Download the complete transcript of listening tasks from Unit 10B. Transcripts can be used to create other exercises. One self-study type activity is provided.

Let’s Talk Unit 10B Transcript PDF
Let’s Talk Unit 10B Activity PDF

Download the complete transcript of listening tasks from Unit 11B. Transcripts can be used to create other exercises. One self-study type activity is provided.

Let’s Talk Unit 11B Transcript PDF
Let’s Talk Unit 11B Activity PDF

Download the complete transcript of listening tasks from Unit 13B. Transcripts can be used to create other exercises. One self-study type activity is provided.

Let’s Talk Unit 13B Transcript PDF
Let’s Talk Unit 13B Activity PDF

Download the complete transcript of listening tasks from Unit 15B. Transcripts can be used to create other exercises. One self-study type activity is provided.

Let’s Talk Unit 15B Transcript PDF
Let’s Talk Unit 15B Activity PDF

The posted materials support Unit 15 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on tenses. Essentially, the students have to compare their life now and their life ten years ago. Through reminiscing, there is plenty of potential to practice lots of useful grammar. The materials involve the teacher comparing their life now with that of ten years ago. Following this, the students have time to do the same. The handout contains a language box containing useful grammar forms and vocab items. Feedback welcome.

then-and-now.doc
then-and-now.pdf

The posted materials support Unit 13 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on jobs and personal appearance. The materials are pretty self-explanatory. As in the children’s game of “Guess who?”, the students have to ask a series of yes/no questions to eliminate possible candidates from the 28 famous faces, and guess the celebrity who their partner is thinking of. A variation (see Part D) is to have the students take it in turns to ask questions and guess. The first person to guess the right famous person is the winner. Feedback welcome.

guess-who.doc
guess-who.pdf

The posted materials support Unit 10 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on advice giving. The materials involve the students thinking of problems and giving advice. The handout has a language box, which provides suitable language for the task. When giving the task, I recommend making sure that the students have plenty of time to embellish their problems and make them as heartfelt as possible. Feedback welcome.

thats-good-advice.pdf
thats-good-advice.doc

This interview activity can be used in the first class to help students get to know each other.

In addition, it can be used:
- with Unit 1a (p.3)
- to help with note taking skills
- to prepare for speaking test 1
- to help with basic writing skills

Feel free to add / delete questions and encourage the students to add their own examples.
The materials include the interview sheet and some instructions for the teacher.
Level 2 interview sheet
Level 2 interview sheet (teachers’ notes)

The posted materials support Unit 2 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on describing personal appearance. The material first involves a listening activity. The students hear two people talking about the people in the line-up (which is printed on the materials). The recorded conversation involves one first person asking yes/no questions to the second person to work out who the second person is thinking about. The students simply have to work out who is being thought about. The accompanying CD is available on the Level 2 shelf. After the listening, there is a speaking activity in which the students have to do the same thing with a partner. Hope that description wasn’t too confusing. Feedback welcome.

Guess Who?

The posted materials support Unit 2 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on describing personal appearance. The materials involve the learners describing their perfect mate, while their class partner draw this perfect specimen. Since the drawing rarely looks like anything like how the first person intended, the activity can be a lot of fun. However, it’s important that the “artist” does not show the “describer” the drawing until the end of the activity. Before getting the students to do the activity, I model what should be done by describing my perfect partner and getting them to do the drawing. Feedback welcome.

The imaginitively titled, Activities Activity supports Unit 3 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, it might be useful for any class focusing on freetime and hobbies. During the activity, the students have to associate the verbs, “go”, “play”, and “do (some)” with the appropriate activity. Then, there is an opportunity to use this language in a fluency-based activity. Before doing the fluency activity, it is worth carefully modelling the task to ensure that everyone understands what to do. Feedback welcome.
Activities Activity

The posted materials support Unit 2 of Let’s Talk for the Level 2 Speaking/Listening course. However, they might be useful for any class focusing on describing personal appearance. Before class, the teacher has to cut the handout into 2 pieces. Before giving the paper to the students, the learners should be given one minute to try to remember their partner’s clothes and appearance. Then, they should sit “Back to Back”. At this point, give one half of the handout to Person A, and the other half to Person B. The rest is self-explanatory. Feedback welcome.

“Back to Back”

Looking ahead to next term (Yes, even though Final Exams are going on right now.) I put together a basic wordsearch worksheet for place names and adjectives to help students practice these words. Most of the words are taken from the textbook and students should have at least a passing familiarity with them from junior high school.

Please comment with any typos, edits, suggestions or other ideas.

Please note that two entries are not countries, but locations: Bali and Hawaii. Therefore, I used the term place names, not countries in the directions.

Bali – Balinese
Brazil – Brazilian
China – Chinese
France – French
Germany – German
Greece – Greek
Hawaii – Hawaiian
India – Indian
Indonesia – Indonesian
Italy – Italian
Japan – Japanese
Korea – Korean
Mexico – Mexican
Morocco – Moroccan
Singapore – Singaporean
Spain – Spanish
Thailand – Thai
the US – American
Turkey – Turkish
Vietnam – Vietnamese

There is a short model dialogue to prompt students to ask each other for help and confirmation of answers as they work on the puzzle. Copying only one worksheet per pair or small group will prompt more interaction and save on time and copies.

