How to teach oral English in a class with 67 students?

[shichangming1000]

I am an English teacher in Beijing , recently i came across a big problem that i was asked to teach oral English for a class of 67 volunteers for the 2008 Olympic Games . Now i am preparing the teaching plan. Could anybody give me some tips on that ? I badly need your help!

[eslweb]

You need to forget everything they taught you at CELTA about being student centred etc and go for lessons that involve lots of drilling, pronunciation by rote, roleplays and then pairwork to practice it.

It's also a very good idea to give out your handouts at the beginning of the lesson. A good lesson to get them started is to practice IPA, because then they'll always have a guide to how things sound in class.

I have a nice little handout and you can then drill them on the basic sounds. http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/beginner/IPA.htm

There's plenty more material if you use the search engine on the site and type in roleplays. (It searches the top 20 ESL Websites)

James
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/

P.S. If you have PowerPoint that will make your lessons much more interesting, because you can add pictures, video and animations

[Lorikeet]

You might want to look at this thread too:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 22&start=0

[EH]

1) see if there's any way you can cut the class into two or more sections, so you'll have a smaller group.

2) divide the class into groups of 5-10 students each who can meet together after class at least once a week to practice speaking together. Assign one student to be leader of each group, so meetings actually occur.

Good luck. That's not going to be easy.
-EH

[jori]

I think you have to ask them first why they are studying English and what do they want to learn. Do they want to learn how write in a postcard in English or read street signs in English? It is also a good idea to determine their level of proficiency.

If they have different levels and have no idea with thaye want, I'll start with common expressions, then basic vocabulary.

[Sally Olsen]

I presume that the volunteers will be helping English speaking people to find various things during the games. Where is this hotel, the bathroom, a good restaurant, and so on? I would try to make it as practical as possible with the role plays and the "tourist" saying what they want in as many ways as possible so the volunteers won't be expecting them just to say something in one way. I would also try to get as many guinea pigs of English speakers as possible for them to practice with and for them to make up situations they think they will encounter and from there work out what language they will need. They must be getting some information to hand out to the tourist so going over that in English would be useful as well. Also basic politeness issues should be covered along with what to do when there are difficulties. What do you do when someone is drunk? sick? aggressive? lost? has been robbed and so on.

[Mrs. Sohn]

Similar to the teacher in Bejing, I've also been given a class list of 125 names - although my supervisor says "Don't worry, probably only 50 or so will show up each evening." Yikes! This is a six-week conversation class and the students are advanced adults.

My question is ... does anyone have ideas on ice-breaker / getting to know you games for a large-sized class? I realize it's unrealistic to expect everyone to learn each other's names, but I feel like we need to do something to gel as a group.

[Sally Olsen]

We played a good game with adults once - can't think of the name right now. You place 5 chairs on one side and 5 chairs facing. Then you choose a topic that everyone would be interested in - sports, movies, fashion and the people in the first row talk for 2 minutes about their likes and dislikes. The people in the opposite chairs just listen. At 2 minutes you flick the lights or blow a whistle or make some kind of musical noise to stop them. Then the first row switches seats, the first person going to the end of the row and the rest moving up one. You introduce a new topic and have another two minute session and so on. The second row never gets to talk in this game but needs to exhibit good listening skills but you could continue the game until all had a turn. I would just get everyone to wear name tags at all the classes but at least 10 people are getting to know about each other. I would try and get them to sit in these groups of 10 as consistently as they can so at least they get to know 10 people. I don't think you can make much of a group out of 125 people who come on different evenings - sure doesn't sound ideal.

[vcautin]

And I complain about teaching 30 students!!!
I think that the suggestion about forgetting communicative method is absolutely right! Communicative method only works with few students. You should try lots of drilling and roleplaying in groups. Mostly situational English I think.

Oh, and pairworking.