Compelling American Conversations - Teacher Edition: Commentary, Supplemental Exercises, and Reproducible Speaking Activities, Paperback

This English Teacher's Guide to Compelling American Conversations provides teaching tips, feedback suggestions, extension suggestions, and supplemental exercises so you can help teach speaking skills in a relaxed, confident manner. How do you we get our intermediate English language learners to speak more in our classes? How can we help prepare American residents by choice (immigrants and refugees) develop the conversational skills to become future American citizens? These questions inspired Compelling American Conversations: Questions and Quotations for Intermediate American English Language Learners. Since 2012, the versatile speaking skills textbook has found its way into several English as a Second Language and English language development classrooms. Words can often have multiple meanings, and the term "intermediate English language learner" is no exception. Compelling American Conversations was written with this recognition to offer various ways of helping English students develop and deepen their conversation skills. Compelling American Conversations (CAC), an exceptionally flexible ESL textbook, makes adding speaking skills relatively easy in a wide range of classroom environments. This Teacher's Guide will help English teachers - and tutors - working in adult education programs, community colleges, Intensive English Programs, literacy centers, and international student offices.Compelling American Conversations helps English language learners feel more comfortable in English. It will also help your students become more fluent in English. This teacher's guide provides detailed suggestions on how to effectively teach each lesson, anticipate "good mistakes" from students, and provide feedback. It also includes several new activities for each chapters so you can extend the lessons, adapt to both stronger and weaker students, and add explicit pronunciation and vocabulary training. We're particularly proud of the 25+ reproducible "search and share" worksheets in the appendix so English teachers and tutors can co-create timely materials for students. We have also deployed the Common European Framework of References (CEFR) for each lesson to clearly identify specific teaching objectives in each lesson. In addition to an activity by activity teaching tip for the entire 15 chapters, this teacher's guide includes many supplemental activities such as: Sound Practice - Accent reduction activities and minimal pair practiceGrammar Connection - Activity that focuses on how words and sentences work in a conversation context of each thematic chapter. Steps to Success - A supplemental activity focused on English for Specific PurposesPhrasal Verbs - Another supplemental activity that develops student fluency.The Brave and the Bold - More sensitive questions that might spark lively, yet controversial, discussions. This section is more appropriate for college than high school classrooms. Fun with Famous Folks - Ways to do more with selected quotations for student presentations.Like many other experienced English teachers, we often browse through teaching guides for ESL & ELT textbooks. Therefore, this particular ELT Teacher's Guide has been written so the materials can be read - and perhaps enjoyed - both individually or consumed in a scaffold manner. We have shared our perspectives in a more candid, less diplomatic manner than many more traditional textbook authors and publishers. The result is an informative, street smart guide to teaching English and deploying Compelling American Conversations in your ESL/EFL classroom.

About the Author:

Eric H. Roth teaches international graduate students the pleasures and perils of academic writing and public speaking in English at the University of Southern California (USC), and holds the title of "Master Lectuerer." He also consults English language schools on communicative methods to effectively teach English. Roth co-authored Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics in 2006 to help English language learners increase their English fluency. Recommended by English Teaching Professional magazine, the advanced ESL textbook has been used in over 50 countries in English classrooms and conversation clubs. Easy English Times, an adult literacy newspaper, has published a monthly column, "Instant Conversation Activities," based on the book since 2008. The first specific version for a particular country, Vietnam, was published in 2011. Compelling American Conversations: Questions and Quotations for American English Language Learners, designed to help American immigrants develop both academic vocabulary and strengthen speaking skills in English, came out in 2012. A member of the USC faculty since 2003, Roth is a member of numerous professional organizations including: California Association of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CATESOL); the International Communication Association (ICA); the International Professors Project (IPP); and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Roth has given several CATESOL and TESOL conference presentations and led many English teacher training workshops. He writes short reflective essays, reviews ESL/EFL related books and apps, and shares teaching tips at CompellingConversations.com/blog. Mark Treston has over fifteen years of teaching and management experience, and specializes in world history and teaching English. He is also the author of "Gailee" and "North Korean Memoirs," both outstanding historical novels based on real events, and a co-author of Compelling American Conversations: Teacher's Guide as well as the Reproducible Guide. Mark taught high school and college students in Korea, Israel, Japan, and the U.S. Mark also co-founded two colleges and consulted many other educational institutions on creating learner-centered classes. Consequently, Mark has often given workshops for faculty and teacher training. Mark speaks several languages and enjoys traveling as much as he likes writing about his travels. Mark lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two boys.