Travel English Course

[kaiwa]

I have recently started an 8 week course on travel English for adults living in my community here in rural Japan. Out the 18 or so participants signed up for the course, the majority consists of women in their 40s and 50s with a light smattering of men who are also mostly in their 40s and 50s and a few random folks in their 20s and 30s. The one hour classes are held once a week.

From what I've seen so far, about 6 of the students are somewhat conversational (meaning they don't panic when spoken to in English, can respond to simple questions, ask questions in English and handle simple discussions about daily activities). The remainder of students seem to be false beginners, with some unable to handle responding even to "How are you?"

As far as classroom layout goes, the last class we had all of us seated around one large table, but I think that in future classes, I would like to have people sit at tables of four in order the counteract the tendency of people to clam up and focus on whoever happens to be speaking when they are seated all together.

As one hour is not a whole lot of time, I had originally envisioned having the students practice phrases relevant to given situation by shadowing tracks I assign to them from the CD which accompanies the Travel English book we are using. This would then allow us to devote most of the classtime to running simulations (going through immigration, getting to the hotel, renting a car, eating out (fast food, sit-down restaurant), shopping, asking for directions and concluding with how to deal with possible trouble situations that might arise). The goal in these simulations would not be perfect English so much as trying to muddle through with whatever vocabulary or gestures one is able to come up with on the spot.

Has anybody done something similar, and if so, do you have any tips on what to do or watch out for?

[LarryLatham]

It sounds to me, Kaiwa, as though you have your finger on a reasonable procedure. More meetings or longer classes would probably be better if you could arrange it. Any chance of that?

Larry Latham