Conversation Questions for the EFL Classroom

- Television -  

• Are you going to watch TV tonight?
• If so, what will you watch?
• What did you watch on TV yesterday?
• What is one of your favorite TV shows?
• Why do you like it?
• When is it on?
• Does your father like it, too? 
• Do you prefer listening to the radio or watching TV?
• Do you think it is good for children to watch TV?
• Do you think TV is educational?
• Do you think that there is too much violence on TV?
• Do you think that TV is a good thing?
• If you could design a new television show to boost ratings, what kind of show would it be?
• How often do you watch TV?
• What are the advantages of watching TV?
• What are the disadvantages of watching TV?
• What do you usually watch on TV?
• What kind of TV programs do you usually watch?
• What TV commercials do you like? Which ones do you hate?
• What TV commercials do you like? Why?
• What's your favorite commercial?
• What is the purpose of advertising a product?
• Do you think there are subliminal messages?
• When you drive or walk, do you get distracted by advertisements on buses or billboards?
• When you go food shopping, do you buy foods you've seen in TV commercials?
• What types of TV program are there?
• Which type do you like best?
• When do you usually watch TV?
• Do you think that TV makes people lazy?
• Do you think too much time is spent watching TV?
• Does TV make a person passive? Does TV take away a person's ability to think for himself or herself?
• Do you think that TV prevents people from communicating?
• What do you think of TV shows that are designed to "discover new talent?"

Elementary Short Stories for EFL Learners

(1)

Mr Johnson was a rich old man. He lived in a beautiful house in the country with lots of servants, but his wife was dead, and he did not have any children.

Then he died suddenly, and people said, ‘His servants killed him, because they wanted his money.’

But the servants said, ‘No, he killed himself.’

The police came and asked the servants a lot of questions, and after a few weeks, there was a big trial. There were two famous lawyers and several important witnesses.

‘Tell me,’ one of the lawyers said to a witness one day, ‘did Mr Johnson often talk to himself when he was alone?’

‘I don’t know,’ the witness answered at once.

‘You don’t know?’ the lawyer repeated angrily. ‘You don’t know? But you were his best friend, weren’t you? Why don’t you know?’

‘Because I was never with him when he was alone,’ the witness answered.

(2)

Ted worked in a factory in a big town. He liked fishing very much, and was very good at it. Whenever he was free, he went down to the small river behind the factory and tried to catch some fish, but there were very few there, because the water was dirty. Then one summer he went to the seaside during his holidays and stayed at a small, cheap hotel.

     ‘I’ve never fished in the sea before,’ he thought. ‘It will be rather different from fishing in our river.’

     On the first day he caught a lot of fish and was very happy. He gave to the hotel, and they cooked them for all the guests, and they enjoyed them very much. After that, he did this every day. But when Ted got his bill at the end of the week, he saw on it:

     ‘For oil to fry fish (7days): £3.50.’

 (3)

When Billy was very small, he loved pictures. His mother often drew some for him on old pieces of paper. She was very bad at drawing, but Billy enjoyed her pictures and always wanted more.

Then, when he was a little older, Billy’s mother gave him some pencils and a drawing book, and he began drawing pictures too, but they were never good.

When Billy was five years old, his mother gave him a small blackboard, some pieces of chalk and a duster. He liked those very much. One day he was trying to draw a picture of his father on the blackboard. He drew lines and rubbed them out, drew more and rubbed those out too for ten minutes, but when he looked at his picture he was not happy.

‘Well,’ he said at last to his mother, ‘I’ll put a tail on it and make it a monkey.’

It was winter, and Mrs Hermann wanted to do a lot of shopping, so she waited until it was Saturday, when her husband was free, and she took him to the shops with her to pay for everything and to carry her parcels. They went to a lot of shops, and Mrs Hermann bought a lot of things. She often stopped and said, ‘Look, Joe! Isn’t that beautiful!’

     He then answered, ‘All right, dear. How much is it?’ and took his money out to pay for it.

     It was dark when they came out the last shop, and Mr Hermann was tired and thinking about other things, like a nice drink by the side of a warm fire at home. Suddenly his wife looked up at the sky and said, ‘Look at that beautiful moon, Joe!’

     Without stopping, Mr Hermann answered, ‘All right, dear. How much is it?’

Without You

Sensizlik

Niye sensiz yaşamaq bir bele darlıq?

Niye sensiz yaşamaq bir bele yoxluq?

               Kaş bilerdim ki ölüm var!

               Kaş bilerdim ki itim var!

Dahı heç vaxt qapıdan keçmeyini görmüyecem!

Dahı heç vaxt elinden qatıx çörek almıyacam!

            Dahı möv kesmeyini görmüyecem!

            Dahı heç vaxt seni men görmüyecem!

Jokes in English for the EFL Classroom

(1)

Teacher: Tell me a sentence that starts with an "I".
Student: I is the...
Teacher: Stop! Never put 'is' after an "I". Always put 'am' after an "I".
Student: OK. I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.

(2)

Two factory workers are talking.
The woman says, "I can make the boss give me the day off."
The man replies, "And how would you do that?"
The woman says, "Just wait and see." She then hangs upside-down from the ceiling.
The boss comes in and says, "What are you doing?"
The woman replies, "I'm a light bulb."
The boss then says, "You've been working so much that you've gone crazy. I think you need to take the day off."
The man starts to follow her and the boss says, "Where are you going?"
The man says, "I'm going home, too. I can't work in the dark."

(3)

Two cows are standing in a field.
One says to the other "Are you worried about Mad Cow Disease?"
The other one says "No, It doesn't worry me, I'm a horse!"  

