct eight different common verb forms, using positive,
negative and question forms, as well as embedded grammar appropriate to their
level. The verb forms studied are: Present Simple, Present Continuous, Past Simple,
Past Continuous, Present Perfect, Modal Verbs, Future Forms, and First Conditional
Students learn 400+ essential vocabulary words by heart

Leseprobe

Talk A Lot - Spoken English Course – Book 2

by Matt Purland

Published by My Ebook Publishing House at Smashwords

Copyright Matt Purland, English Banana

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

I. How to Use this Course

Course Outline

Lesson Outline

Assessment Methods, Tests and Examination

Sentence Blocks

Discussion Questions

Information Exchanges

Discussion Words and Question Sheets

Student Course Report

Sentence Blocks – Q & A

Sentence Blocks – Six Great Tips for Students

II. Sentence Blocks

Crime – Sentence Blocks

Sport – Sentence Blocks

Music – Sentence Blocks

Weather – Sentence Blocks

Animals – Sentence Blocks

Cars – Sentence Blocks

The Human Body – Sentence Blocks

Colours and Numbers – Sentence Blocks

Life Events – Sentence Blocks

Nature – Sentence Blocks

Sentence Block Extensions

III. Discussion Questions

Crime – Discussion Questions

Sport – Discussion Questions

Music – Discussion Questions

Weather – Discussion Questions

Animals – Discussion Questions

Cars – Discussion Questions

The Human Body – Discussion Questions

Colours and Numbers – Discussion Questions

Life Events – Discussion Questions

Nature – Discussion Questions

IV. Information Exchanges

Crime – Murder Mystery

Sport – Which Sport is the Easiest to Learn?

Music – Which Instrument is the Funkiest?

Weather – What is the Month?

Animals – Pets for Sale

Cars – Buying a Used Car

The Human Body – Body Swap

Colours and Numbers – Best Sofa Deals

Life Events – Famous Lives

Nature – Island Life

V. Discussion Words and Question Sheets

Crime – Discussion Words

Crime – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Sport – Discussion Words

Sport – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Music – Discussion Words

Music – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Weather – Discussion Words

Weather – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Animals – Discussion Words

Animals – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Cars – Discussion Words

Cars – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

The Human Body – Discussion Words

The Human Body – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Colours and Numbers – Discussion Words

Colours and Numbers – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Life Events – Discussion Words

Life Events – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

Nature – Discussion Words

Nature – Discussion Words (Question Sheet)

VI. Vocabulary Tests

Crime – Vocabulary Test

Sport – Vocabulary Test

Music – Vocabulary Test

Weather – Vocabulary Test

Animals – Vocabulary Test

Cars – Vocabulary Test

The Human Body – Vocabulary Test

Colours and Numbers – Vocabulary Test

Life Events – Vocabulary Test

Nature – Vocabulary Test

VII. Lesson Tests

Lesson Test – Crime

Lesson Test – Sport

Lesson Test – Music

Lesson Test – Weather

Lesson Test – Animals

Lesson Test – Cars

Lesson Test – The Human Body

Lesson Test – Colours and Numbers

Lesson Test – Life Events

Lesson Test – Nature

VIII.Verb Forms Practice

Present Simple

Present Continuous

Past Simple

Past Continuous

Present Perfect

Modal Verbs

Future Forms

First Conditional

IX. End of Course Oral Examination

End of Course Oral Examination

Talk a Lot Course Certificate – Template 1

Talk a Lot Course Certificate – Template 2

X. Answers

XI. Sentence Stress

What is Sentence Stress?

Sentence Blocks – Sentence Stress

Sentence Stress Activity Cards

XII. Sentence Block Verbs

XIII. Discussion Words

XIV. The 48 Sounds of English with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

I.How to Use this Course

Course Outline:

• Before the course begins perform an initial assessment with each student to checkthat they are at a suitable level for the course, and then enrol them onto the course. This course is aimed at students who are at a good elementary level or preintermediate level. For this course we recommend that there are no more than ten students per class.

• The course is divided into twelve three-hour lessons. The first ten lessons each have a different topic; while lesson 11 is intended for the revision of material studied over the ten weeks, and lesson 12 is reserved for the students’ examinations and an end of course review. We recommend that you hold one lesson per week, making this a twelve week course comprising 30 guided learning hours, plus 6 hours of guided revision and examination. It’s up to you what order you do the lessons in; you don’t have to follow our order of topics!

