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Your first class

What are your students' interested in talking about?

Download this .pdf sheet which will help you to find out what subjects your students are interested in discussing in their conversation classes.

Brainstorming sheet

Instructions:

-photocopy to A3 

-give copy to each student and ask to fill in individually

-after they've worked on it alone for 5-10 minutes ask them to continue working in pairs.

-after 10-15 minutes, ask them to form groups.

-after another 10-15 minutes, ask them to switch around members of their groups.

-once their sheets are filled with 25 - 50 different items (and cross-postings), ask students to take a highlighter pen and to each choose 5 subjects they personally find highly interesting.

-go to the whiteboard and begin eliciting the subjects from each student, add numbers when subjects are repeated.

-by the end of this activity you will have a solid 10 - 15 subjects and can now plan your conversation curriculum!

-decide when you will do what and encourage your students to participate in the development of the materials and resources.  Ask them to come into classes prepared to discuss the subjects they themselves have chosen!

 

Pre-task activities

Remind students of the subject of today's lesson.

Brainstorm potential words that they will need in order to effectively participate in the conversation or review words you previously taught them or simply use this time as an opportunity to go through good dictionary research skills.

Depending on the subject you've chosen for the day, you can also look at a selection of different language structures which may best fit the topic.

If you feel it necessary/useful, you could also take some time here to review functional phrases e.g. how to show interest, how to clarify a point, how to ask for more information, how to say they don't understand an answer, how to check meaning, how to disagree/agreee, how to best sequence ideas, etc., 

Tell your students the rules for playing the "game" - as chosen by yourself (see game options below).

Explain to your students that if they don't like a question, they can simply pass over it and go on to the next card.

Advise them that if they have any difficulties to ask you or another student.

Inform them that you will be taking notes on their errors and mistakes and remind them that it is okay to make mistakes, you will provide feedback post-task on their points of weakness.  

 
Simply Conversations

Classroom organization 

If you have more than 5 students in your language classroom it may be a good idea to split them up into smaller sub-groups.  ie.

- 6 students (2 groups of 3ss)

- 7 students (1 group of 4ss, 1 group 3ss)

- 8 students (2 groups of 4ss)

- 9 students (1 group of 5ss, 1 group of 4ss or 3 groups of 3ss) 

etc., 

Depending on the size of your classroom you may find this game useful, feel free to adapt and change it as you like, it's a word doc.

SortingStudentsGame

 

In-task activities

Your main role once you are in the middle of your session is to act as a language moderator or coach.

You should be correcting and providing feedback on errors and mistakes and keeping a record of this informaton.  Do not record or correct every single little mistake: this is a waste of time and energy and may de-motivate your students.

Focus on repetitive mistakes and errors which would impede comprehension or cause a commuicative breakdown if they were talking to other non-native speakers or English speaking natives. 

 

ModeratingConversations

 

Game options

(Adjust as necessary for individual or groups)

 1

FACE DOWN 

First place all of the cards in one pile on the table with the text face-down.

Then select the first card and answer the question yourself (at least for the first time you use the system with your students). OR read the question aloud and ask a student to answer it. 

Next get the student(s) to select a second question and ask or answer it.  

With individual students you can both take turns doing this or simply get the student to do them all.

With a proficient group encourage them to all answer the same question or debate the first person's answer. 

 

 2    

FACE-UP 

Scatter the cards on a table with the text face-up.

Tell the student(s) that they may read through the questions and choose which one(s) they would like to answer.

With individual students you can both take turns doing this or simply get the student to do them all.

With a proficient group encourage them to all answer the same question or debate the first person's answer.

 

 3

DIVIDE-UP 

Divide up the cards by the number of students and hand them out in small piles face-up or face-down depending on whether or not you would like them to have the opportunity to read through the prompts beforehand (lower levels) or if you'd simply like spontaneous responses.

Get the student(s) to take turns answering  OR take turns asking them one-by-one.

 

 4

THE FIRING SQUADS

Pick one student to be Questioner and he holds all the cards in his hand.   (S)he selects from the rest of the class who should answer the question(s).  

OR

Pick one student to be the Interviewee and all of the other students hold cards in their hands. They ask one student all of the questions then debate his/her answers.

 

 5

THE BOARD GAME

Download this free .pdf - photocopy and enlarge to A3 size then place card in the boxes and using a dice and markers play the game.

 

 

Post-task activities 

Feedback

You can feedback on the whiteboard - going through the sheet step-by-step or you can do this orally.

Using the Conversation ControlTM sheets, discuss the new vocabulary, interesting phrases or chunks of language they should learn, their pronunciation weaknesses and the structural errors and mistakes you heard your students making. 

You can also put some of the more difficult question cards to one side for a re-visit in a few weeks.

 

whiteboard

 

Be sure to praise their progress and to make sure they know that you have noticed them re-activating words from previous lessons.

Ask the students to feedback to you on what they noticed learning, what was strange or unusual or what they would like to do further practice on.

 
Writing questions

If you have time, you can ask the students to write new questions based on the topic of the day or lexis presented, their individual knowhow of the subject matter. This is a good idea to further enhance their accuracy skills and repeat the language and structures of the day.
 
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