(4)

A guy says to his friend, "Guess how many coins I have in my pocket."
The friends says, "If I guess right, will you give me one of them?"
The first guys says, "If you guess right, I'll give you both of them!"

(5)

A: Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after the operation?
B: Yes, of course.
A: Great! I never could before!

Intermediate Short Stories for EFL Students

 

1.New to America

Nancy was new to America. She came to America speaking only her native language. She brought her 8-year-old son with her. He was all she had in the world.

They found an apartment in Arcadia. They were there for only two months when a neighbor’s dog jumped over the fence. The dog ran toward Nancy’s son. Nancy put her body in between the dog and her son. The dog stopped when it saw Nancy screaming at it. She was going to punch it in the nose. The dog turned around.

Shaking, Nancy took her son upstairs. They stayed in the apartment all weekend. Then Nancy found another apartment, close to the school that her son was going to attend.

She and her son walked everywhere. One day her son started coughing badly. He had an asthma attack. All the walking was making his asthma worse.

Nancy knew that she had to buy a car. So she called up the Honda dealer. She talked to a salesman who spoke her language. She told him that she wanted to buy a new car if he could come over to pick her up. The salesman said he would be right over.

2.The Yardman

The yardman comes every two weeks. He drives a gray pickup truck. The truck is a Ford. It is about 15 years old, but it runs well. It doesn’t burn oil, and it gets decent gas mileage. The yardman’s name is Byron.

In the back of his truck are a lawn mower, a leaf blower, a rake, and a shovel. Byron uses the leaf blower to blow leaves and dirt from the back of the building out to the front of the building. Then he rakes up the leaves into a bag. He blows the dirt out into the street. He cuts the lawn with his lawn mower. He trims the hedge. He uses the leaf blower to blow the dirt off each Welcome mat that lies in front of each apartment door.

Then he puts all the leaves, the grass trimmings, and the hedge clippings into a wheelbarrow. He pushes the wheelbarrow to the back of the building, where he uses his big shovel to empty the wheelbarrow contents into the big dumpster. It takes Byron about two hours to do this work.

When he is done, he goes half a block up the street to the house on the corner. There he does the same work again.

3.Horses to Ride

Laura went to the stable. Four horses stood there. She put a saddle on Star. He was seven years old, big and dark brown. Her sister came out to the stable. They were both going to exercise the horses. It was a warm, sunny day. Janice saddled up Moonbeam, a white mare. They got on the horses and started walking them.

A few minutes later, Laura was telling Janice about the new doctor in her hospital. She raised her hand for a second to make a point. Just then, Star bucked. Laura went flying into the air. She landed on her head and shoulder on the grass.

"Oh, my gosh!" Jan cried. "Laura, are you all right?"

Laura moaned. Jan gently rolled her over. She didn’t see any blood. That’s good, she thought.

"Can you move? You’re not paralyzed anywhere, are you?"

Jan pulled Laura up into a sitting position. Laura slightly moved her legs and arms. She wasn’t paralyzed. When she moved her right hand to touch her head, she groaned.

"What’s the matter?"

"That hurt. When I moved my arm, it hurt."

They still didn’t see any blood. Jan unbuttoned the top buttons on Laura’s blouse and looked at Laura’s right collarbone.

"Oh, no," she said.

The Lost

İtik

Elimde fener,

Günorta çağı,

Yıxılan duvarlar altında

           Bir itik axtarıram.

Axşamadek ayaq döyenden sora,

Tapdığım bir ezilmiş çeleng,

          Sınıq, torpaxlı beşigin üstündedir.

Göresen hankı ananın qabarlı ellerile hörülübdür?

                                                         Hankı ananın?...

Çiçekleri solmuş ama canlıdır.

                        Yeni yol getmeliyik!...

Differences between Should and Must

'Must' is stronger than 'should'. Both have similar meanings of obligation and deduction, but 'should' is weaker. (ought to has the same meaning as should.)

Obligation MUST + VERB = 'It's essential' i.e. If this isn't done, there will be a lot of trouble, or a big problem.   E.g.  You must lose weight.  (You are dangerously overweight.)	SHOULD + VERB = 'It's important, but not essential' i.e. If this isn't done, it is likely there will be trouble, but it is not certain.   E.g.    You should lose weight.     (You are slightly overweight.)
Deduction MUST + VERB = 'This is a logical conclusion'   E.g.      She was born in 1955. It's 2000 now, so she must be 45.	SHOULD + VERB = 'This is a logical conclusion, but I may be wrong.'   E.g.     She is famous. She's rich. She's beautiful. She should be happy, (but maybe she's not).

How to Learn English

Here are some tips which may help you to master the English Language!

1. Speak without Fear

The biggest problem most people face in learning a new language is their own fear.  They worry that they won’t say things correctly or that they will look stupid so they don’t talk at all.  Don’t do this.  The fastest way to learn anything is to do it – again and again until you get it right.  Like anything, learning English requires practice.  Don’t let a little fear stop you from getting what you want. 

2. Use all of your Resources

Even if you study English at a language school it doesn’t mean you can’t learn outside of class.  Using as many different sources, methods and tools as possible, will allow you to learn faster.  There are many different ways you can improve your English, so don’t limit yourself to only one or two.  The internet is a fantastic resource for virtually anything, but for the language learner it's perfect. 

Motivate Yourself to Reach New Heights of Life

You need positive feelings to go through life. Positive feelings help you fight your negative feelings, sad thoughts and depression. Positive feelings can inspire you to wait for the cool breeze after a blazing sunny day. Motivation can give you all the positive energy required to keep your life going through all the highs and lows in life.

By: Andrew James Bradley

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