Many English schools offer a large range of courses. At RealTalk, we prefer to specialise in one type of course: real-life, everyday English.
We believe that to communicate effectively with native speakers of English, students must be equipped with an alternative set of language skills than those learned through studying academic or "textbook" English. Students need the opportunity to learn the spoken English used on a daily basis by native English speakers.
For this reason we have designed a unique English conversation course that teaches the more practical, real-life English that students will need, and utilise, in their daily lives while travelling, working or living in any English speaking country.
Most English courses available teach English using reading, writing and grammar exercises. At RealTalk we use a highly specialised text that allows us to teach the same grammatical concepts, but to do so through practical speaking and listening exercises.
The more time spent on actually 'using' English through conversational based activities, the faster students become effective in the daily communication of the English language. Therefore, all of our English lessons at RealTalk are 100% conversational.
"RealTalk – Communicating with native speakers" is for students wanting to do exactly that - communicate with native speakers. If your students are studying English in order to get a good TOEIC/TOEFL score or gain admittance into a university course, then this is probably not the course for them. On the other hand, if your students want to understand and communicate with native speakers for business, living and working abroad, travel or watching English movies & TV then this course is definitely what they need.
"I wrote this textbook, primarily, to encourage English teachers throughout the world to teach in a more practical manner. It is my aim to help students move from the "textbook" English normally taught in schools, to the more practical and natural "real-life" English that native speakers use.
I believe grammar is a very important base for English study but unfortunately, in most high schools and English schools, that’s the major focus. Students spend all their time studying grammar, reading and writing; and very little, or no, time learning natural speech patterns and practicing the skills most important to communication – listening and speaking.
The problem with this teaching method is that students remain unable to communicate with native speakers, even after a very long time spent studying English. This is because, we (as native speakers), do not speak "grammatically correct, textbook English". We use slang, and I don’t just mean those stereotypical idioms often presented to students as native English, I mean we shorten nearly everything we say, we blend words together and sometimes just miss them out all together.
There are a number of "natural speech patterns" - common abbreviations, blends, omissions and expressions that the majority of native speakers use, not just in Australia (where I am from) but also in The U.S, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. We all like to use as little effort as possible while speaking to our fellow native speakers, so similar speech patterns arise among native speakers all over the world. The pronunciation may be slightly different in varying countries but on a whole these patterns are very similar.
To help our students learn to communicate with native speakers, we need to give them the skills to identify these speech patterns when they hear them. This is something that schools are not currently equipping their students to do. In order to excel in communicative English, students need a curriculum primarily focused on speaking & listening skills and natural speech patterns.
That is what I have focused on in this book. The text is designed to be 100% communication based. No reading, writing & grammar exercises - just speaking and listening based activities in class time. I truly believe it is a more effective use of time spent in the classroom, and a more practical method of preparing students for communicating with native speakers."
If there are any questions regarding our English Courses please contact us at info@realtalk.com.au or fill in our contact form by clicking here ▸.
