
Warm-up activity:
one minute topics is a great way to practice discourse management. The students should focus on organising their speech with connectors and conjunctions. What the students need to do is work in pairs, choose a topic and give a one minute monologue on the topic. It is important to link the topic to your personal experiences and personal opinions.
Discourse management “Produces extended stretches of language with very little hesitation. Contributions are relevant and there is a clear organisation of ideas. Uses a range of cohesive devices and discourse markers”. This part of the evaluation states that you need to organise your speech, use various connectors (5-8), what you say is focussed on answering the questions and you do not doubt much when you are speaking.
Topics:
Tell us about your best friend.
Tell us about the best holiday you have ever been on.
Tell us about a really good day you have had recently.
Tell us about a course you have studied and enjoyed.
Tell us about your ideal job.
Tell us about your family.
Tell us about your favourite food.
Tell us about the area where you live.
Tell us about your house.
Tell us about the worst experience of your life.
Tell us about the best gift you have ever received.
Tell us about how you normally celebrate your birthday.
Tell us about your favourite celebration.
Tell us about who you most admire in the world.
Tell us about your mobile phone.
Tell us about your personality.
Tell us about your plans for the future.
Tips:
It might be a good idea to use rhetorical questions to capture the interest of the listener. Be prepared to answer questions about your topic.
Follow up activity:
Listen to your partners topic and ask them questions about it to maintain the conversation and develop the topic further.