Learning Oral English Online: Apartment Hunting Dialog

Details

Activity Description

Use this online audio book with intermediate ESL learners for learning conversational turns by reading, listening to, and repeating dialogs for everyday situations and functions including Making Friends, Apartment Hunting, At the Library, Asking for the Way, A Visit to the Advisor, Shopping in America, Going to a Party, Ordering Lunch, Going to a Movie, and Dating. This activity focuses on Apartment Hunting.

Preparation

1. Make sure that the Web site is not blocked at your school before using it with students.
2. Preview the site in order to become familiar with how it works. If Apartment Hunting does not meet with your educational objectives, select a section that fits with your objectives and suits your students’ level of English.
3. An audio player is needed, such as Windows Media player or Real Player. Most of the files are in MP3 format, so any player that will play MP3's should be fine.
4. Set the volume on the computer to an adequate level using the volume controls on the player, the computer, and/or the speakers.
5. If you plan to do this as a whole class activity, you may want to copy, paste, and print the dialog using a word processing program, then print and distribute to students.

How-To

1. Open the Example Web site (above).
2. Select Listen to the Whole Conversation. A pop-up for your computer’s audio player may appear, or a new window with the player may open and play the audio. Pause or repeat, as desired.
3. Read the dialog while listening once through. In some sections, the audio can be played only as a whole conversation, but where it can be played in parts (line by line), select each line and repeat.
4. Repeat the dialog, working on pronunciation of sounds, stress, and intonation.

Teacher Tips

• If you chose to do other topics (using the link to the main page below), some include extra explanations of vocabulary/expressions and phrases, or exercises which you can see by selecting the New Words and Expressions, Notes, or Exercises links at the bottom of the pages.
• The site contains substantial advertising. Be sure to teach your students how to avoid selecting the advertising and the risks of selecting ads.

More Ways

• Follow up by having students perform the dialogs or write their own dialogs on the same situations using words and phrases they have learned as well as their own words.

Program Areas

• ESL: English as a Second Language

Levels

• Beginning High
• Intermediate Low
• Intermediate High

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