E-06.01 Try Familiar & New Oral-Skills Instructional Approaches Based on Immigrant Arrival Stories

English in Everyday Life: An Immigration Story

WorkLife English: Competency-Based Listening/Speaking, Book 3; Chapter 1, The Arrival + Transcript

12 + 3 = 15 pp

Who It’s For: American-English (Teachers & Helpers of) Intermediate Students About to (Re-)Start a Course of Oral-Language-Skills Development—with Analogous Objectives

Why It’s Useful: All ten Chapters of  WorkLife English: A Competency-Based Listening/Speaking Book 3: An Immigration Story have the same format—which differs from that of WLE: L/S 2 for variety—and because language learners are progressing in their abilities.  After a Chapter Opener listing Competencies, Notions & Functions, Grammar comes Part One / Better Listening: it’s centered around thematic Immigration Stories of four “Principal Protagonists” in a fictional book-long narrative.  For Pre-Listening, text users anticipate what they’re about to hear by answering predictive questions about four drawings; after a First Listening, they match the scenes to stories.  During a Second Listening, they cross out the wrong words in a narrative, leaving the stressed ones to convey significant details. Later, they identify Reduced Forms, Contractions, and other “Function Words” not crucial to the Main Ideas but still helpful.  Part Two / Clear Speech provides Pronunciation Practice in Sounds and other features.  Part Three / Good Communication offers Notional / Functional Vocabulary as well as Sentence Templates to follow in “Telling Your Own Story.” And in Part Four / Practical Listening, there are short simulated segments relevant to the Chapter subject matter.

What You’ll Do: 

[1]  Look over the Chapter Opener, designed for practice in the Listening Strategy of  Prediction.  In Part One Exercises A-*D, follow instructions to make sure you get the four characters’ narratives regarding their Arrival. Summarize. Pronunciation features addressed in Part Two Exercises A-G are “Simple Vowel Sounds,” “Stressed Syllables,” “Stressed Words in Sentences,” “Question & Answer Intonation.” 

[2]  In Part Three, acquire and use “Expressions of Interest” when listening to others. In Exercises A-**E, (refer to sample sentence patterns to) exchange info and thoughts  about your own trip to where you are now—and your first impressions / experiences.

[3]  Part Four Listening Tasks are simulations of exchanges or announcements that a newcomer might hear at an airport.  Show you understand by reacting to these.

[4] Attached to each Download E-06.01 through E-06.10 are corresponding Audioscript pages from the WorkLife English: A Competency-Based Listening/Speaking Book 3: An Immigration Story Instructor’s Edition. Relevant portions are highlighted.