• If your students need more than three hours of study per week, why not offer them two 3-hour lessons per week: one Talk a Lot lesson, as described below, and one lesson using traditional teaching methods, which include conventional reading, writing and grammar-based activities that could complement the intensive speaking and listening work of the Talk a Lot lessons. You could follow a standard EFL or ESL course book such as New English File or New Headway, using material that complements the Talk a Lot lesson, so that in Week 2, for example, both 3-hour lessons are on the subject of Sport. This would then give you a course with 60 guided learning hours.

• The lesson topics are:

Lesson 1 Crime

Lesson 2 Sport

Lesson 3 Music

Lesson 4 Weather

Lesson 5 Animals

Lesson 6 Cars

Lesson 7 The Human Body

Lesson 8 Colours and Numbers

Lesson 9 Life Events

Lesson 10 Nature

Lesson 11 Revision

Lesson 12 Exam & End of Course Review

Lesson Outline

• In our lesson outline, each lesson lasts for three hours (180 teaching minutes). Thiscan vary according to your needs, for example, in some English language classrooms one teaching hour is equal to 45 minutes, and so 3 teaching hours would be 2¼ hours. Or it may be that you have only 2 hours per week with your group of students. You can still use Talk a Lot activities to serve up a satisfying and stimulating lesson – just in a shorter timeframe.

• Each lesson focuses on a specific vocabulary topic, for example “Music”. For each lesson the teacher can draw from seven different activities:

Sentence Blocks

Discussion Questions

Information Exchanges

Discussion Words

Vocabulary Test

Lesson Test

Show & Tell

It is not necessary to use every activity in every lesson. We believe that there is morematerial in this book for each lesson than is needed to fill 3 hours, so the teacher can mix and match, using different activities in different lessons. Similarly, it is not necessary to do the activities in the same order (as given below) in every lesson, but mix things up each time so that students don’t become used to a set lesson order.

• Bearing that in mind, here is an example of how you could structure a 3-hour long Talk a Lot lesson:

15 minsWelcome andvocabulary test(see page 5) based on the previous lesson’s topic. The teacher reads out the twenty words to the students in their native language and they write them in English. The teacher gives back lesson tests, discusses the answers with the students, and can also ask random questions from the previous lesson’s sentence blocks to check how much the students have remembered.

15 minsThe teacher introduces the topic of this lesson, for example, “Music”. Each student has toshow and tellan item to do with this topic, e.g. for “Music” a student could bring a musical instrument, or a CD or poster, and then tell the class about it. The teacher also brings something to “show and tell”, and then introduces the eight newsentence blockstarting sentences and whquestions on the board or on the handout (see page 8). It is essential that the teacher checks that the students understand the sentences, so that they are meaningful to students when they practise them later on. The teacher asks different students to model one or two of the sentence blocks, which will act as a reminder to students of how to make the sentence blocks.

20 minsStudents make the sentence blocks in pairs, for example, sitting back to back without eye contact. They don’t write anything down and must not copy the sentence block starting sentences from the board. For this activity all the talk flows from the students making the sentence blocks from the starting sentences and wh- questions on the board or on the handout.

10 minsNext, the teacher introduces the eightdiscussion questionsfor this lesson to the whole class (see page 13). Again, it is important that the teacher checks that their students understand the vocabulary that is used. Students should be encouraged to use their dictionaries to check new words.

30 minsWorking in pairs or small groups, students practise the discussion questions. This is free speaking practise – the antithesis of having to make pre-set sentences using the sentence blocks. The students can change partners several times in order to get a good variety of practice, then the whole class comes together and feeds back to the group, with the teacher asking additional follow-up questions. During this time the teacher removes the sentence block sentences from the board, or asks the students to return their sentence block handouts.

We’re halfway through! Have a cup of tea and some fresh air – or just hang out!

25 minsAfter a relaxing break it’s time for some brain work – thelesson test(see page 5)! The aim of this test is for the teacher to find out what vocabulary the students can remember from the previous lesson and to get an idea of how well they are coping with making the sentence blocks.

25 minsThe teacher could decide to use this slot for activities with thediscussion words(see page 15) or for doing theinformation exchanges(see page 14)– or for both, if your students are up to the challenge!

30 minsThe students practise the sentence block sentences again, but this time without any written record – nothing on the board and no handout. The teacher monitors each pair and helps them where necessary, making sure that they are making the sentence blocks successfully. Towards the end of this time the whole class comes back together to give each other feedback. The teacher asks questions from the eight sentence blocks to different students, who should give a correct, or nearly correct, sentence – all from memory. In the early weeks this will be more difficult for the students, but after a few lessons with this method students should be able to answer confidently, having memorised some or all of that lesson’s sentence blocks. 10 mins Open question time – students can ask any English-related question. The teacher looks at the students’ workbooks (this can be any suitable course book that students work through at home and which complements the lesson) and checks students’ progress. The teacher sets the topic for the next lesson and gives out the handouts for the next lesson’s vocabulary test. The teacher could either give or spend a few minutes eliciting the twenty new words in the students’ first language. The teacher should encourage students to keep all of their handouts in their own file, for revision and further study at home.

