HUZZUH!!! About ******* time I get those little bastards to speak English on their own!
For my advanced classes, I know they CAN speak English, it's just a matter of getting it out of them...and maybe just depending on their mood. But for whatever reason this lesson KICKED ASS!
1/3 of the kids didn't even bother to try (as per usual), but I was too busy having a great time with the 2/3rds that were really giving it their all.
I could actually hear them talking English on their own, from across the room - without needing to breathe down their necks! *heart* *tear* Oh the joy!
So I started with writing the title of the lesson on the board, and explianing that it means "gossip" - have the co-teacher translate this word. Then explain the difference between gossip, and rumour...I distinguish as rumour being untrue, and gossip being part-true. I use the example
"you all tell me <name> is gay. That is a RUMOUR." (every class has their token called-gay kid in my school)
"In Sept. a boy in grade 1 stole a motorcycle. That is GOSSIP."
Then I read this article I found on abcnews.com about a boy in Tokyo who burned down his house b/c he didn't want his father to know he did poorly on his English Exam. (yeah, true story), but you can read anything, really. And ask them the 5-W questions about the story. When most students can't answer, I tell them the PAPER is NEWS. What I told them is GOSSIP (because they can't remember it all). ..>Then I give them the article to read, cos it's really interesting and they loved it.
Then I tape a sheet with small writing to the board (so they can't read from their seats). There are 4 one-paragraph stories that I've written on it. The first kid in each row must come up and read the first story and do telephone with it all the way to the back of the room. The back person must come retell the story to the best of their ability to me, and I give points to their row based on accuracy of the 5-W's.
I know this sounds hard, but I managed to do it with my advanced classes with more success than I expected! Since they're basically only repeating what they heard, it's fairly easy...but they're still learning because they rephrase the sentences a little every time. And because the last person needs to tell ME what happened, they can't change to Korean when retelling cos then the last person won't be able to explain (since the back kids are generally at the lowest level).
Seriously, this kicked ass. If you want to just copy my stories, I'll attach the file. I'm sorry to say my news article link is no longer active, but I'm sure you can find something equally interesting to read to them in your class
