The Pros and Cons: 25 Engaging Topics for Adult ESL Students:A Workbook to Build Fluency in English

by Ashley Shawn Wilkes

Overview

The Pros and Cons is an English fluency building workbook for adults designed to help ESL teachers create engaging and fun classes, covering a wide range of topics, and to help those students build fluency by providing ample activities that guide them to be creative and speak out. It's designed to be straight-forward and easy to use, so the teacher can pick it up and go into class with it with minimal preparation.

This workbook focuses on getting ESL students of intermediate and advanced English levels to engage with each other, and the teacher, in the case of one-to-one classes, through activities and questions that promote discussion and decision-making. They will be challenged to think critically, and solve problems, all while using English as the mode of communication to deal with a variety of different tasks.

What topics are included in this workbook?

1. Arranged Marriages
   
2. Helping the Poor
   
3. Telling White Lies
   
4. War
   
5. Adoption
   
6. Colonizing Mars
   
7. An International One-Child Policy
   
8. Living Together Before Marriage
   
9. Dating a Colleague
   
10. Moving Abroad
    
11. Being Child-free
    
12. Cloning
    
13. Dating During High School
14. 
    Making Kids Earn Their Allowance
15. 
    Banning Smoking
16. 
    Going Completely Green in 5 Years
17. 
    Nuclear Weapons and Energy
18. 
    Open International Immigration
19. 
    Marrying Outside of Your Culture
20. 
    Harsher Punishments
21. 
    Dating Students
22. 
    Being Your Own Boss
23. 
    Divorce
24. 
    Dating Apps
25. 
    Using Tablets Instead of Textbooks

Each topic, or unit, includes new vocabulary, discussion questions, activities for group- and pair-work, as well as statistics and a closing activity, or closing discussion questions.This workbook shines the most when used with groups of students, but can also be adapted to work well in one-to-one situations with VIP students (in the case of some language training schools) or private students.


Author's Note: As a teacher myself, I can say that the Pros and Cons has been my longest running series, and it has proven to be popular at every language training school I've used it at, and the content has continuously evolved over the past five years. The students are actively engaged, and even the quietest students find that they have something that they want to contribute to the discussion and the activities. My classes tend to be made up of students from lower-intermediate to advanced, and from age 14 to 60, and all have been able to participate and contribute to the conversations, as well as have many opportunities to speak out and engage with others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781078742559
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	11/10/2019
Pages:	170
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Since 2006, I have been teaching ESL to adults in China, Mexico and Japan. During that time, I have taught students from all walks of life, and with a variety of different interaction patterns in class. Some have been outspoken and engaged in classes, and others have been shy and hesitant to speak out. However, regardless of the personality or interaction pattern, the majority of students are willing to speak out and communicate with their peers as long as you find a way to engage them. This exemplifies a need for teachers to discuss less-than-common topics in class (as opposed to more topics about food, shopping and travel). This idea led me to start choosing topics that were often more serious in nature, or based in real-world problems or situations, as well as potential issues for the future. Once I started introducing those types of topics, I found that class attendance started to spike.


Alongside the aforementioned issue, I have also seen that many students have a habit of focusing on learning grammar and vocabulary, but not putting it into action. With that in mind, I started developing PowerPoint presentations with a focus on task-based learning, which would allow the students to use what they learned, and be engaged while doing so. By using the language in real conversations, and activities, students are allowed to escape from drills, and focus on speaking out with freedom. Mistakes are encouraged, as the name of the game is to get them using the language more comfortably, as when you improve fluency, other aspects of the language tend to also be naturally pulled up and improved upon.