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[nogreasyhippies]

I've just started teaching in a new school, mostly kindergarten, which is ok if exhausting. I also teach some middle school and younger students at the weekend from a book called english for schools, which is incredibly boring, which is perhaps the problem: The problem I have is that when doing my CELTA I was taught to get students to talk in pairs and/or groups and report back to the class. However this is becoming a problem since the students dont seem able to do this since they dont have enough english to cope. When they complain of being bored and ask for a game, I'm worried that even that will stump them. They seem to have been rushed through the books without being able to produce any useful english. Does anybody have any ideas about what I can do? Cheers

[Nemesis]

[amphivera]

I had the exact same problem re: lack of creativity when I started teaching my middle school students (senior and junior). The source of the problem, as you suggest is probably a combination of the fact that original input is neither required nor desired under the exam-based Chinese education system and underdeveloped speaking/listening skills. Oh, and throw apathy/lack of motivation/"why participate in a class that has no grades, no exams and thus, no consequence on my school standing" and you get one heck of a challenge.

The way I approached it in the beginning, I'd develop all kinds of open ended worksheets and conversation topics for my students. This failed for BOTH my low level and higher level students. I thought I'd try to engage them by making the themes "interesting" (ex. A desert Island type challenge where you had to defend your choices, etc) but most of the students tuned out because they weren't equipped with the vocabulary and - more importantly - the confidence to share their ideas. They also couldn't be bothered to dedicate their precious energy and analytical skills towards some useless English exercise. After all those classroom hours my students mostly want to shut their brains off and I don't blame them.

As much as I would like to strive for and pull a Good Will Hunting, I'm trying to be realistic about what I expect from my students so right now my goal is to get them to model basic conversations. I try to make the themes as practical as possible (ex. Ordering food at a restaurant, Giving directions, Finding an apartment) and prepare dialogue handouts. If I'm ambitious, I turn the dialogues into cloze activities. Most of the time the dialogues involve two or more characters, so I'll give each student in a pair different roles and hand out the appropriate dialogue sheet (ex. Waiter vs. Customer). Bogglesworld is a good starting point for these types of dialogues/activities. I mean yeah, most of this stuff is rote repetitions, but some of my students are at a stage where merely getting them to speak is a minor miracle so if I can get that silent kid to say a few words in class and learn a thing or two I'm happy these days.

Finally, for the higher level kids, you can easily turn one of these basic dialogues into a more open-ended creative exercise by adding challenges (for example, you can tell them to "act out" a problem customer or add a "twist" to the scenario). However, they need to be eased into these types of challenges so always start with something concrete that they can copy and repeat and then let the imagination fly.

Just my two cents (and then some).

[nogreasyhippies]

Thanks for the input guys, some good suggestions that sound like they would work were it not for the fact that I am bound to the book (no pun intended). I am literally half weay through a class right now and getting them to even read from the pages feelks like pushing the atlas stone up a hill (is that right, or am i mixing myths?). They need halp translating every second word. Right now I am despairing of being able to teach english to chinese students.