viernes, 31 de diciembre de 2010

Topics for Discussion

David Deubel  presents us with this handy slideshow with his choice of general conversation topics. He offers six leading general questions about a wide variety of topics:

driving, food and eating, travel, at the movies, sports, the future, small talk, family and friends, education, clothes and fashion, the Internet, shopping, likes and dislikes, money, jobs and careers, silly questions, beliefs, favourites, health and fitness, opinions, history, current events, holidays, preferences, animals and pets.

The presentation will be especially suitable for students at Básico 2 and Intermediate 1 preparing for an oral exam, but some topics are also suitable for Intermedio 2.

Self-study activity:
Get together with an English-speaking friend or relative and go over the topics on the slideshow. You don't have to go through everything at a sitting, as there are too many topics. Choose two or three of them and answer the questions in as much detail as possible, helping each other out with vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar problems.

You can use each topic either as a springboard to practise the monologue (the same student talks about one topic for three or four minutes non-stop by answering the questions)  or the interaction (two or three students engage in conversation about one of the topics by going over the questions and exchanging opinions).

Make it habit to return to this slideshow whenever you wish to do an oral activity, especially when the oral exam gets closer and closer.

Thank you, David.