Korean Job Discussion Forums

[schwa]

Any suggestions here?

I meet a new group of 36 1st-year middleschool students this tuesday. This is a once-weekly (1 hour) afterschool course with 5-8 volunteer students from each school in the district. Mixed sex. I expect every level from smalltalk-capable to kids who have never met a foreigner & cant respond to 'Whats your name.'

This is meant to be a 'conversation' class but I have no false illusions about getting them all happily chattering away in english. Aint gonna happen. But I'd be thrilled to hear some fresh ideas for games & small-group activities to keep most of them reasonably amused & focused on english.

I'm already up on assorted vocabulary brainstorm games, jeopardy, student-generated bingo, & a lot of the stuff in the idea cookbook on this forum. I've got a whiteboard, a photocopier, & a commanding voice to work with. No textbook. Operative word is 'fun.'

I've run similar classes in the past (but never quite this large) & I'll manage, but I'm kinda hoping the collective wisdom here on daves might offer me something new to work with. Any tips much appreciated.

[Skarp]

No answers yet?

Sorry I don't have much to offer.

All hinges on how serious it's meant ot be - and I guess not very.

When confronted with very mixed classes playing games one or two strong students dominate while many just drift.

Try to get them to peer teach within the teams by allowing an opposing team to nominate who will answer...

Really - 36 - mixed level students...... you won't achieve much but you can do something..

There's a book somewhere called 'teaching very large groups' or similar. I think these classes are 100+. Common in China, India and similar places I hear.

Good luck.

Skarp

[Zyzyfer]

You might want to send mokpochica a PM about this. She and I are(well, were at this point) in similar situations regarding class size. I've got about 35 students per class, and every class has various levels(although some classes are overall better than other classes). I have a really hard time coming up with activity ideas; I've only got a small handful.

Jeopardy-Yea, make up a list of answers. Break them into teams. Rotate the "answer" people after every few questions. Give clues about each answer, and you can even go into Double Jeopardy if one team is really outshining. It will only flop if that one team is just too damn good for the other teams.

Cup of Questions-It's listed here on Dave's Cafe. I found that it works pretty well to get middle schoolers feeling just a bit more confident about speaking English. Get them hyped up about it, though, by having some sort of small penalty that they might draw in the cup; for instance, I had a couple of "Trash Time" penalties, and the students would have to stay after class and sweep the floor. In return, they didn't have to do the Cup of Questions activity.

Movie + Quiz-But I'm sure you know this one already. I found Treasure Planet and Shanghai Knights to be two quite good movies, and quizzed the students on Treasure Planet. Came out with a little more solar system vocabulary, I guess. It's better as a treat at the end of the session, though.

Hope it helps. I have a really hard time with bigger classes; I'm much better in small groups.

[CanEducator]

I recommend Jill Hadfield's activity book "Elementary Communication Games", you may very well have this one already. I adapted the activities in that book to classes of 40-45. Also, that age group can really respond well to jazz chants, you can use Carolyn Graham's jazz chants (there are tapes to go with the books) or make up your own.

It sounds like you are prepared already. You'll probably find that once you meet this group and work with them a couple times that you'll understand what they like and respond to.