Compelling American Conversations

Questions and Quotations for Intermediate American English Language Learners

Compelling American Conversations: Questions and Quotations for Intermediate American English Language Learners helps American immigrants and international students develop their fluency skills and academic vocabulary through conversation exercises.

You can view the table of contents here–each chapter includes two sets of conversation questions, vocabulary review, short writing exercises, paraphrasing exercises with proverbs, a discussion activity around pithy quotations, and an online “Search and Share” activity. Focusing on both daily experiences and American culture, the materials help intermediate English language learners explore their lives, learn common American sayings and expressions, and develop vital discussion skills.

Designed primarily for community college ESL and adult education students, this flexible ESL textbook can be used by high school English language learners (ELL) and intensive English programs.

Publication Date: June 10, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1468158366

eISBN: 978-09847985-0-6

Authors: Eric Roth, Toni Aberson, Hal Bogotch

Check out a sample chapter!

Click below for purchasing details for Compelling American Conversations through: Amazon’s Createspace Amazon.com iBook To purchase a class set, contact Eric here.

Compelling American Conversations can generate all sorts of discussions! What are people saying about CAC?

“How can so much learning be in just one book? Compelling American Conversations is all that an ESL teacher or student needs to use in their course. With clear, easy to follow directions, students learn necessary details about American English and culture, practice critical thinking, expand vocabulary and idioms, as they converse in real, natural adult English. Included in the “Search and Share” component are marvelous lessons on using the Internet. An extra bonus is that any of the conversations, quotes, etc. can be used as writing prompts. The book is fun and stimulating and,fortunately, very accessible for the inter-mediate learner.”

-Pleanaria Price author of Life in the USA and Realistically Speaking

“This book stands as a great platform to get your students talking! The topics are universal and the questions can be used in any level of English learning. Students enjoyed expanding their vocabulary and learning the idioms related to each topic. If teachers want to engage their students in meaningful and stimulating conversation, then this book is a must to have on the resource shelf.”

-Carolyn Flores director/owner of GradeHelpers

“Finally, a book that is designed for our needs. As the director of a film school, one of our biggest obstacles for the international students is to bridge the gap between spoken English and our students’ background in ESL. Our international students find the English spoken by native studio personnel, actors, directors etc. All of these students have already scored high enough on their TOEFL yet they still lack communicative skills to interact with Americans in the “biz.” For these reason we implemented a crash course for all incoming international students using Compelling American Conversations. We have already seen the results in terms of the general ability of the students to communicate more effectively with Americans on the set. More importantly, the students feel more confident now when directing a film, auditioning for actors and actresses or scouting for location. Bottom line is that the book is practical and meant for students that are trying to enhance their communicative skills.”

-Chisako Yokoyama director of the International School of Motion Pictures