Compelling Conversations: for Advanced students
Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics - An engaging ESL textbook for Advanced ESL students
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”
—French proverb
Several people helped in the development, research, and creation of this hybrid ESL textbook. Several ESL professionals and students have offered numerous suggestions at critical moments in developing this conversation book. Here is a brief, and no means complete, list of kind individuals who have helped improve this book.
Laurie Selik | Zigmund Vays | Jim Valentine
Idalia Rodriguez | George Rodriguez | Adam Rado
Regina Pablo | Sharon Myers | Nina Ito | Alla Kogan
Oleg Khalkevich | Paula Johnson | Ben Hammer
Marina Goldshteyn | Ronit Frazam | Rosa Dreizin
Mark Chumley | Elaine Afable | Lucienne Aarsen
Stacey Aaronson
“Everybody is a student, and everybody is a teacher” goes the saying. This book reflects that philosophy. The eager students who worked with us during the last decade in various ESL classrooms have expanded our world.
From the adult students at the Santa Monica Adult Education Center, Indianapolis Ivy Tech, and Community Enhancement Services attending classes while working difficult jobs to energetic American Language Institute students in Long Beach, Santa Monica Community College, and UCLA Extension, you have shared your experiences and insights. Thank you.
Naturally, we also owe an exceptional debt to the ambitious USC graduate students at the American Language Institute; we have often shared questions, proverbs, and laughs. Your enthusiasm pushed us to complete this project. Our lively conversations, in and out of the classroom, have exceeded expectations and created small classroom communities where we could take chances and develop our skills. The adoption of this book by the Conversation Club promises to lead to even more Compelling Conversations.
Please visit our website, http://www.compellingconversations.com, to offer feedback, suggest additional topics, or contribute questions or quotations for future editions.
We hope this rich collection of questions, proverbs, and quotations will spark many Compelling Conversations. Let’s keep talking, sharing, and learning together!
—Eric H. Roth and Toni Aberson
“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of the night.”
—Elie Wiesel (192, American writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner