Categories: Lesson

ESL Speaking and Listening for David Epstein’s TED Talk

Oh boy, has it been a month since my last post? Almost. It was a national holiday here in China and then I was busy preparing classes for my new students. I’ve also been posting most of my teacher’s material over at my IELTS preparation website.

from www.ted-ielts.com

Today I’m giving you an ESL lesson based upon a TED talk by David Esptein. I love TED talks for ESL. They’re great fun and, importantly, they’re free! Also, you can access the website here in China, which is a real rarity. Anyone behind the Great Firewall knows what I mean. 🙂 You can also download them pretty easily straight from the website and then take them to class on a USB.

This lesson is all about sports, and it starts out with a speaking activity, followed by listening ones. The first listening is very general and I like it for my university students because they’re supposed to be developing note-taking skills. I take my time to craft a summary together as a group, piecing together sentences from their notes.

Some comprehension questions would be great but I only had 45 minutes with this group for this video, so I kept it simple.

Here’s the file. Feel free to share.

David S Wills

I am a writer, editor, and educator. I have written various books on mid-20th century American writers and a few on grammar and IELTS preparation. I have been in the education field since 2008 and have worked in various countries. I started this website to share some ideas and resources to help my fellow teachers.