Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Overture1928]

I have a class of 6 students who have all lived abroad for at least 1-3 years. Their English is quite good. I have a 3 hour listening/speaking class with them once a week. So far we have been watching TED talk videos and taking notes/answering questions, doing a debate or speech, and recently I also started watching and dissecting speech in TV shows with them. We have watched 2 episodes of Seinfeld so far which they really enjoyed. I chose Seinfeld (aside from it being one of my favorite shows) because there is a very reliable website I can stream it from and it is a show that doesn't need to be watched in chronological order. I can torrent if needed but I was wondering what other shows would be good for this age group? I am going to run out of Seinfeld episodes rather quickly since a lot of them contain sexual content. I thought of listening and dissecting music lyrics, perhaps watching TV shows from the UK, Australia, and other countries would give them practice with other accents, radio shows might be useful because you can't see lip movement. Anybody else have some good activities related to listening/speaking that I could use? They are at the age where they know if class is useful to them or not. I don't want them to quit my class. Any help would be appreciated.

[jvalmer]

The Simpsons, the cultural references probably will give them a hard time, since they've only spent a few years overseas. You can try to explain it them. Although if your not American, or Canadian, it might go over your head.

[wanderkind]

[le-paul]

So, just to re-itterate, your lessons consist of watching tv and talking about tv and youre worried that sooner (probably sooner) or later theyre going to figure out that theyre basically paying you for nothing?

For listening and speaking, i find preparing topics/articles and then making a list of say, two sides of A4 questions that we can use to discuss all aspects of the article. That should be adequate for 3 hours, but it would take preparation.

Why don't you just watch movies, then you wont have to do hardly anything for 2-2.5 hours?

[Overture1928]

[le-paul]

Well, the way I plan is I read a a short article, maybe a small paragraph say, from a science magazine about a robot that went crazy or what ever - I use that as an ice breaker sort of thing to get the lesson focussed on todays topic. Then I spend the next 'x' amount of time taking about special effects, the future, AI etc etc. - following my 2/3 sides of questions pertaining to the topic of the day. I see myself as a a kind of DJ - coaxing the conversation along and promting with more questions.
But since the rule is 'no reading allowed', I suppose that wouldn't be allowed?

Anyway, I cant say whether or not Id like to be taught colloquialisms if I were in their situation - I dont know what the intended outcome of your lessons are. In most cases, its to pass a test of some description or other. You didnt specify that in the OP.