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.
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:
English Baby! has daily exercises, subtitled videos, dialogues, the works!
I’m putting English Listening Language Lab Online (ELLLO) has over 1,000 audio slideshows, games, exercises, songs, etc. — all geared towards developing conversational skills.
I’ve found Short Conversations at LanternFish useful.
How to teach conversational lessons is a great post from CECILIA NOBRE ELT BLOG.
A fantastic rubric for collaborative conversations. #ellchat_bkclub #eal #esl #ell #eld #esol #tesol #BCTF #k12 #educhat #tesoloz pic.twitter.com/Pyuqqfsr2v
— Tan Huynh (@TanELLclassroom) August 8, 2018
“PEAKSAY” IS LIKELY TO BECOME A “GO-TO” SITE FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS
How to teach conversational lessons is from Freeed.
Timesaver: Conversation starters is from ELT Planning.
🔗 To infographic pdf:https://t.co/gz0mMqQBFR
— TESOLgraphics (@tesolgraphics) May 26, 2023
ANOTHER CHATGPT EXPERIMENT WITH ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
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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
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!
Hi ya Larry,
I’m afraid I very much agree with David.
Conversation is two-way spoken dialogue, most of these sites offer opportunities to chat (with fingers) but not to converse.
xxKarenne
Karenne,
I definitely only view these sites as opportunities for limited practice, and ways for students to perhaps develop a little more confidence when they do have one-on-one conversations.
Larry
Has anyone tried adding Vivox Voice to Facebook? EnglishClub.com just added it to its Facebook Fan page and learners can enter the channel at any time to chat. Last week I spoke with students in Singapore and Turkey on the channel and it was very clear! Unfortunately Facebook is blocked in some countries. It’s worth checking out, though. You can add your own channel too.
To try it out go to EC’s Fan Page and click on Voice Chat. Then add Vivox Voice to your page. : http://tinyurl.com/ma48w7
It works best in IE and Firefox, but I spoke to the Vivox Voice team and they said it should be upgraded in early 2010 to work in other browsers. Hopefully this will help fill the “missing feature” that David wrote so wisely about above.