CONSIDERATIONS BEFORE PRACTISING A REAL-LIFE TOPIC
My ideas below can help learners practice English or any language even on their own more comprehensively and productively.
1. Prepare your own list of everyday topics in order of priority and importance based on your needs for potential practical use.
You can make a plan of issues (list main ideas or key concepts) to cover each topic comprehensively in terms of its content. As you know a daily life topic, for example, "Shopping" includes various situations, concepts, and issues related to the topic.
Always try to think of potential situations and issues connected with a topic that may be important to you or you may encounter and how to best express your thoughts.
2. Make your own list of materials (aids, resources) to practice a daily life topic and select the most relevant content at all levels for your needs.
There are Internet resources, textbooks, phrase books, conversation books, audio/video recordings, TV, radio programs, movies, online and face-to-face communication, and reading materials to practice daily life topics.
You can also create your own materials on each topic to include the most important content at your own discretion for your potential use.
3. Read helpful advice/suggestions on how to practice listening comprehension, speaking, vocabulary, reading, writing on a daily life topic.
4. In my opinion it would be especially helpful to prepare a list of activities to practice and to master a daily life topic with vocabulary on it. Can you prepare a list of real-life topics in order of importance for yourself with a detailed plan to master each topic (by developing your listening comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, and vocabulary skills)?
I believe it's a good idea to learn and to practice each daily life topic comprehensively before proceeding to the next topic. Thought-through (selective) content on each topic for practice based on one's needs is necessary to first encompass relevant content for one's needs as there is an enormous amount of diverse content in language resources.
HELPFUL IDEAS FOR PRACTICING A REAL-LIFE TOPIC
In my view it is expedient to practice a daily life topic in English in the following order:
1. Learners listen to and pronounce (read aloud) each sentence of English speech (thematic dialogues and narrative texts with transcripts).
Make sure you understand everything clearly in each sentence in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
2. Speaking on each conversation topic (imitation of dialogues (role play) and narration of texts previously listened to, ready-made thematic questions and answers with helpful content for using in daily life, narrations/telling stories, talking points and discussions of issues).
You can write key words and phrases, or main ideas as a plan, or questions on that particular dialogue or text you previously listened to in order to make easier for you to convey the content in English. It is important to compare what you’ve said to the transcript.
It is useful for learners to prepare potential questions and answers with helpful content on all everyday topics, and to practise speaking. To show different ways of expressing a particular thought they can make up several potential questions and answers on one point in this speaking activity.
It is a good idea for language learners to prepare questions, issues and speech on a chosen topic in advance for easier and better communication with native speakers (with more inclusive meaningful content to get more productive results).
3. Learning of additional conversation sentences and vocabulary from English phrase books, conversation books, websites with thematic conversations and thematic vocabulary, and general thematic English dictionaries that provide useful usage sentences. Making up one’s own sentences with difficult vocabulary for potential use in daily life.
4. Extensive reading of thematic texts and materials from various sources. Telling the content of thematic texts.
It is better for learners to write down unknown vocabulary in whole sentences to remember word meanings easier. It would be a good speaking practice for learners telling the content of the texts that they have read. Learners can write key words and phrases, or main ideas as a plan, or questions on the text that require long answers to make easier for learners to tell the content of the text. I believe it is a good idea to read each logical chunk or paragraph of a text and to narrate each paragraph separately, and then the whole text.
5. Writing on real life topics.
Let me know your thoughts on this especially important topic for learners and teachers of ESL/EFL.
Best wishes,
Michael
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