Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics: An Engaging ESL Textbook for Advanced Students

Eric H. Roth · Toni Aberson

2010-10 · Chimayo Press

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This innovative ESL/EFL textbook helps advanced English language learners develop conversation skills and improve fluency by sharing experiences, reflecting on their lives, and discussing proverbs and quotations. The oral skills English textbook includes 45 thematic chapters, over 1,350 questions, 500 vocabulary words, 250 proverbs and American idioms, and 500 quotations. Designed for both adult education and intensive English language students, the conversations and activities deepen critical thinking skills and develop speaking skills essential to success in community college and university programs. Compelling Conversations has been used in classrooms in over 40 countries, recommended by English Teaching Professional magazine, adopted by conversation clubs and private English tutors, and enjoyed by thousands of English students.

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Eric H. Roth  

 Eric H. Roth teaches international graduate students the pleasures and perils of academic writing and public speaking in English at the University of Southern California (USC).

 Highlights of his career include: teaching the first Saturday morning citizenship class in Santa Monica (1994); directing the CES Adult Education Center (1995-1998); working with international students in summer IEP programs at UCLA Extension (1997-2000, 2003-2005); teaching USC engineering students in Madrid, Spain (2007) and Paris, France (2008); and directing the APU International High School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2009). Roth gave professional presentations at TESOL conferences in 2011 and 2013.  In 2013, USC appointed Roth as a "master lecturer" in the American Language Institute.

 Roth created the Compelling Conversations series to help English language learners increase their English fluency. Recommended by English Teaching Professional magazine, Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics, is in use in over 50 countries in English classrooms and conversation clubs. Easy English Times, an adult literacy newspaper, has published a monthly column, "Instant Conversation Activities," based on the book since 2008. The first specific version for a particular country, Vietnam, was published in 2011. Roth co-authored Compelling American Conversations: Questions and Quotations for Intermediate American English Language Learners came out in 2012, and edited It's a Breeze: 42 Lively English Lessons on American Idioms.

 Toni Aberson

 After 35 years of teaching English and supervising English teachers, Toni Aberson (M.A. English; M.A. Psychology and Religion) believes that a lively classroom is the optimal learning environment. “If people are thinking, sharing, and laughing, then they’re learning,” notes Aberson. “The mere fact that those adults are in an English classroom attests to their courage and their determination to learn.”

 “Adult English students bring a wealth of interesting experiences with them,” continues Aberson. “They bring the world into the classroom. The challenge for English teachers is to put students at ease and encourage them to practice English. What better way than to ask students about their lives? I love teaching English.”