I work for an Intensive English Program at a University in California. I generally work in the office but have been put in charge of running a conversation partners program for the next three weeks. It's all kind of last minute so I haven't really had much time to prepare on top of my normal secretarial duties.
This program is different in that it is monitored and our adult/college age students are partnered with native English speaking teens. I am having a hard time finding enough topics to keep them talking. We meet twice a week for an hour and a half.
At the first meeting, they already covered a lot of basic getting to know one another information. I've thought of a few broad topics for discussion e.g. family/social environment in your country, goals and aspirations, discussing American slang and identifying and challenging stereotypes (towards the end of the program). Now I am just having a hard time trying to keep partners talking on the subject for more than 5 minutes.
It's not a class or for credit so I don't want to make them do too much work outside of practicing basic conversational skills and learning about cultural differences. Also, I am only there for the first 20 minutes or so to get the ball rolling and then there is another volunteer from the teen program who watches them and does nothing more.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
