Job Discussion Forums

[Mr. English]

I'm teaching a group of seven, all employees at a small company that exports kitchen and bathroom accessories from China to anywhere in the world they can find buyers. The language of discussion with most of their potential buyers is English. Most of the work is done via email but when they get close to consummating a sale the finish is sometimes done via telephone. All seven are in their early to mid-20s, five are women, one of the women is married with one child, the rest are single. Their English skills vary � from about elementary to intermediate. I do 2-hour classes and they want half the time spent working in a textbook and half free talking. The free talking can be difficult due to their language levels, but they insist on it and it actually goes fairly well.

The question I have is about topics for the free talking; they and I are continually struggling to come up with next week's. Examples of what we have used are:
* Should there be age limits for gymnasts in Olympic-level competitions?
* What have you noticed with respect to cultural differences between Chinese and foreigners in China?
* What is your opinion of the healthcare system in China (used newspaper article about doctor who had been attacked and perceived problems in China's healthcare system as starting point) and use of traditional Chinese medicine?
* Students to report on weekend visit to two factories they toured so as to know more about products they sell
* Transportation costs in China � reasonable or too high?
* What do students think of Chinese marrying foreigners, and if a foreigner pursued them would they be interested?
* Which is more important, economic development or environmental protection?

If anyone has some good topic ideas I am interested in hearing!

[Cool Teacher]

Hi Mr.English. Cool Teacher here!

I like topic tlak in class but I think sometimes too many teachers assume something meaty and controversila is the best way to go when most of the time people like talking abotu other things for example:

where would you like to visit on holiday,
what food do you like,
what can you cook,
if you could learn to cook something what would it be,
if you could go to university and study something then what would you study?


What I sometimes do is use a graded reader which might have some topics in the story and then try to make some questions about those topics and then make some more that are a bit related to their life etc...

Two things I try to be careful of...

1) Making topics sounds more complicated like "What have you noticed with respect to cultural differences between Chinese and foreigners in China?"

Maybe, "What is cultural differences are there between Chinese people and foreigners?"

BUT...

2) Try not to make it sound like a negative judgment on Chinese people.

I think it sounds like, "Wow! You're athletes are too young. That's child abuse!"
"What's up with your funny healthcare system?" (I can see theres a negative judgment there but I don't know what)
"Why do Chinese girls not want to date me? Are they racist?"
"Why is China polluting the EArth just for its own benefit? Don7t you think those proirities suck?"



So, maybe you could reforumalate toget the answers your looking for such as,

"If you lived abroad what would you miss about China?"
"What is your opinion on the environment?"
"If China and Japan went to war over those pebbles in the sea who would win?"

---I'm just kidding about the last one.

[Glenski]

An hour of free talking. Hmm. I used to hold conversation courses along that line in a conversation school. You just can't keep on the same topic for that long. Think about it. In your own language, native speakers drift and drift, and they know the vocabulary.

Perhaps one way to go is to provide them with newspaper articles to read in advance. Or as one of my classes did, each person could come to class with an article (they read the headline and have 1 minute to summarize the news story, whether everyone else knows it or not, and then discussion ensues). The problem is not just vocabulary, but in how the class is held. If they insist on just one person in the group talking, then the others waste valuable time listening. With a small group, they may not perceive this to be a problem, but I'd ask for a secret ballot to be sure. You could also just have them talk in pairs for 5-10 minutes, gauge whether they are really staying on topic and enjoying things (or their partner), and then switch. Some partners will hog the conversation, though.

When you feel everyone has discussed the one person's topic enough, change topics. Perhaps the best thing the teacher can do is monitor, take notes on vocabulary, guide students when they don't know how to say things, etc. End the free talking with a wrap-up on vocabulary and questions about the words from the students.

You could also give students tips on evaluating the news stories for credibility. When a wine company reports that wine is good for the body, should we really believe them? When a politician says X, why should we believe them? Are there really 2 sides (or more) to every story?

As for topics, there are as many as stars in the universe.

[jonniboy]

Lots of websites you can use. esldiscussions.com has lots of topics to get you started. I tend to agree that you don't have to always have the topics meaty and heavy but at the same time students do get bored after a while talking about travel, free time, hobbies, shopping etc so a bit of variety is needed

[santi84]

[Cool Teacher]