Job Discussion Forums

kidkensei · Joined: 17 Nov 2008 Posts: 36

Getting dialogue free flowing in an adult night class.

I have a class of adults that I teach at night for an hour. The students can range from 2-5 and their abilities are all over the map. Based on their requests I have made the class entirely conversational. There is a book but they don�t read it and don�t want grammatical explanations or things become very muzukashi. At this point my role has become somewhat like a gameshow host. Rather than an educator I merely facilitate dialogue.

When dialogue wasn�t so free flowing I tried to introduce games that would get students to form sentences based on a single verb. These games I worry severely limit the overall potential for conversation in the limited time we have together. Does anyone have any suggestions for activities that I can use that get people talking and less focused on wining a stupid game??

Kensei

seklarwia · Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 9:42 am Post subject:

Have you tried bringing in photos of events, etc that they might not recognise or pictures of mishaps and having them discuss what they believe is going on in the picture or what they believe led up to a mishap?

Or playing small extracts of TV shows they don't know and stopping just at the most exciting bits and have them discuss what they think will happen next?

It will only work if they are quite imaginative, but it might be worth a shot...

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

I have some ideas, but too swamped to map them put at the moment. I could later though, if you like?

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

If they are the ones who want to talk, tell them to bring the topics. Newspaper articles, Internet clips, whatever. Or you bring something, including a 20-30 second video clip, and solicit conversation.

Take polls.
Make a game board with questions about things they know, mostly personal (but be careful).

The idea of being the "host" is good, but make sure they understand your role. You should talk 20% of the time. Do they want you to teach them pronunciation? Explain idioms? Occasionally intersperse the talks with a grammar point? Don't let them wheedle you into being the talker in class.

Mr_Monkey · Joined: 11 Mar 2009 Posts: 661 Location: Kyuuuuuushuuuuuuu

In my opinion, building fluency is a worthy outcome, and a particularly important one for an EFL class in a country where English is not the default language. I would suggest that 'learning facilitator' is a very apposite definition of 'language teacher'. Just because you are the one who knows how to use the language appropriately doesn't mean you have to tell them how to do it. They can learn the outcomes for themselves, you are there to help them do so.

Despite your learners instructions to the contrary, you can, and arguably should, teach them grammar in addition to discourse management and other outcomes related to 'fluency' in the language. The trick is to do it in a way that they do not consider difficult, while giving them plenty of unscripted conversation practice.

A possible procedure would be to:

take a particular grammar point - perhaps discrimination between future forms or using modals of advice, for example - and assign the learners a communicative task that naturally asks for such structures.
Depending on the level of the learners, you can expect them to make mistakes and errors with the target language among the other inevitable errors they will make. You can keep notes of target language errors and mistakes, or a general list if that tickles your fancy.
Once the learners have completed the task, you can put the mistakes/errors on the board and set the students another task - to identify and correct as many of the mistakes on the board as possible within 20 minutes. You can challenge stronger learners by adding a few red herrings so that they have to really question whether the language they are examining is, in fact, incorrect.
By judiciously assigning pairs, you can minimise your input by encouraging peer-teaching. This could also work with your learners researching grammar structures themselves in class time. All this would move you away from "teacher", which carries connotations of Jr. High and High School English lessons, and grim memories for many Japanese learners of English, and more of a "facilitator", which is what they seem to be asking of you.

I suspect that the highly personalised context for the grammar input - they are working with what they said - would make it a lot less "muzukashii" for the learners, and would maximise their talking time. It would also allow you to make a more accurate assessment of what they have already acquired.

This would combine well with what Glenski posted.

kidkensei · Joined: 17 Nov 2008 Posts: 36

Sorry im so late to post. I just want to say thank you to all that posted.

Pictures have deffinitely helped get discussion more free flowing. Depending on the activity participation has gone up and I've been able to fade into the background.

Mr. Monkey has an excellent point.

"Despite your learners instructions to the contrary, you can, and arguably should, teach them grammar in addition to discourse management and other outcomes related to 'fluency' in the language. The trick is to do it in a way that they do not consider difficult, while giving them plenty of unscripted conversation practice. "

If I can succeed at achieving this impossible balance i can feel satisfied with my role as an educator here.

I cant help but feel a lack of progress in the class. Its only once a week and some of my students who prepare little or not at all see me, the 'educator' as someone who is supposed to fill their empty vessal.

Kensei