Copyright 2004
Compiled by
David Holmes
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Contents
Preface :
To The Teacher
Chapter One : Warm-up Activities
Chapter Two : Words, Phrases and Sentences
Chapter Three : Grammar and Speaking
Chapter Four : Interactive Role-Play
Chapter Five : Traveling and Touring
Chapter Six : Finding the Right Words
Chapter Seven : Fables, Tales and Stories
Chapter Eight : Talking Tasks
Chapter Nine : A Bit of Business
Chapter Ten : Pronunciation
Chapter Eleven : How to Improve Your Diction
Chapter Twelve : Sound and Rhythm
Chapter Thirteen : More Pronunciation Practice
Chapter Fourteen : Curriculum Development
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Preface
The materials in this text were compiled over a period of ten years, in
Thailand from 1993 to 2003, while I was teaching at The Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University and later at the Department of Language at
KMUTT. I started a file of speaking activities because there were too many tasks and ideas to keep in my head, and I wanted to be able to access them when I needed them in the future. Eventually, the file grew thicker and thicker, until it was big enough to become a book.
The speaking activities in this text come from a variety of sources:
A lot of the tasks sprang from my own imagination, stimulating me to go into the classroom, feeling motivated by the freshness that accompanies a new inspiration and being eager to share it with my students. This could be compared to cooking on impulse rather than following a set recipe. I got many additional ideas from talking to fellowteachers about what worked for them in their classes. I even picked up some good examples from the handouts of various courses that I was required to teach, all of which taught me a lot of time-proven tricks that almost always work.
Curiously, when I told my Chula students that I was compiling a collection of speaking tasks for publication, they responded by