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"Spoken Word is writing that is meant to be read out loud. Some examples of spoken word you might be familiar with are stories, poems, monologues, slam poetry, rap and even stand-up comedy. Spoken word is written on a page but performed for an audience and since it is performed, this poetry demonstrates a heavy use of rhythm, improvisation, rhymes, word play, and slang. It is more animated than more traditional forms of poetry. When writing a spoken word piece use words and phrases that project onto the minds of the listeners like vivid images, sounds, actions and other sensations. If your poem is rich with imagery, your listeners will see, smell, feel and maybe even taste what you're telling them. Here are some spoken word poems from our Power Poets."

"I've written and performed dozens of spoken word poems, yet I can't tell you in easy steps how to write any kind of poem, much less how to write a spoken word poem. Poetry, generally speaking, defies those kinds of recipes and instructions. Plus, there are no hard-and-fast rules for spoken word poetry. Like poetry in general, spoken word poetry can't be boxed-in. Still, how to write spoken word is a concern for many would-be performers. So, I want to offer some notes, or general observations, on spoken word as a poetic style and form that tends to exhibit some particular artistic qualities."

"the spoken word has been an outlet for people to release their views outside the academic and institutional domains of the university and academic or small press. The spoken word and its most popular offshoot, slam poetry, evolved into the present day soap-box for people, especially younger ones, to express their views, emotions, life experiences or information to audiences. The views of spoken word artists encompass frank commentary on religion, politics, sex and gender, often taboo subjects in the world of contemporary academic poetry. Spoken word is used to inform or make an audience conscious of some human aspect pertaining to life*"

"I love spoken-word poetry. But I also realize that if you just type "spoken-word" into a YouTube search, you'll be bombarded with a TON of videos, most of which (at least to me) aren't very good. Spoken-word is an especially democratic art form, after all, but it can be hard to sift through the millions and millions of videos online to get to the best stuff. This page is about collecting some poems I think you should watch. A few notes:"

"Largest archive of 1000s of idioms, phrases, sayings, expressions and their meanings. FREE!!! Learn and practice a lot of great phrases for your upcoming conversations, from this app. An idiom is a phrase where the words, when used together, have a meaning that is different from the idiom dictionary definitions of the individual words. The group of words in an idiomatic expression do not mean what they appear to mean. This at times can make idioms hard for students and learners to understand. This app lists the English idioms and Phrases, idiomatic expressions, proverbs and sayings, in alphabetical order by theme, with their meaning and an example. It has clear and crisp explanations and illustrations, perfectly suitable for homework as well as general spoken English learning & usage."

Here is an activity that I designed and used with my beginner level university prep school students. Before listening to the song, we talked about personalities, boarded some adjectives, and suggeted some opposites of these adjectives. Then I gave out the handouts and we went over the words together and talked about the new vocabulary together. I explained the students that they are going to listen the song, and try to fill in the blanks using the words on the right. It is important to tell the students that these words are not the opposites or antonyms of the adjectives given in the song, but there are just contradictions or some kind of relationship between them. The students also choose from the multile choice options or guess what the singer is going to say before listening to the song. Before listening to the song, I asked the students to work in pairs or small group and try to fill in blanks. As a discussion, the students were told to justify their choices. There are also some useful spoken English expressions and collocations in the song such as 'giving a high five, flicking a cigarette' which you might focus on after listening to the song. As a post-listening activity, the students can be asked to write their own versions of the song, describing their own personalities.

"As the cyclical and seemingly never ending debate about education rages on, the topic - somewhat ironically, often poses more questions than it provides answers. But what is the value of mainstream schooling? Why is it that some of the most high profile and successful figures within the Western world openly admit to never having completed any form of higher learning? Paying homage to Jefferson Bethke's "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus", a piece that received 22 million views in the space of a week, I address a number of these issues in my offering "Why I Hate School, but Love Education". With scores of school leavers wanting to further their education with no guarantee of their dream job at the end of it, we should ask ourselves whether qualifications still hold the same value now as they did in previous years? Does success in the school system correlate to success in life? Or is the school system simply geared towards fact retention and regurgitation? What is true education? @sulibreaks universityofsulibreaks.tumblr.com Director: @KevinNgongo www.youtube.com/kevinngongo Graphics: www.mikegallardodesigns.com Music: Sunshine: Surface Of The Sun - John Murphy - Adagio in D Minor"

Verb conjugation and contraction - in other words; "The short form". In spoken English we use the short form a lot. We say things like: I'm / you're / didn't etc. instead of I am / you are / did not etc. We also use these short forms in informal written English. When we write in the short form, we use an apostrophe (') for the missing letter(s).