TED&15 talks

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a global set of conferences run by the private nonprofit organization Sapling Foundation, under the slogan "Ideas Worth Spreading". TED was founded in February 1984 as a one-off event and the annual conference series began in 1990. TED's early emphasis was technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins, but it has since broadened its focus to include talks on many scientific, cultural, and academic topics.

TED Talks for students provide an engaging context from which they can autonomously improve their English at home. There are thousands of videos to choose from, so there should always be something of interest. They can help students improve, not only their listening skills, but also improve their pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and writing.

1. Listening

This is the obvious one, but students should be encouraged to listen ‘actively’. Ask students to look at the title before they listen and try to predict what they are going to hear. They can also pause at different points and try to guess what they will hear next. Another useful exercise is ‘micro-listening’ where they rewind and listen again and again to any sentences they didn’t quite get until they fully understand, thereby getting used to connected speech and any other barriers that might prevent comprehension.

2. Pronunciation

‘Micro-listening’ can also be used to help students produce sentences. Identify a few sentences that caused the listener trouble and identify elements of connected speech, weak sounds and or difficult phonemes. A comparison with the transcripts should highlight important differences between written and spoken English. Students can then practice reproducing these features at home.

3. Vocabulary

Learners listen for unfamiliar words and then try to guess the meaning from context. They can also look at the transcripts for extra help. Students can then note down their new words together with definitions, synonyms, antonyms and example sentences.

4. Grammar

Students could be encouraged to think about the grammar used. What verb tenses were used and why? How did the speaking use sequencing words? How did they use discourse markers? What phrases did they use to make their points or persuade the audience?