Job Discussion Forums

[Chris78]

First time looking for a job in Poland and landed my first interview with the director at the language school...they need me to prepare a 90 minute conversational lesson..I got tons of stuff that I'm looking at but would welcome any tips or advise from some of you seasoned professionals. I really want this to go well...

[dynow]

lots and lots of variables with conversation-based classes.

but, in general, a good rule of thumb is to design the lesson so that everyone is asking questions. Poles, even advanced learners, flub sentence structure when asking questions so when they ask something and it's got flaws, correct it and then continue to answer it or have another student answer it. also, if THEY'RE asking the questions, it's something THEY are interested in knowing, otherwise they wouldn't be asking it.

get them to ask each other stuff and correct as they go without being too disruptive. you'll kill their confidence if with every mistake you go off on some tangent about present perfect or some continuous tense issue to the point where they forget what they were asking/talking about.

if they do a lot of staring and appear to be the type that just want to sit there and be taught, force the issue. reel it back and make it more open ended and broad so that there's nowhere to run and they can't use the excuse, "well, I don't really know much about that subject in particular." it's not lecture, it's conversation. make sure it goes that way.



in my opinion, conversation classes are to get the students to improve the usage of words the students already know. anyone can sit and study a dictionary but forming coherent, quality sentences takes practice and if they're not yapping away, they're not practicing.

consider something like this: ask all the students what they did over the summer. vacations, sports, travel, whatever. carefully choose a couple of them that you think will generate the most interest and then write on the board those students' names and their topic. choose a name on the board and tell the class you want to know EVERYTHING about that trip or that long weekend at the beach or whatever it is they said they did over the summer. they're going to ask things they want to know and the student's answers will continue to feed the conversation. If they get stuck, go ahead and ask your own question or suggest something they've left out. When it goes completely dry, move on to the next name on the board.

in the end, the topic doesn't matter. you can talk about absolutely anything and language can be learned all the same, you just gotta get them all talking....with confidence. nobody wants to talk when they think the instructor is douchey, even if the students all get along really well.

[Chris78]

Really good one to get things rolling. Thanks

[salamiandbacon]

Can't believe nobody's said it yet.

It's ADVICE. It's a NOUN. ADVISE is a VERB.

Why do "English teachers" get paid poorly, I wonder?

[Chris78]

you never made a mistake? Mr Perfect eh? I saw that as soon as I posted but can't change it now..

[sparks]

I was going to mention it but restrained myself because, yes, everyone makes mistakes. It is a bit of a common native speaker error to mix the two though...

[Chris78]

[salamiandbacon]

It was spelled that way twice: in the subject and in the post itself.

That's why I picked on it.

[scot47]

Teachers ? They get they're money for nothing. Their a bunch of no-gooders. I guess its the same everywhere - even in the USA, although I have never been their.

[Master Shake]

[sparks]

[TiffanyHoran]

[scot47]

Time for you to enrol in Irony 101.

[TiffanyHoran]

[Master Shake]