Job Discussion Forums

[NorthofAmerica]

So I have a few classes in this bracket and I am beginning to dread them on a weekly basis. One in particular stands out.

The text we have is basically a high level kids book that is still quite dependent on games and activities to reinforce the lessons but I am still struggling to come up with ones that engage my students. I have only been doing this for about 4 months so any help would be appreciated. I often rely on flashcards for games and hitting target questions and vocabularly but the ones I have for this text are crap. The lessons themselves are useful enough but the topics and text are straight up BORING (a whole unit on farmers, ouch)

I have three 13 year old(ish) boys from 7-8 on Friday night that, while decent at English, have absolutely no motivation and are quiet and useless. It has become the hour from hell. Here are some of the things I have done so far...

- hot potato, using something like a hangman picture (or a parachute, rope bridge, etc..) on the board I throw a ball around using target vocab. When you throw the ball you have to ask a question and when you catch you have to answer. Whoever is holding the ball when the alarm rings has something drawn on or erased on their picture leading to a hangman, no parachute strings, etc.. This is my goldmine but it is only somewhat effective because it is all one sentence at a time question and answer.

- Using flash cards I play x's and o's and get them to make sentences with the card that they placed their piece on.

- drill the shit out of them from the book

I can kill about 20 mins with activities but after that it becomes just dead. I always end up resorting to going through the book with them and using the last 10-15 mins for writing exercises. HELP!! This class sucks.

I have a few classes in this group and some of them are quite active but I still find it hard to come up with "fun" English lessons. Basically I am the most boring teacher for kids older than 10 but younger than 20 (when I start teaching loads of slang and having fun dialogues) Any ideas?

[supervisor133]

My first questions :
What level are these students at?
Are you able to have a conversation with them?
If so, then I'd try to find out what interests them. This may help to meet them halfway. While I was in Japan I learnt about a whole series of monster/magic cards from some of my students. It wasn't by the book stuff, but it was all in English and I was able to mix it up with the aims of our lesson or even use it as a reward to motivate the student. !5 minutes of work, 5 minutes of explaining the cards/characters to me in English etc.

Do you have access to CD/tape players or the Net in your classroom? A DVD player? This may be wishful thinking in Japan, but these things certainly can help to provide variety in the lesson and something a little more tangible for a 13 yo. Let's face it, I know I wouldn't have wanted to spend an hour a week going through a text book after I'd been to school at that age!

Good luck!

[Glenski]

Besides the questions asked above, what is the GOAL of this course?

[bornslippy1981]

http://www.humanpingpongball.com/index.html

The above is a website with loads of improvisation games. I usually try to find a few of the warm-up games, and play those for the 10-15 minutes after we start with basic questions - how are you?; why are you _____?; etc.

A lot of the games on this site couldn't be used in an ESL class, so you just need to search for some basic ones and think about how you can get the kids talking in English.

I guess a lot depends on how strict the school is about not using the text or cards constantly. I still use the text, and whatever the phrases are for that unit, but rather than doing drills for the entire time, I try to make it fun.

It'll take some time to figure out what the kids like, but if they're having fun it'll be easier to teach them, and eventually you can start using the games as a reward for when you finish something they find boring.

[G Cthulhu]

I always found that cattle prods worked best with anyone 11-14.

HTH
G.

[wintersweet]

I agree that it would be useful to have the other posters' questions answered before getting into suggestions.

That said, could you get your hands on some English-translated manga? (or *cough* scanlated manga printouts.) In my experience teens tend to either be very intrigued by this or couldn't care less--you could get lucky.

[NorthofAmerica]

Well it's an eikawa and the goal is essentially conversational English. Their level is alright, they can communicate in English and have pretty decent grammar and vocab.

Two of them (twins) are at a decent enough level to have a conversation but coaxing the words out is pretty torturous. The other is somewhat further behind and by far the least motivated. It's hard because he seems to be falling further behind rather than catching up.

The school is completely open to whatever curriculum I want to use. I teach alone and unsupervised. I have a CD player in the class and a bit of open space.

[furiousmilksheikali]

This is definitely a difficult age group to teach. When I taught in an eikaiwa it was always difficult to motivate students at this age because they don't actually have any goals, they are there because their parents sent them.

I think it would be very useful to find out what their interests are. Do they like sports? Which ones? Do they like computer games? What movies/music do they like? What food do they like? Do they like any subjects at school? If you can't get the information from the students try asking your manager to find out from the parents (the parents would probably appreciate the fact that you want to tailor the lessons to their kids' tastes).

I would use the textbook to find out what the target of the lesson is next week and then give the students some homework questions which incorporate the target language.

For example: next week's target is stating preferences and your students like baseball. Find two photographs of baseball players and hand them to the students with questions:

Who are these players?
Which player do you like better?
Do you prefer the Hanshin Tigers or the Yomiuri Giants?
Which do you prefer, playing or watching?

When they come to class you can go through the questions as a class or have them ask each other in pairs. Then use the text to show them how to make the correct form and any exercises to help them practice. Then get them to come up with their own examples and put them in pairs again to ask each other.

It's useful to provide a familiar structure to the lessons. If the students get used to knowing what comes next then you can avoid the awkward times of not knowing what to do next.

[Synne]

Cigarettes and a shinbun for yourself haha.

Really though, for lower level 13-15year old's I used to bring in a map of the world and have student's do exercises with it.

"What country is 'below' Canada?" type of thing...

...this is just a small exercise, but I never had trouble getting anyone interested.

[fat_chris]

Grass is always greener on the other side.

I have the opposite problem with my 9 and 10 year olds in my New York City public elementary school. Constant chattering, not focusing on work, bouncing off the walls.

I would love it if they stayed quiet and I had to beat the answers out of them. I would just resort to a lot of reading and writing exercises then.

'Course that wouldn't work for conversation/listening and speaking classes. Hmm...

Cherish it that they are well behaved at least...

Sorry that I haven't been a help. Keep at it. Don't quit before the miracle/breakthrough happens!

[eiyosus]

Something that seems to be effective for me is to learn about as much Japanese pop-culture as you can and use it in class. I have a 90 minute grammar class with two fourteen year old girls. I start the class with 15 minutes of speaking and ask them about what they watched on television the last week and what they're are going to do this weekend. My wife watches a lot of TV, so I'm able to talk to them about a lot of shows. I try to relate to them as much as I can while not talking to them like kids. For example: I needed to teach "should have" and "shouldn't have" so I used this example. "Okay, so you've got a date with a really cute guy, but you just ate a giant bowl kimchi and now your breath smells really bad. What are you thinking?" Yeah, talking about guys might not be by the book, but it got a good laugh. If they seem tired. Talk to them about it. Agree with them that school is hard and stress the fact that you aren't taking grades in class (I assume). My goal with the class is to have them think about it as something a little more fun than school.

Oh, but you're talking about boys? 14 year old boys are the worst. Hopefully there's some common interest with your personalities. I've got a class with two twelve year old boys who do nothing but talk baseball. The only thing I know about baseball is that the Cubs are from Chicago and the Cardinals are from ST. Louise (I'm from Illinois). That's MY "hell" class.

Sorry I couldn't give you more concrete advice such as games and activities, but using humor, pop culture, and REALLY trying to relate to them goes a LONG way with classroom attitude.

[furiousmilksheikali]

What textbook are you using?

Is it suitable for them?

Can you request to change texts?

Are there any other texts at the school you can make photocopies from? Perhaps there are other activities and games in these texts that reinforce what is taught in the text you are using.