Teacher Discussion Forums

I am running a small ESL school in Mexico and have a lot of students with very low literacy in their first language. They are not interested in learning to read and write English, but need to learn to speak it. The challenge is to teach them without using a lot of written materials. I would appreciate any ideas for exercises, games or general formats to use in teaching without overloading them with a second challenge of trying to read or write a lot.
I am so deeply a visual learner that I am having trouble thinking about how one would teach with few written aids. The goal here is to speak English, not to read or write it - Ideas?

Depending on their tolerance for writing, you might continue to use some simple written labels/words, on the off chance they'll pick it up and find it useful.

But try to use mostly other visual aids, instead. Pictures are good. Real objects are good. Also, get them to perform skits/dialogues or charades in front of the class so that there are real people to look at as well. The goal would be to connect the auditory signal they hear (words) with a more meaningful visual stimulus to aid their memory.

Good luck!
-EH