Apr 05 2008
The Best Sites For Developing English Conversational Skills
This is the last part of a three-part series on developing oral English skills. The previous two lists were The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English and The Best Websites For Learning English Pronunciation.
You can access those two lists, as well as forty other of my “The Best…” lists at Websites of the Year.
All the sites on these lists can also be found on my website.
Of course, all these sites are also all free, or they wouldn’t be on the list.
Here, in my opinion, are The Best Sites For Developing English Conversational Skills:
Number eight is 1-Language. It offers a free audio course comprised of forty units. Each one includes a written dialogue , audio, and exercises. It’s broad and accessible.
Number seven is a tie between a number of sites that have audio and animated exercises for Beginning English Language Learners. There used to be one or two that had a bunch, but those sites recently went “down.” The ones I’d like to highlight on this list are: Jr Naver, which has six conversations (don’t worry about the Korean writing, it’s in English) — just remember to click on the little box within the animation so you can see the words as they are spoken; Yahoo Korea, which has thirteen similar animations though, here, click on the circle; and another Jr Naver site that has thirteen dialogues, though it’s a little tricky to navigate. That link will lead you to the animations and audio — this link will lead you to the scripts.
OmAudio is number six, and is similar to 1-Language. It also has a lot of other resources on its site.
Everyday English from the Headway series, published by Oxford University Press, has six sections on conversations, and I’m ranking all six of them at number five. They are rated Beginner, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate, and Advanced.
Number four is LiveMocha, which I’ve ranked highly on a number of other lists. It’s excellent for developing oral, and other, English skills.
English Baby! is number three. It has daily exercises, subtitled videos, dialogues, the works!
I’m putting English Listening Language Lab Online (ELLLO) at number two. It has over 1,000 audio slideshows, games, exercises, songs, etc. — all geared towards developing conversational skills.
And, now, for The Best Site For Developing English Conversational Skills…..it’s the British Council’s J@M. They have a series of excellent audio and animated stories related to everyday situations. Be sure to click on “dialogue” within the animation to see the words as they’re spoken.
My next “The Best…” list will be The Best Sites For Developing Academic English Skills and Vocabulary. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for that list, or comments and differing opinions on this one.
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4 responses so far
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Larry,
While I think all these sites are great — they do show that there is a BIG missing feature which would make me hesitate in saying they help “develop conversation skills”.
Why do I say this? Well, a conversation is not a typical “learning” situation and it also entails “real” compulsive output by both people. Typically termed “engagement”. What happens at these sites is isolated learning where the response is passive at best.
Some of them, Live Mocha or Ebaby seek to be “conversational” but really they just have become sites for the lonely hearted and there is no pedagogical/learning focus. A lot of Pizzaz. In the case of Live Mocha, from the times I’ve been there I also believe they “stage people” to promote interaction. Somewhat insincere in my opinion. Nor is there VOICE — the big pink elephant that isn’t in the room (to use a metaphor). Two way communication is crucial — in real time and with voice/audio. The net offers that, someone just has to set it up for educational purposes.
I’m looking into a fully educational and simple audio chat room system where users anywhere in the world can simply click and join a classroom and talk. This would be really developing conversation skills - imo.
Thanks again for letting so many know about these sites. I’m not saying they aren’t “good” or even “excellent” — just that they have major shortcomings when it comes to the conversational part.
David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com
David,
I couldn’t agree with your more. I’d actually say a similar critique holds true for most of the most websites I highlight because I don’t think anything beats genuine one-to-one or small group interaction.
Larry
[...] were happy to discover that over the weekend we were named one of the top three sites for learning conversational English by Larry Ferlazzo, king of ESL/EFL website reviews and best of [...]
Hi David,
I blogged about this a little over on our site, but I thought I’d leave a comment here to say you’re right. That would be a really cool feature. Our chat rooms are really popular, but I bet people would get a lot out of chat rooms with live, real-time, Skype-style conversation.
Jason Daniel
English, baby!