Category Archives: Speaking

Guest post: 11 tips for teaching controversial topics in the ESL classroom

A great post from Alice of Hot Take English, hopefully re-starting the once numerous and always popular TEFLtastic guest posts. For a lot of English language teachers, the mere thought of teaching a so-called “controversial” discussion topic in class is … Continue reading

Posted in Alternative teaching techniques, Lesson planning, Speaking | Tagged | Comments Off on Guest post: 11 tips for teaching controversial topics in the ESL classroom

Discussing your week(end) to practise particular language (TEFLtastic Classics 42)

This is a combination of two recent posts, being a particular kind of small talk to practise different kinds of language, and also a classic but difficult to find page.  Discussing your week and weekend to practise grammar Discussing your … Continue reading

Posted in Photocopiable worksheets, Speaking | Tagged | Comments Off on Discussing your week(end) to practise particular language (TEFLtastic Classics 42)

The (mildly) autistic TEFL teacher

While adding two new articles and a list of useful phrases to my rapidly expanding small talk for EFL learners page, it suddenly struck me how ironic people who know me would find it that I’m teaching small talk, let … Continue reading

Posted in Social English, Speaking, Teaching English as a Foreign Language | 1 Comment

40 EFL presentation skills classroom activities now easier to find

Many moons ago when I started this blog presentations was just an afterthought for me when teaching the language of meetings, so this page has been hiding in an obscure part of that section for the last seven years or … Continue reading

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How students can improve their fluency

… including things that they can do while and just before speaking, things that they can do while studying on their own, and things they can do with a teacher or conversation partner: 57 ways to improve spoken fluency I’d imagine … Continue reading

Posted in Speaking | 1 Comment

Why does free con continue?

I’ve taught plenty of students whose progress stopped years ago but still insist on the same “method” of chatting on random topics in class, and few if any where it was the best possible way of improving their English in … Continue reading

Posted in Speaking | 5 Comments

Discussion questions for brainstorming (or brainstorming for discussion questions)

Another one of those things that are so simple that it’s difficult to believe I’d never come across them or come up with them before. Simply design discussion questions to also be used after to brainstorm specific vocabulary. For example, … Continue reading

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New page with my 26 articles on teaching speaking

My articles on teaching speaking There are also links from there to pages with my many articles on teaching functional language and oral practice for particular grammar points.

Posted in Speaking, Teaching English in Bosnia, Teaching English in Thailand | 2 Comments

Conversation questions – 40 games, worksheets, articles and links

Used the “opportunity” of having to manually paste twenty or so links in to add my two articles on the topic, divide the worksheets up so that there are sections on conversation questions for specific grammar points and actual conversation … Continue reading

Posted in Discussion questions | 1 Comment

Avoiding correction of spoken errors

… or at least avoiding ending each and every stage or lesson by writing a list of mistakes up on the board. Whatever your attitude to that CELTA-tastic activity, having alternatives has got to be a good thing, I reckon. … Continue reading

Posted in Error correction, Speaking | 2 Comments