Assessment Methods, Tests and Examination

The overall course mark for each student is reached by continuous assessment and an end of course oral examination. Individual students are monitored throughout the course and their progress recorded in a number of different ways. The aim of using continuous assessment is to encourage students to work hard in every lesson – because every lesson counts and effort is rewarded along with accuracy – and to work hard at home, e.g. learning the vocabulary words each week.

Each student gets a combined mark out of 80 for each lesson which is based on the following:

• vocabulary test:maximum of 20 marks

• lesson test:maximum of 40 marks

• student’s lesson mark – accuracy:maximum of 10 marks

• student’s lesson mark – effort:maximum of 10 marks

• total lesson mark:maximum of 80 marks

The lesson marks are added together on the individual Student Course Reports as the course progresses. Students don’t have access to their lesson marks as they are added together, but they do see their marks for the vocabulary and lesson tests, as well as getting feedback on these tests and on their general performance each week.

Teachers should award marks out of 10 to each student for every lesson based on the level of their achievement during the lesson (accuracy) and their commitment during the lesson (effort). It goes without saying that teachers should strive to be wholly objective and not give in to favouritism when awarding these marks.

Over the ten lessons all of the lesson marks are added together to give an individual total for each student, to which is added the score from their final exam. This gives each student a grade for the whole course, ranging from A to U (ungraded fail):

• maximum course mark of 900 marks

Grade system:

Grade A

Grade B

Grade C

Grade D

Grade E

Grade U

Grades A-Eare passes.Grade Uis ungraded and means that the student has failed the course. The student’s grade is recorded on their course certificate, for example:

“Grade: A”

“Achievement: First Class”

You could use one of the course certificate templates at the back of this book (see pages 106-107), or create your own.

Lesson Assessment

During pair and group work the teacher monitors the students, checking and correcting grammar and vocabulary where necessary, e.g. during discussion question and informationexchange practice. In all such “free practice” work the teacher should keep referring students back to the grammar that is being learned by making the sentence blocks, for example if a student says: “What you want?”, remind them that: “You must have a verb after a whquestion.”

In this way the free practice work will help to consolidate what is being learned from the more structured practice of forming the sentence blocks.

Written homework based on the topics and activities from each lesson could be given, checked and marked by the teacher. However, written work must be kept to a minimum during the lesson and students should not to write out full sentence blocks. This is Talk a Lot, after all! The students may instinctively begin to write down the starting sentences from the board, or make notes about the sentence blocks, but discourage this because it is a waste of lesson time in which they have a valuable opportunity to talk in English. The Talk a Lot method encourages students to use their memories as a learning tool and to activate the grammar that they already know before they join the course.When a student writes down the sentence blocks, they give full permission to their memory to forget this information, since they know it is safely recorded somewhere.Without the safety net of pen and paper students have to challenge themselves to work harder to make the sentence blocks (which are, after all, simply question forms and answers, based around individual verb forms). The time for writing out sentence blocks is at home, where students can write to their hearts’ content! They also get a chance to see full sentence blocks in written form when they do the lesson test – once per lesson. As we have seen, the Talk a Lot certificate is based on marks gained during continuous assessment along with a final oral exam at the end of the course. Lesson assessment also includes more formal testing with regular vocabulary tests and lesson tests, the marks from which are added to each student’s running total of marks. The teacher keeps track of each student’s progress by adding the results of their tests and other marks to their individual Student Course Report (see page 17).

Vocabulary Tests

All Talk a Lot tests should be run in exam conditions, with folders and dictionaries closed, no talking, and no copying. The vocabulary test could be held near the beginning of the lesson, as a way of quietening students down and getting them into study mode. We recommend that the teacher runs the vocabulary and lesson tests in the same positions during the lessons each time so as to give a sense of structure and routine to the tests which can be reassuring for students. Teachers should try to mark the vocabulary test during the lesson break and give students their results in the same lesson. The teacher keeps a record of the students’ scores on their Student Course Reports and measures progress made, as well as spending time during and between lessons addressing issues with individual students.

