This book has been designed as a resource to use in conjunction with the E.P.I. approach and teaching strategies in a bid to scaffold oral communication by gradually moving from highly structured tasks (e.g. ‘Oral Ping Pong’, ‘No snakes no ladders’, ‘Communicative drills’) to semi-structured ones (e.g. ‘Surveys’, ‘Things in Common’, ‘Detectives and Informants’).

The book contains 15 units which concern themselves with specific communicative functions, such as ‘Describing people’s appearance and personality’, ‘Saying what you like and dislike’ or ‘Saying what you and others do in your free time’.

Each unit includes a sentence builder with the target constructions and vocabulary followed by a series of tried and tested Conti E.P.I. speaking games sequenced so as to pose a gradually increasing degree of challenge.

The speaking games included are:

o Oral Ping Pong

o Find Someone Who

o No Snakes No Ladders o Staircase Translation o Faster!

o Fast & Furious

o Communicative Drills

o Fluency Cards

o Trapdoor

o Things in Common

o Detectives & Informants

o Information Gap-Fill Tasks

As already noted, the above games are sequenced in ascending order of linguistic and cognitive challenge. The focus is on gradually building up students’ fluency and autonomous competence. These games fall in the ‘Structured Production’, ‘Routinization’ and ‘Spontaneity’ phases in Dr Conti’s MARS EARS pedagogical cycle, which is central to his E.P.I. approach.