fight with silence

panjianhong · Post by **panjianhong** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 12:01 pm

Hi everyone,

I am an English teacher in China, today is my first class of the new semester and I found I was faced with the old problem: to make my students talk. As you might know, most of the Chinese students are good at listening other than speaking or sharing their own ideas in the classes of all their courses. and I've gradually found this is going to be like a war, between me and the silence in the air above the classroom. Please, if you have any good idea to help me make them open their mouths I'd appreciate very much. thanks!

garpfan · Post by **garpfan** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 11:28 pm

hi,
greetings from Brazil. silence is one of the most annoying things to talkative people like us teachers of English, isn't it? You might have done this a thousand times before, but I guess that the first thing to do is to break the class into small groups (3 or 4 students each) whenever you want to make them speak, as they might feel less inhibited and hopefully more confident to talk. You could hand each group a set of slips with questions on a subject that appeals to them, or that is related to the one you're about to deal with in class, and tell them to discuss each question until it seems to have dried out, by which time they are to pick another slip and repeat the procedure. I usually do that as a warm-up and let it go on for say 10 minutes, but it might work just as well in the middle of a long class or even as a wrap-up. my students seem to enjoy it and have never complained. that's something simple to do, but, you know, the simpler the better. I hope it works. good luck

panjianhong · Post by **panjianhong** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 3:35 am

hi, thanks a lot, your idea sounds interesting and I think I'll try it some day.

mariannapavesi · Post by **mariannapavesi** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 1:44 pm

Hi, I'm an Italian teacher attending a two-years course in teaching English as a foreign language for secondary school in Venice. I have had to log in and to send a message as a homework for my ICT course. Anyway I think silence is one of the main problem we may have communicating with our students. Try with cooperative learning, divide them in groups and always focus on their motivation which is one of the most important keywords for teachers. The project they will be asked to work on must be interesting for them if not for you. If you visit the New York Times website you will find a lot of interesting articles to work on with your students. Good luck Marianna, Verona - Italy

rubens · Post by **rubens** » Sat Feb 28, 2004 6:41 pm

Hi, I’m an Italian student attending a course to become Design and Technology teacher for secondary school. Sorry for my very bad english.
I think are right the previous interventions.
About me is important to speak at the student on subjects that interest to them. For example you might converse with your students on subjects involved in trend of their school. You might speak them about the job that they will do to the end of studies.
Instead if the pupils are very young you might take some funny object in the classroom and you might work about it.
Bye bye, Rubens Italy.

Roddy Scott · Post by **Roddy Scott** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:32 am

Hi there!
Try entering the room wearing your jumper inside out, or back to front, or shoes on the wrong feet- but you need to be a good actor, and pretend that nothing's wrong!
Also, culturally, the Chinese never use cotton hankies.... pretend to sneeze, blow your nose, make a real show of folding it up pretty gooey- and ask them to express, each time, what is wrong- in English. No reaction? Put reactions on the board, getting them to try the words. Get help from a Chinese colleague, writing the characters on the board to explain what reactions you have written up in English. Try some art work, faces to illustrate what it says in English.
Hope that helps. Cheers! Roddy Scott.

strider · Post by **strider** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 2:04 pm

Bonjour from France!

Try giving the students several possible answers to your questions, let them choose, and gradually cut down on the help you give them.

For example, what is the weather like today? Is it raining? Is it sunny? Is it snowing? Is it windy?

(Later) What is the weather like today? Raining? Sunny? Snowing? Windy? (etc)

Don't be afraid to use humour (as the other posters have mentioned), put some bizarre answers in the list and see what happens.