Off the paper - into the brain exercises
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:55 pm
I teach primarily one-person classes in Japan. I've been at it about two years. I have always worked with basic to low-intermediate students where there was plenty of work to do. I just hooked up with a school that has provided me with my first intermediate to advanced students, and I am overjoyed and overwhelmed! I can't keep up.
I have one guy who can look at a text exercise and fly right through it without a hitch. When I engage him in free conversation, he has trouble employing complex constructions. Put him back on paper, no sweat.
I'm looking for activities something like this -- I introduce (or review) the grammar, do some text-based exercises, then move off the paper and into something like very minimal oral drills.
Problem is, most of the texts I've looked at for drills are simply more advanced grammar presented in the same format as for beginners. Anything I've seen called oral drills are no more than paper drills that you speak.
For example,
I say: You are eating in a restaurant. The waiter thinks you have finished and starts to take your plate away.
Student responds: I haven't finished
I say: After lunch, you go to a friend's house. She says, "Would you like something to eat?"
Student responds: I've already eaten.
In these kinds of exercises, I provide so much information that it eliminates natural, impromptu conversation and provides no generative opportunity. How can I stimulate natural conversation that employs the target grammar? If I simply say "Create a small conversation that uses lots of examples of
I have gone to ____
I haven't been to _____
I have never done ____
then he is going to freeze up for lack of an imaginative scenario.
What am I looking for? Am I looking for prompts? Yeah, I think that's what it is. I'm looking for texts or activities that provide enough of a prompt to get a scenario in his head, but far less than a typical 'fill in the blank' exercise.
Where can I look for these kinds of activities? Are they called something that I can search for? Furthermore, am I describing a methodology for which I can research classroom applications?
HELP!
I have one guy who can look at a text exercise and fly right through it without a hitch. When I engage him in free conversation, he has trouble employing complex constructions. Put him back on paper, no sweat.
I'm looking for activities something like this -- I introduce (or review) the grammar, do some text-based exercises, then move off the paper and into something like very minimal oral drills.
Problem is, most of the texts I've looked at for drills are simply more advanced grammar presented in the same format as for beginners. Anything I've seen called oral drills are no more than paper drills that you speak.
For example,
I say: You are eating in a restaurant. The waiter thinks you have finished and starts to take your plate away.
Student responds: I haven't finished
I say: After lunch, you go to a friend's house. She says, "Would you like something to eat?"
Student responds: I've already eaten.
In these kinds of exercises, I provide so much information that it eliminates natural, impromptu conversation and provides no generative opportunity. How can I stimulate natural conversation that employs the target grammar? If I simply say "Create a small conversation that uses lots of examples of
I have gone to ____
I haven't been to _____
I have never done ____
then he is going to freeze up for lack of an imaginative scenario.
What am I looking for? Am I looking for prompts? Yeah, I think that's what it is. I'm looking for texts or activities that provide enough of a prompt to get a scenario in his head, but far less than a typical 'fill in the blank' exercise.
Where can I look for these kinds of activities? Are they called something that I can search for? Furthermore, am I describing a methodology for which I can research classroom applications?
HELP!