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[Deconstructor]

I have a full proof method, or shall I say fool proof, of making Japanese/Koreans/Chinese and anyone else for that matter talk.

Forget about getting them to voice their opinions. I mean who's in their right mind interested in them anyway?!

Read unit the end before you make a judgement.

It must start as reading so that they have a resource for speaking.

Here's what I do:

I divide my class in half and each read one newspaper or magazine article. Before they read, they work together and read some of the questions that I've devised about the article; they clarify and predict them in order to develop a background. (15-20 minutes gone!)

When done, they start reading and answering the questions in note form together; that is, they work on the same question at the same time before moving on to the next question. They must all have the same answers. This makes sure that they are sufficiently dependent on one another and will continue working together. (This could take up to an hour depending on the length of the article.)

Once they finish answering the questions, students with the same article use only the questionnaires and tell back the article. They use the questionnaires only as a resource in case they forget any info; they are not supposed to read the answers. This is the phase where they are practicing for fluency and clarity. (If you've taught grammar and vocab earlier, it could be incorporated into the tellback.) After a few tellbacks each student pairs with one who read a different article and retells it. Now they must make sure that they are as clear and fluent as possible.

The entire activity could take a few classes depending, again, how long the article, the class are and the level of the class as well.

The idea is that now they have something to talk about and in the process you've incorporated reading, vocab and even grammar in your class. This can be done with listening material as well. Most importantly, you never have to ask "what do you think?" ever again.

There are many other things you can do.

so what do you think? Is my activity plausible?

[Ben H Nevis Jnr.]

I don't think it is just an Asian thing necessarily. I suspect the majority of people who fall into the "aspirational" class in all countries are yawning bores at heart. I've sat eating lunch with groups of supposedly educated degree holding people at places I've worked back in the UK and been subjected to more inane drivel than I would wish upon anyone - beauty products, car insurance, last night's reality TV, the new IKEA catalogue. Wasn't this corporate cultural straitjacket the reason many of you thought booger this - to hell with the nice house and fancy car, I'm going to become an English teacher and see the world ?

Perhaps then what may be typically Asian would be to, rather than act, suffer in silence for the rest of your days ?

Here in China, I was lucky enough to land a plum short-term job teaching coversational English to the journalists and editors of a small newspaper. Having read the likes of ChinaDaily, I was eager to test whether behind the dogmatic party mouthpieces lay intelligent individuals. Sure enough, they devoured almost every meaty, controversial (in China anyway) topic thrown their way. In several cases, they quite clearly knew more than I did on the subject and I had to be content to sit back and let them run the show. I'm so used to having to gouge out dialogues with my timid, half-awake university students, I sat in these other classes feeling like a fraud for doing so little in order to earn my crust. It left me wondering why they even needed a teacher at all. But maybe that's the key to the culture. My presence there gave them both an excuse to talk and an excuse should it all go wrong and someone lose face ?

[mlomker]