Job Discussion Forums

[rc81]

My classes are telling me that the work we do is boring. I don't blame them, I pretty much just stick to the textbook and it is boring. They want to do more free discussion but the problem is that I am terrible at coming up with my own conversations.

Maybe we can put together a good list of sites with discussion questions that we have had success with in the past. What are some of the strategies that have worked best for you?

[peruisay]

There are lots of things you could do.

1. Food is always popular.

2. Try some hypothetical situations. Cast students in the roles. "Jimmy's late. What do you think happened to him?"

3. Have students teach you something (or try to). Ask questions. "I'm trying to buy ______. Where should I look?" "What's the best tea in China?" "I have a one-week vacation. I like tropical climates. Where should I go?"

I used to hand this out to our teachers: Conversation Starters

If that is blockedinChina/mysteriouslydoesn'twork, the same thing on Docstoc here.

[donb2222]

Romance, dating, and marriage are fun and popular topics.

[Sinobear]

You can download the e-book 'If'...it's full of questions for the game 'Life'.

If you can't find it, pm me your email and I'll send you a 'trial' copy.

[Voldermort]

Depending on the age, getting them to talk openly about a topic can be quite daunting. They always tend to stick to the same question/answer/statement where the risk of losing face is at it's minimum.

A proven method I have found very useful is what I call "open dialog". Basically, think of a topic, spend a class or two introducing the vocabulary and grammar that you wish to get across then comes the dialog.

Divide the borad into two, write a list of ten words/phrases on each side then call on two students to come to the front. Call students at random with NO preperation time. The idea is they must speak out a dialog using all ten words on their side of the board. To make things more interesting throw in a few unknown/humorous words. IE talking about Western uni throw in "scrambled eggs" or "ride a horse".

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

i have some lists of discussion questions i can share. PM me with your email address and i'll send them to anyone who wants them. more suitable for university students or adult classes.

[Randolf]

I'm interested in knowing whether the OP and respondents actually think that giving "discussion questions" actually helps in the teaching of English.

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

[donb2222]

[Insubordination]

Yes, I think it definitely helps and mimics the way we use oral English in real-life but is better if some related work is done beforehand.

For example, I invent discussion questions before or after a reading text and might use vocab or a theme for the week and base conversation around it.

You also have to decide whether you want to focus on fluency/accuracy/pron or none and just give them a break from the teacher or freedom to experiment in groups.

Anyway, I'm surprised no one's mentioned the internet tesol journal . I just copy the questions into Word as there are too many of them and all of different levels, then I number the list and edit it to get the ones I think will work.

http://iteslj.org/questions/

Another great one for pairworks is http://www.esldiscussions.com/ and don't forget the great
http://www.eslpartyland.com/teachers/nov/conv.htm I like this because you can cut out the cards if you want and re-use them another time.

There, you have hundreds of hours of conversation ahead of you.

[Randolf]

Randolf wrote:

[Lister]

So - and I'm assuming that you don't speak Chinese - are you suggesting that I could somehow "get" you to speak Chinese by offering you "discussion questions" in Chinese?[/quote]

When I was studying Chinese I found discussions (in Chinese ) very useful. It got me wondering how to use what Chinese vocab I had to convey an idea, bought up all sorts of new vocab which I hadn't been exposed to before, helped my listening a LOT, and gave me more confidence in using what Chinese I had. In fact I got a huge kick out of having a conversation in another language and putting what I'd learned to use. I think it made me more enthusiastic about learning Chinese rather than just doing it because I had to, which was the situation before.

Also, since I was usually at least somewhat interested in the discussion topic I tended to remember new words as I could see myself probably using them in my everyday life here.

My teacher had the chance to correct my horrible grammar and pronunciation, and would phrase model sentences for me, showing me where I could substitute verbs, nouns etc.

As for exactly what the discussion topics were, I don't remember now. It's not even important. There was no "magical transformation" in my Chinese ability but there was an improvement.

[Ariadne]

As another poster has already pointed out, many of us teach Oral English. I'm at a University and the students have already studied English for several years. My job is to get them to talk.. to use some of that vocabulary they have stored in their heads. Discussion questions can be a great tool, although more effective with some groups than others. Each class has its own personality, some are quite chatty and some do better when asked questions directly by the instructor. Again, the goal in my Oral English classes is to get, and keep, the kids talking. Discussion questions, photos, songs, short speeches... I use whatever works. The more they talk the easier it gets, for them and for me. Listening classes are a little different, but discussion questions can be good there too.

.

[Jayray]

[Randolf]

If you think that learning language is about learning 'vocabulary' then no doubt your chinese is about the same level as the English of your students who when asked the question "what did you do on the weekend?" will invariably reply "sleeping".

If you think your job as a teacher is to "bring the language out" of people who don't speak English then please find me a French teacher who will "bring the french" out of me as I think it would be quite handy for chatting up the madamoiselles. In fact foreign languages aren't in people waiting to be 'brought out", and English is a foreign language to all but native speakers of English.

No matter what you have been told the majority of your students have little to no background in English, and I totally understand that you are at a total loss as to what to do about this and so grasp at these absurd "discussion topic" (and so on) straws.

Have fun.