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mcloo7
Joined: 18 Aug 2009
Posts: 434
Location: Hangzhou
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 Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:59 am Post subject: What are good first class activities for students you taught |
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| I will be teaching the same students this year that I taught last year, with the addition of some new students in each class. They are second year college students. What is a good first class activity to do with them considering I taught them last year and we already know each other? Last year I played a version of People Bingo with all my classes, I'm looking for something different this year. Each class will have 40-50 students, which are twice the size of the classes I taught last year. But half of each class will be students I taught last year. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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There are resources on the web for bigger classes.
Among these are cocktail party games like Perpetual Questions. You need an open space for this as students need to mingle and it can be noisy.
Good thing is most know you and each other which gets away from the initial reticence to do anything other than sit on their bums.
PM me if you need website ref.
There are other activities like forming groups based on (Western) Zodiac sign and determining if they have characteristics in common.
Uni-age students love the romantic pairings suggested by their sign. |
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Capt Lugwash
Joined: 14 Aug 2014
Posts: 346
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| During spring festival and the summer holidays the chances are the students have done little or no speaking in English. My first lesson after a long vacation sees everyone having to relate an interesting tale from their holiday so as to get them back in the swing of it. The stories can be funny, interesting, horrifying or whatever but I do request they don't offer a sad one if they are going to break down part way through! |
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globebot
Joined: 20 Sep 2013
Posts: 76
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:21 am Post subject: Reply |
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| Me thinks the cap'n is seriously lacking in imagination! |
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Capt Lugwash
Joined: 14 Aug 2014
Posts: 346
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 11:03 am Post subject: |
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| Me can think whatever Me likes. |
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maxand
Joined: 04 Jan 2012
Posts: 318
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Telling a summer holiday tale, given there will be 40-50 students, could get rather time-consuming. Perhaps even boring... |
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Capt Lugwash
Joined: 14 Aug 2014
Posts: 346
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| If numbers are that high I split the class. |
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doogsville
Joined: 17 Nov 2011
Posts: 924
Location: China
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| Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| spiral78 wrote: |
| Telling a summer holiday tale, given there will be 40-50 students, could get rather time-consuming. Perhaps even boring... |
With large classes it's worth remembering that the students don't have to present to the whole class. That's both time consuming and too scary for most of them anyway. I have them work in pairs or small groups and talk to each other. I move around the class to listen in and make sure their using English and not Chinese. Its' much easier for them to talk to their classmates like that rather than have to address the whole class. I might pick out one or two of the pairs or groups to make a presentation, and if I do I put a mark in the register for those students so I don't pick on them in the next few classes. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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| doogsville wrote: |
| spiral78 wrote: |
| Telling a summer holiday tale, given there will be 40-50 students, could get rather time-consuming. Perhaps even boring... |
With large classes it's worth remembering that the students don't have to present to the whole class. That's both time consuming and too scary for most of them anyway. I have them work in pairs or small groups and talk to each other. I move around the class to listen in and make sure their using English and not Chinese. Its' much easier for them to talk to their classmates like that rather than have to address the whole class. I might pick out one or two of the pairs or groups to make a presentation, and if I do I put a mark in the register for those students so I don't pick on them in the next few classes. |
I've never gotten the small group thing to work satisfactorily:
Unless you are buzzing around the class overseeing each group, they revert to Chinese and the most able English speaker is designated as spokesperson.
Everyone loses.
The only time my students work as a group is to prepare for mid-semester and final assessments and they do that in their own time. |
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mandu
Joined: 29 Jul 2004
Posts: 794
Location: china
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 12:02 am Post subject: |
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| try play dough it works very well with kindergarten children.it might work with older students. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 12:42 am Post subject: |
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| mandu wrote: |
| try play dough it works very well with kindergarten children.it might work with older students. |
To teach what English skills exactly? |
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Alien abductee
Joined: 08 Jun 2014
Posts: 527
Location: Kuala Lumpur
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 1:32 am Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| mandu wrote: |
| try play dough it works very well with kindergarten children.it might work with older students. |
To teach what English skills exactly? |
they could describe the taste. After all everyone eats Play Doh.  |
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Listerine
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 340
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:38 am Post subject: |
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| mandu wrote: |
| try play dough it works very well with kindergarten children.it might work with older students. |
I had a friend who used to get a hole punch and 6 or 7 colored pieces of paper. He would punch literally thousands of holes in the different paper. He would assign each group a color and at the start of class would proceed to open the bagful of holes in front of the fan turned on high speed whereupon they would scatter all over the room....the group who managed to find the most of their colored holes (usually numbering in the high hundreds) 40 minutes or so later got a piece of candy. He said it worked with students as old as middle school. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:51 am Post subject: |
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| Listerine wrote: |
| mandu wrote: |
| try play dough it works very well with kindergarten children.it might work with older students. |
I had a friend who used to get a hole punch and 6 or 7 colored pieces of paper. He would punch literally thousands of holes in the different paper. He would assign each group a color and at the start of class would proceed to open the bagful of holes in front of the fan turned on high speed whereupon they would scatter all over the room....the group who managed to find the most of their colored holes (usually numbering in the high hundreds) 40 minutes or so later got a piece of candy. He said it worked with students as old as middle school. |
Have great motor skills.
Still can't speak a word of English. |
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