Download the worksheet and answers.

Let’s Talk recycles many of the listening passages as self-study units, but only half of the units actually have these self-study exercises. Many teachers use the exercises in class, so the Level 2 team is tarting to make more exercises along the same lines.

Below is a folder with a PDF and an Apple Pages version of a cloze-type self-study exercise for Unit 6B. Students will not have the audio, but the classroom CD has the listening passage.

These activities can be used to focus on forms in the target language, suppport students who need more raw material to wotk with, and to turn more attention to listening. This example is a fairly convention al cloze, with the exception that some of the blanks should actually remain blank. Click below to have a look.

This is just the start of this project. Any feedback would be very helpful. I have attempted to match the look of the textbook as much as possible by using a similar font and layout. Those with Apple Pages can use the linked file as working model or template if they wish.

Download the zip file for Let’s Talk Unit 6B Self-study Food around the world.

This is a draft. If you have suggestions, please comment below.

The final examination for Level 2 Listening and Speaking is now ready for your perusal. If you would like to know what is on the exam, please take a look in the L2 binders in PFC or Machida for Version A. The same content, re-ordered into Versions B and C will be available at test time. Sorry, just to be on the safe side, I chose not to upload the actual test. In any event, all the tests will be printed for you.

In the binder, you will find:

• A student test paper
• An answer sheet
• A transcript of the listening passages
• A CD: Each listening passage is recorded once

All of the content is drawn from the publisher’s exam book. If students have attended class and tried the self-study passages, they should have encountered everything on the exam. The Listening and Speaking Final Exam is to be held in the second Listening & Speaking class in January. For those students missing the Final Exam, there will be a make up examination proctored by full time teachers 17 January 2007.

Procedure

1. Pick up the printed exams.
2. Hand out the papers and remind students to mark their names in romaji.
3. Begin with the listening section by playing the CD once through (approximately 10 minutes).
4. Allow students plenty of time to finish.
5. Collect all exams and return them to the box provided in the PFC office.

Grading
The test is scored on 50 points: 2 points each for listening, 1 point each for other questions. Each section of the test is marked clearly for the value of the questions and there is a handy subtotal box for marking each segment of the test.

49-50 A+
47-48 A
45-46 A-
43-44 B+
41-42 B
39-40 B-
37-38 C+
35-36 C
33-34 C-
31-32 D+
29-30 D
27-28 D-
26 and below F

This does mean that students must get all of the listening questions correct in order to score an exceptional A+. An A may be quite difficult, but many students should be able to score an A- if they have prepared regularly. It is hoped that many of the students should fall in the B range. Some students may receive an F according to this scale, but that mark still earns them points towards their final EIgo II grade.

Please return all of these sample test materials to the binders as soon as you have looked them over.

A vocabulary challenge is a good schema building activity that can get individuals, pairs or groups going on a topic.
I prefer to put students in pairs or small groups, requiring all of them to have the same answers on their sheet. Be prepared to circulate around the classroom a lot, as students often have questions about what is being asked for.
When the students have finished, you can mix the groups up and have them compare answers, or take it up as a whole class.

Let’s Talk Unit 8 Entertainment Vocab. challenge

A vocabulary challenge is a good schema building activity that can get individuals, pairs or groups going on a topic.
I prefer to put students in pairs or small groups, requiring all of them to have the same answers on their sheet. Be prepared to circulate around the classroom a lot, as students often have questions about what is being asked for.
When the students have finished, you can mix the groups up and have them compare answers, or take it up as a whole class.

Let’s Talk Unit 7 Travel and tourism Vocab. challenge

This is a kind of “find someone who…” activity that is based on Unit 6 “Food and drink”. However, it could be used at any time during the year as a warm up or as review. it can be used as a find someone who activity, requiring students to speak to 20 of their classmates, or you could have students interview 5 students and have them ask four questions each.
Because of the amount of time involved witht this activity (20mins. or more), I don’t require students to write the names of the students they talk to, nor the extra question that they think of themselves, just the answers.

Let’s Talk Unit 6 Activity (20 Questions)

A vocabulary challenge is a good schema building activity that can get individuals, pairs or groups going on a topic.
I prefer to put students in pairs or small groups, requiring all of them to have the same answers on their sheet. Be prepared to circulate around the classroom a lot, as students often have questions about what is being asked for.
When the students have finished, you can mix the groups up and have them compare answers, or take it up as a whole class.

Let’s Talk Unit 5 Vocab. challenge Money

This activity can be used in the FLSC, or during a computer class. Prior to going to a computer room, have students brainstorm cities in the USA, Canada and around the world. (As this is a MS Word document, you can change the countries).
In the computer room, students can work by themselves exploring the site and making notes.
At the time of writing, accuweather listed the weather as current, tonight, and tomorrow. That web page format may change.

Weather on the Internet