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Hey, this is probably not the right forum for this question, but it seemed as appropriate as any!!!

I've just been landed with an adult conversation class, at an Intermediate level, with no course book and no idea of how to teach a conversation class... Unfortunately, the director wants a lesson plan for the next 36 hours of classes on her desk by Saturday afternoon!!! Can anyone give me some ideas?? She's looking for films, CALL lab activities, etc.

By the way, I'm a newbie, so if these questions seem a little naive, that is probably why!!!

Thanks guys...

Whenever asked, my students always list "conversation" as the thing they want to learn most. Of course, they are the same students who speak together in their own languages, and if told to "have a conversation" would just sit there. So if you have a "conversation" class, you have to decide how to make them interested in speaking. What do you want to focus on? What are your students interested in? What would prompt them to speak with each other? Here are some activities I've done--you can pick, choose, alter, and ignore them as you wish:

Conversations about real life activities (returning something to the store, wrong number, leaving a message, shopping, doctor's office, dentist, etc.) They can practice a conversation you give them and then alter it to match their own information as a role play.

Make a lot of questions, write them on cards, give each group of 3 or 4 a pack of cards. One student asks the question, then they talk about it.

Have them interview each other. Write down some of the questions, and explain that as long as they are speaking English, they are doing the lesson. If they go off on a tangent, all the better. A conversation is not , "Where do you live?" "In an apartment." I tell my students they have to ask follow up questions too. I often demonstrate this by having them ask me the questions in the interview, and then follow up their questions with more questions (they are always interested in finding out about the teacher.)

I have picked a topic and made a list of questions they could talk about in a discussion with each other (I usually try to have groups of 3, although 4 can sometimes work, even though it often turns into 2 pairs.) Topics are things like "Food" "Education" etc. I had them talk on one day and then the next day I had them write something about the topic they had talked about. I put their writing on the Internet. (It's at http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~lfried/writin ... iting.html if you want to get an idea of the subjects.)

They can do a "show and tell" and bring in something that shows you about their native city or their hobby.

My students are not all from the same language background, and even if they are, they are usually pretty good at not speaking their native language. I have them do a lot of pair work where they have to talk about what to do. For example, I have some two-person conversations of about 13 parts. I write the conversation so that it's pretty clear which part comes after which part. (For example, something that says, "Neither do I." would have to come after something like "I don't like that kind of food." ) I cut the conversation so that each person's part (with the name of who is speaking) is separate, so there are 13 parts. I try to make them somewhat idiomatic, and I explain the idioms or difficult vocabulary before they start. Then I have them put the conversation back together working in pairs.

Well, that's some of it. Maybe you will get an idea.

Hey Sekhmet!

Another resource is right here in Dave's, the Idea Cookbook. Any of the games or activities listed might be useful in a conversation class, not as the main objective, but rather as a part of the class.

Now, sit down at your computer, open Word, and insert yourself a table. Make a line for each day of class and the top line for the titles of the activities. Make a column for each of the types of activities that you might want to use in class, for example

warm up (pronunciation exercises, games, structural manipulation exercises, tongue twisters, etc)

Teacher presentation (conversational themes, vocabulary, role-plays, etc)

Student preparation (goals the students should work on for a specific period of time)

Student presentation (presentation of the work done during the preparation)

Materials (list of things you would need on hand for the day's activity)

Additional activities (song cloze exercises, word games, tap dancing, etc)

Expected results (what the students ought to be able to do at the end of the class)

Then simply fill in the spaces with appropriate information. You can put whatever titles you want based on your resources and experience, these are simply the ones I use for my oral practice workshops with adults.

I find that by getting things down in this kind of chart I not only have the class clearly planned, but I also always have the tape and scissors on hand and know what page number I should have photocopied, so I always seem incredibly prepared. I suppose doing this does make me incredibly prepared. Anyway, it gives you confidence, the "boss" also believes in you, and most importantly, the students trust you, they see you have a clear plan. You'll probably find that you have too much material, which is a good thing, time flies when you're having fun!

Have fun!

peace,
revel.