Tuesday, November 29, 2011

English as a Second Language Podcast

I found an interesting podcast episode,"talking to a mechanic", from the ESLPOD website. I would like to use it in my ESL class for students’ practical English conversation. The episode itself does not directly teach us how to speak English perfectly in terms of grammar or structure. However, I think it is useful because it focuses more on our daily life conversation that could possibly happen anytime under certain circumstances. Here, the podcast introduces us how to speak to a mechanic, when we have a problem with a car. After providing an sample conversation, it also explains for the details on vocabulary and some informal expressions which are usually used in a colloquial language. It is going to be useful if I play this podcast episode as a resource of practicing English conversation in my classroom, and I might also ask learners to make their own conversation that they could use in a certain place or situation.  This can be used as a part of listening and speaking practices in learning English as a second language as well, and more interesting episodes regarding ‘everyday life conversation’ can be introduced for ESL learners in the same way.   

2 comments:

Maryanne said...

I think your idea of having the students make their own conversations or podcasts after hearing the one you refer to is an excellent idea. By creating their own conversations the students could practice their writing skills by producing a script and then their oral fluency by presenting the conversation.

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