Using EP Languages to facilitate speaking in the classroom

Prebuilt Speaking activities on EP

EP Languages offers a wide variety of options for facilitating speaking practice in the language classroom. Here is a video which gives an overview of our pre-built speaking activities.

How to create speaking activities on EP

EP Languages also offers the option of teachers creating their own speaking practice lessons and speaking assessments. Here is a video that outlines how you can make your own speaking questions.

Traditional Speaking Activities re-imagined on EP

Here are some ideas of traditional speaking activities from the languages classroom and how they can be re-imagined with EP. Whether you just want to change things up or you have students working in a remote or blended learning environment or you are limited with what speaking activities you can do in the classroom due to social distancing requirements - here are some activities you could try.

Speed dating:

Set up a question using EP Studio where each student records some questions relating to a topic. To do this you will need to use the voice recording component.
Download the questions from each class member, turn them into spontaneous speaking questions using the EP studio tools and assign them to the class.
Your students can then work through the questions and record their answers - this way, they are hearing and answering questions from all members of the class!

Quick Speaking Quiz (if circumstances allow):

Divide your class into two teams.
Play speaking questions from your computer/device, one at a time.
Students have to put their hands up to answer a question. The first team with their hands up answers the question in the target language, and gets a point for their team if answered correctly.
The team with the most points wins!

Spot the Difference

Upload two similar photos to a question slide using EP Studio - the images should be similar, but with some differences. Include a voice recording component in the question.
Students can then record themselves describing the differences between the two photos.

Agree or Disagree: (probably best for higher levels).

Using EP Studio, make an EP question with a controversial statement and a voice recording component.
Assign this to your students as a peer review task - and ask them to record themselves agreeing or disagreeing with the statement and giving reasons why.
Depending on the level/ topic, you could give a time frame for each for how long the student should record for.
Once the students have completed their responses, the peer review function will be triggered! Students will then be allocated other students’ responses to listen - you could either ask them to give feedback or you could ask them to respond to what the other person has recorded - saying whether they agree or disagree with their opinion and why (in the target language).

Student videos as listening comprehension:

Set a video making task where the students upload a video/recording of themselves talking about a specified topic
Use this to generate activities for the class. You could put comprehension questions alongside each video!

GoogleDoc Script Writing:

Have a conversation task set up for students that they need to complete with a partner. If not possible to record this in the classroom - they could record in a zoom breakout room - use the google doc for shared planning.

Please get in touch if you need any assistance with implementing any of these ideas by getting in touch with our team.