Adult conversation class everyday!!!!

[Don La Bonte]

While teaching in Korea many years ago I wrote two books.One relates to the most commonly used English conversation patterns. Since I knew Korean, I was able to identify the exact conversation pattern in Korean. That cross reference is available.
Once students were comfortable with the patterns, then went to a free conversation approach utilizing a different topic every day. Wrote a book then that had 44 different topics and a methodology to enable everyone in the class to speak and thus reinforce conversation patterns learned.
If interested see www.geocities.com/don_labonte2001
Thanks
Don

[michelleliu]

you can prepare some group tasks and then let them make the final report in the unit of group. This will ease their tense in the class.

[pop fly]

Sorry, newbie here. I didn't notice this thread and posted a good lesson plan in this one.

Maybe the mod can merge the 2 threads?

[pop fly]

Of course there are many ways to structure such a class.... here's another idea:

30 Minutes of Storytelling to introduce vocab and grammar (see http://www.blaineraytprs.com).

Sorry, but I disagree on a couple of points here.

By storytelling, I assume you mean you reading and they following along?

Listening is an important skill. 98% of learned language is learned with the ears, but the student is better served by hearing themselves speak, rather than from an external source. Having the students read the story aloud with the teacher only coaxing them along and repeating more difficult phrases, sentences and passages would enjoy exponential language growth. They are directly reinforcing what it sounds like to speak PERFECT English (or any L2), giving them something to mirror their created English off of. When they start to hear their own mistakes, they've successfully negotiated that speedbump on their road towards a more confident English user.

10 minutes of silent sustained reading... students bring their own books to read quietly at the end of class.

This is also my argument for the latter 10 minutes of this plan. Reading to oneself vs reading aloud. Reading aloud is so much more beneficial.

As for the OP's 2nd point:

20 minutes of reading together from authentic materials (newspaper articles, whatever) and discussing the article.

I teach a magazine class. Each week, my class reads an article, maybe 1000 words in length. Then we discuss new vocab/phrases and allow the discussion to explore tangents. If I keep the tangential discourse to a minimum, we use up the entire 2 hours of the class. I am hard pressed to get to my "end game" of role playing scenarios introduced by the article. This is with my most advanced students. 20 minutes seems minimal to me, as even the most basic of newspaper articles would require much more extensive research. But, not to totally extinguish your idea, check this out.

Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird are short news capsules that are extremely well written. Make some flashcards with these "items" and have the student not only read it back with perfect intonation and clarity (as perfect as they can get) but also be able to explain why the story is weird.

This would take alot of rehearsal and the teacher should encourage them to just repeat it out loud. Lead them to the well of discovery, but don't drink the water for them. Guide, coach them, like a director working out an actor. You could easily spend 2 hours on this exercise alone, but make it a homework option. Lend them your flashcard and they will be given the opportunity to attempt a perfect recitation of it at the beginning of each class. If you deem it perfect, you give them another "item".

Again, they are hearing themselves speak perfect English, and in this case, highly-stylized newsspeak, while having to develop research skills beyond the realm of their Chinese-English dictionaries. They must be encouraged to think in English at all times.

Overall, try to remove yourself as "Teacher" from the preceedings of the class as much as possible. Introduce reasons to talk and gently correct their progress. Be more of a coach than a teacher.

[Don La Bonte]

There is a book I put together which will help you hold conversations with the students. It is called LaBonte's English Conversation Topics. There is a helpful methodology in the introduction to assure that all of the students talk.
See www.geocities.com/don_labonte2001
Thanks
Don