Korean Job Discussion Forums

[E_athlete]

I teach a class of 25 but students are beginning to complain that they do not have a chance to speak much. I seperte the class in 2 and ask them their opinion of capital punishment, plastic surgery etc. But there are 25 of them and they speak one at a time. I'm not sure what to do.

[D.D.]

Split them into 3 or 4 groups and show them a short video. Ask them to write 5 sentences about the video. Go spend time sitting and talkiing to each group about the video. Most important thing it to go sit with each group and talk. Students don't get much time to talk if you are standing at the front all the time. Also those topics you mentioned are a bit difficult.

[davyteacher]

www.breakingnewsenglish.com

[bassexpander]

Yep... groups of 3 to 4.

Find some task-based exercises.

[anynag]

[JMO]

Mingle exercises or group work. I'd really suggest mingles with a goal if they are up to that level. I used to do one about inviting people to a party. The winner was the person who got the most invites(everyone can say yes to one person only...but can change their mind). They talk to everyone and their is a goal to the exercise.

Give them a great example at the start of a cool design for a party for inspiration.

[E_athlete]

all of this is very helpful

thank you ESLers.

Ill try breaking them into 4 or 5 groups and show them a youtube video or two about plastic surgery in Korea. Then make them discuss/brainstorm for 5 minutes. Then present their ideas in English. Then handout some info on plastic surgery and make argue for and against it. My only worry is that there are just too many people in the class and people never get to talk as much as they can.

[iggyb]

I had the same advice. I do want to emphasize what one person said: a good way to wrap up a group talking exercise, when some students might want to be speaking with the native-speaker more directly, is to save a block of time to have one person from each group explain the consensus of his/her group. ---- Then, each time you use group discussion, pick a different person from out of the small group to do the presenting.

Another activity I had with Korean adults that worked, but with a max of 15 students, was to start each and every class by asking two simple questions of each student and getting a short, quick response:

Usually, "How are you? What did you do last weekend?/What did you do yesterday?/What will you do this coming weekend?/What did you think about X news in the paper?".

Some students took the time over the months to tell me they liked that I did that each class, because it gave even a shy student at least one chance to speak directly to me and say something. Also, lower level students knew what was coming the first 5 to 10 minutes of class and would prepare ahead of time...

I think it could work with 25 students. It it started taking up too much time, you could divide the room in sections and ask a specific number of people those questions and rotate the section asked each day...

Lastly, here is a website I started as I finished my college courses at the end of July. http://esolers.org/

Since I was planning to go back to Korea and might have ended up in a public school with a much larger class than I had teaching ESL here in high school, I started looking up material online.

Here is a good book via Google Books which I used on some of the lesson ideas I've been adding to the site.

http://books.google.com.pe/books?id=kEyHZ_DiVVkC

It's a TESOL book called Teaching Large, Multilevel Classes...

Pretty much square on target...

(It's a limited preview book at Google. If you use Internet Explorer and delete the files in the cache each time you come to a blocked page and then hit reload, the blocked pages will show...)

[Perceptioncheck]

[E_athlete]

yeah I know, having 25 students is really tough for convo class. I normally have 35 to 40 students per class so i thought I could handle it. Convo classes are extra overtime classes at my all boys high school. I currently have 3, 1.5 hr convo classes and the class size is not getting any smaller because I asked. This whole grouping people and getting their consensus might work, I'll try anything because a few students have complaining about not having enough opportunity to speak.

[iggyb]

If this is for public schools, and in public schools the norm is only meeting the class once a week, a lot of my ideas off the top of my head would fail.

If they meet twice or more a week, I'd just throw in activities where I spent more time with different sections of the class as they did group or pair work. Mingle with everybody -- especially catch and write on the board common mistakes or good phrases you hear used ---- but tend to spend more time with one or two groups conversing with them ---- then the next class make sure to focus on another two groups...

Students would see that you're balancing it out over time.

With 25 students, trying to even things up each class would likely end up not making most of them too happy if they really want time to speak to you. You'd be spread too thin.

If the class only meet once a week ---- ????

[E_athlete]

it's 3 separate classes with different classes. I think soon enough Ill have 4 extra classes each week.

[D.D.]