Lesson Tests

The primary aim of the regular lesson test is to consolidate the work done in the previous lesson. If you run this test immediately after the break it will help to settle students down and get their minds focused again on learning English. Set a time limit of no more than 25 minutes and stick to it. As with the vocabulary tests, the aim of the lesson test is to check students’ progress and both identify weaker students who may need extra support, e.g. help with making the sentence blocks, and identify stronger students who may need a greater challenge during lessons. For example, to maximise the effect of pair work the teacher could pair a stronger student with a weaker student. Lesson tests are marked by the teacher after the lesson and the results given to students atthe beginning of the next lesson, when there is time for a brief discussion of incorrect answers and other points raised by the test. The results from both tests enable the teacher to see not only who is paying attention during lessons, e.g. when making the sentence blocks, but also who is working at home: learning the vocabulary words, both meanings and spellings, and writing out sentence blocks.

At their discretion, a teacher may allow students who have missed a lesson to catch up on course marks by taking both tests at another time, e.g. after the present lesson. Or the teacher may decide that the student has missed the lesson and so cannot catch up on the marks, a scenario that will affect their final course score. However, if the latter applies the teacher should give the student in question the material to study at home in their own time.

Verb Forms Practice

These pages can be introduced by the teacher as extra worksheets at any time during the course if students are having problems with sentence blocks based on a particular verb form, or if they need more focused verb forms practice. A follow up activity would be for students to imagine their own sentence blocks based on particular verb forms, e.g. the teacher asks students to work in pairs and make four new sentence blocks using present perfect form – orally, without writing anything down.

In general, it’s better for students to use a variety of different verb forms in a normal lesson, rather than studying a different verb form each lesson, because if a student misses one lesson they won’t have missed out on studying a complete verb form.

End of Course Oral Examination

General Notes on the Examination:

The Talk a Lot end of course exam is a one to one oral examination with the teacher reading the questions and the student answering. The exam should last for a maximum of 20 minutes.

The exam is recorded onto tape and marked by the teacher. The results are added to the student’s individual Student Course Report and their overall course score and final grade can be calculated, which are then added to the student’s certificate.

At no time should the student see the examination paper, whether before, during or after the examination. Nor should the student write down anything during the exam. The teacher writes the starting sentence and question word (printed in bold) on the board for each sentence block question.

The examination questions are taken randomly from the course work studied and include material from every topic covered during the course. During the examination the teacher should not prompt the student for answers or help them in any way, apart from to explain the instructions so that the student understands what they have to do. Studentsmay notuse a dictionary during this examination.

At the end of the course the teacher could give a prize to the student (or students) with:

• the best course score overall

• the best vocabulary test grades overall

• the best lesson test grades overall

• the best attendance record

• the most improved student (comparing the beginning with the end of the course)

Marking Guide:

There are four kinds of question that form the examination:

1. Make sentence blocks (questions 1, 5, 9, and 13)

The maximum score is 8 marks. Students score one mark for each fully correct line, with correct intonation and sentence stress, and one mark for naming the correct verb form.

Students get only half a mark if the intonation and/or sentence stress of a line is incorrect. In the last two lines of each sentence block the answers will vary as students have to change part of the original information to produce a negative answer. Accept any answer that is grammatically correct and makes sense within the given context.

Don’t penalise students for making contractions, or not making them. For example, if the answer on the examination paper says “No, he doesn’t”, but the student says “No, he does not”, don’t mark them down. It is still an accurate answer.

2. Answer discussion questions (questions 3, 7, 10 and 14)

Students can score up to a maximum of 4 points for each question based on the following criteria:

The student should answer the question and speak for approximately 1 minute:

4 marks:the student produces sentences which are completely or almost completely correct in terms of grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and sentence stress. There are between 0-2 errors. Excellent use of vocabulary and interesting subject matter

3 marks: the student produces sentences which are good in terms of grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and sentence stress, but there are between 3-4 errors. Good use of vocabulary

2 marks:the student produces sentences which can be understood in terms of grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and sentence stress, but there are many errors

1 mark: the student attempts to answer the question, but not using full sentences nor correct grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and sentence stress. Part of their answer can be clearly understood, but there are many errors

0 marks: the student has not attempted the question or the answer is incoherent

The teacher should make a note in the box provided of several examples of the student’s performance, including errors as well as correct structures.

3. State ten vocabulary words on a given topic (questions 4, 6, 11 and 15)

When students have to list ten vocabulary words, the teacher could keep a tally in the box provided, e.g. IIII IIII … Give a half mark in the event of wrong word stress or incorrectintonation and/or pronunciation. When stating ten different vocabulary words the student cannot include the example word which is given in the question.

4. Answer discussion word questions (questions 2, 8, 12 and 16)

The answers and marks for these questions are provided on the examination paper. Give a half mark in the event of wrong word stress or incorrect intonation and/or pronunciation.

Sentence Blocks