Talk English

Details

Activity Description

Use this Web site to teach students expressions that will help them learn to speak better and gain fluency in English. There are a number of different types of lessons, which follow a "Click, Listen, and Repeat" functionality. In most of the lessons, users read the sentence, select the sentence to listen to the sentence, and then practice speaking by repeating after the audio file provided by a native English speaker. This method includes reading, speaking, and listening all at the same time. The Interview section would be valuable for students to practice questions and answers for many types of interviews, from immigration and citizenship-related to employment interviews, so this particular activity focuses there, but feel free to use the many others at this site in a similar fashion.

Preparation

1. Make sure that the Web site is not blocked at your school before using it with students.
2. Preview the site and choose an activity or activities that are appropriate to your students’ reading and speaking abilities as well as your teaching objectives. (English Speaking Basics would be appropriate for Beginning levels, etc.) 
3. Set volume for computer speakers or headphones at an adequate level.

How-To

1. Select the activity chosen to practice.Each section has a number of subtopics and selecting one of those will give even more subtopics in a menu to the right. After selecting one of the subtopics, you will finally arrive at the page with sentences or pargraphs in blue type.
2. Choose the word or sentence to hear the sentence read aloud. After you click on one of the items, there may be a slight pause before you begin to hear the sound, depending on the length of the narration. But then you will hear a native English speaker reading the text. Do not look for the typical speaker icon or play button as there are none.)
3. Repeat the sentence.
4. Choose the next sentence and repeat the steps.
5. As a follow up, pair up students and have students write dialogs based on the lessons they practice to perform in front of the class. For interview questions, have students copy assigned questions to a word processing document, write their own answers, and practice the interviews in pairs.

Teacher Tips

• The Web site’s developers recommend that users read the instructions  for using the site before using the site. There are instructions on how to use the Web site in many languages near the bottom of the home page.
• After clicking on a sentence, there may be a short delay before the audio plays.
• There is no registration page and you do not need to sign up to use the Web site.
• TalkEnglish is also available for download, but there is a charge for this "offline" version. Visit the English Download page  to learn how.

More Ways

• There are numerous listening, speaking, and pronunciation exercises on a wide variety of topics. The Web site’s Speaking English Lessons include:
  • English Speaking Basics
  • Regular English Lessons
  • Business English Lessons
  • Interview English Lessons
  • Idioms and Phrases
  • Special Topics
• English Listening Lessons are divided into Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced.
• Extra English Lessons include Pronunciation, English Grammar Basics, and English Vocabulary.
• There are also three English Speaking Articles with tips for ESL students: 5 Rules for Speaking Fluency, Grammar for Speaking, and Intonation and Speed.
• See the full lesson index , which displays specific grammar points/structures, expressions, topics/themes of each lesson. Some of the general categories of topics include greetings and general things, college-related topics, health, dating, marriage, guys, girls, sports, feelings, emotions, family, children, friends, office basics, talking to co-workers, talking to the boss, talking to subordinates, computers, e-mail, business trips, explanations, presentations, review process, meetings, phone calls, quitting or leaving work, airport, car rental, hotel, directions, restaurant, stores, talking to strangers, work and other types of interviews, phrases, and idioms.

Program Areas

• ESL: English as a Second Language

Levels

• Beginning Low
• Beginning High
• Intermediate Low
• Intermediate High
• Advanced

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