Includes an answer key.

" First Discussion Starters includes more of the same quirky conversation activities that teachers and students have loved in the best-selling Discussion Starters and More Discussion Starters, this time for lower-level ESL/EFL students.

Teachers of lower-level ESL/EFL students are often hard pressed to find interesting topics for their students to discuss. Many highly debatable or controversial topics require vocabulary their students have not yet acquired. First Discussion Starters is the book these teachers have been waiting for.

Like Discussion Starters and More Discussion Starters, this textbook features a variety of tasks and exercises based on real situations from all over the world. Students will get a chance to consider serious issues such as censorship, prison conditions, and cloning. Other topics - such as lotteries, pets, and travel - are lighter in nature. Activities require students to work together in pairs or small groups to reach a conclusion about a topic.

Most of the units introduce a problem or controversial topic at the beginning of the unit. This is followed by a series of exercises designed to prepare all of the students so that they can express their ideas at the next class meeting. A unit usually includes several kinds of oral fluency activities, such as problem-solving tasks, court cases, "finish the story", "put the story together", and small group presentations." (Book Cover)

CONTENTS:

To the Teacher

Advice from the Authors to the Students

Useful Expressions for Starting, Maintaining, and Ending a Discussion

Useful Grammar Structures for Starting, Maintaining, and Ending a Discussion

Unit 1 A Serious Problem with a Pet

Unit 2 Should We Censor These Popular Magazines?

Unit 3 Put the Story Together: Mommy's White Hair

Unit 4 Group Speaking Puzzle: Professions

Unit 5 Ten Proverbs

Unit 6 Jail for Parents of Absent Students?

Unit 7 You Can Be the Judge: The $1,100,000 Lottery Jackpot

Unit 8 Finish the Story: The Nonsmoking Smoker

Unit 9 Sex Education in Schools: What Are We Teaching Our Children?

Unit 10 Freedom of Speech: Who Says?

Unit 11 Finish the Story: The Mysterious Robbery

Unit 12 Animal Vocabulary

Unit 13 A Serious Post Office Mistake

Unit 14 "Three Hots and a Cot": Prison Conditions and Prisoners' Rights

Unit 15 Put the Story Together: The Cat and the Tree

Unit 16 Group Speaking Puzzle: Travel

Unit 17 Double Vision: Cloning

Unit 18 Put the Story Together: I Don't Want to Go to School

Unit 19 A School for Men Only?

Unit 20 So Who Is the Guilty Criminal?

Unit 21 Animal Rights and Animal Research

Unit 22 Domestic Violence: Who Stops It?

Unit 23 An Extreme Example of School Violence

Unit 24 Cosmetic Surgery: What Price Do We Pay for Beauty?

Communication Activities

Answer Key

High-beginner to low-intermediate ESL students.