Teacher Discussion Forums

I am teaching conversational english to classes of 37 junior high (7th-8th) graders at a school in China. The students are taught GUM (Grammer Usage and Mechanics) and vocabulary in seperate classes, and my classes are supposed to facilitate english discussion. The students are at a fairly low level and the students vary in skill levels (studs and duds) so I have been having difficulty getting through to the whole class. I think that an activity that breaks them into smaller groups, and then has them report there discussions back to the whole class would be more effective...however, I am drawing blanks at the moment. Any ideas?

You might want to take a look at the Sticky about large classes for some ideas.

Hi!

Yes, your idea will work well if you have a good control of the class. Think of breaking up your lesson into thirds. In the first part of the lesson , introduce the topic. One example might be planning for a party. Next, break them up into small groups and assign one of them to be the secretary. Give them a chart size sheet of paper and one magic marker. You might want to give each group a different question to answer.For example on the topic of the party you might have them work on a questions like, "What paper goods do we need to buy?" and "What can we cook and what is the recipe?" What themes can we think of for the party? After the working session, each group can share their work and everyone can listen and learn info and vocab too. Good luck to you. Carol Keeney
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