Mary Poppins' Bag of Speaking Fun

For those who don't remember or who had an underprivileged childhood, Mary Poppins is a nanny with a magic bag that fits anything and everything. This post is kind of like that. I found some great sites that will address all your speaking needs--topics for discussion, idioms, pronunciation, and everything in between.



I'm very partial to discussion topics, myself. For one, it makes students feel like it's worth it to speak up when the topic is important or interests them. And though some may try to avoid using forms they aren't proficient with, they will also be confronted with these same forms when other speakers use them. But sometimes it's difficult to constantly come up with something to discuss. At least if I went on a blind date, I would run out of things meaningful things to talk about pretty quickly before reverting to the daily habits of my cat.

ESL Discussions is a great site with a plethora of topics to discuss, and each comes with several questions for teachers to ask students to elicit their opinions. There is a bar on the right side of the page with links to discussions of the latest news topics, such as "Swine Flu," "Barack Obama," and "Rising Prices." There are even sections for discussions that revolve around grammar and idiomatic language.

The discussion on animal idioms, for example, opens with "Does your teacher ever have to badger you to get your homework?" This can open up into a great cultural comparison of which animals are used to convey which personality traits in the L1 and L2. There are actually many similarities between these in Russian and English, such as the infamous crafty fox.

Another site I'm fond of, English Daily, focuses specifically on idiomatic language. Each "lesson" provides a short conversation for context that features an idiomatic word or phrase, such as "to get on board" for "to participate. At the end of the conversation, it glosses and explains the phrase. These can provide great warm-ups for a class in general or for a discussion in which you want students to use idiomatic language. No book-talk allowed!

I would also like to use these discussion questions, particularly those on "Russia" and "A New Cold War" and record the reactions of people from different cultures to discuss Russian history and stereotypes and how they feel about them.

Finally, the real bag of goodies comes from the website SpokenSkills. There are idioms, specialized vocabulary (from business English to aviation), and speeches, and practice with pronunciation. Every one of these is accompanied by listening practice and a recorder, so students can compare their pronunciation to that of a native speaker.

Many advanced students can recognize which sounds they need to work on because they are the same sounds they have difficulty distinguishing in listening comprehension. For example, Russians tend to have trouble distinguishing between the short "i" and short "e" (pin / pen) and the short "u" in "but" and "love" and the long "a" in "father." (On this site it is referred to as the short "o," but it is commonly known as the long a). These clips will help them compare the sounds, so they can draw the line between them.

The site also offers teachers the opportunity to upload sound clips, so students will have more of a variety of material. This would be a great site to supplement practice with minimal pairs or drawing attention to the different types of language that are used in different situations, such as telephone calls vs. business meetings, but it also offers students an invaluable resource for self-evaluation and practice.