E-04.01 Understand & Participate in Basic Conversations about Things

WorkLife English Book 1: Life Skills, Chapter 1: Things

8 + 1 +2 = 11 pp   

Who It’s For: American-English (Teachers & Helpers of) Novices Beginning a Course of Oral-Language-Skills Building

Why It’s Useful: Learners new to instruction in Oral Language Skills may benefit by “taking it easy” with recognizable kinds of exercises providing plenty of success-assuring cues.  Like subsequent excerpts E-04.02 through E-04.10 from WorkLife English Skills Book 1, this Download begins with a Strip Story to hear, read, and use as a model.  Part One provides Vocabulary follow-up.  Part Two / Listening requires responses to the items of Exercises A-C, all of which are accessible on Audio and/or the attached Tapescript portion.  Part Three / Grammar in Conversation integrates Listening to exchanges with substitution practice that leads beyond the text.  Because Part Four addresses Reading & Writing, its pages have been omitted.

What You’ll Do: 

[1] On page 7, follow along in the text as participants hear the dialog in “A Notebook, Please.”  If it’s accustomed—or if learners are helped by repetition, they can “act out” the story in pairs, probably all at the same time without commentary from instructors or aides.  More observable modeling or coaching might take place when learners do and check Part One / Vocabulary exercises on pages 8-9.

[2]  Audio material for the Part Two / Listening tasks (on pages 10-11) can be downloaded and/or read aloud by speakers with (near) native accents from the highlighted text of the attached Tapescript page.  Text users are to respond to what they hear by writing numbers, circling words, or the like.  The Audio can be repeated as many times as necessary or helpful.  Learners may even want to repeat it.

[3]  Part Three / Grammar in Conversation is based on an old-fashioned but still effective “Substitution Drill” activity.  In Exercises A, (*B,) C, participants start out with quick 3– or 4-line Conversations to listen to and repeat.  Then they substitute other given words and phrases for those that are underlined.  Reinforcing the same language structures, they continue using the exchanges as templates in which to insert their own relevant vocabulary.   .

[4]  Use the bonus Pronunciation Worksheets and Tapescript to reinforce the reception & production of names of “Things” containing “Simple Vowel Sounds.”