Teaching > Lesson Plans, Ideas, & References
Help with after-school English Conversation class
rexbaylon:
This is my first time posting to this forum but could somebody please give me some advice on what to do in an after school Conversation class. This is my first time teaching and when I signed on to the job the told me I had to teach 2 english conversation courses 2x a week for an hour and a half for the 2nd grade middle schoolers. I didn't mind and so I prepped for an entire week before the class. Decided on my topic, Success & Failure, made handouts with a list of vocab, idioms, and collocations, plus another short little reading handout for the kids featuring four stories about successful people that I thought would be interesting. Just had my first class though and I completely BOMBED!!! Of the 20 that were supposed to show up only 3 decided to come and those 3 were flabbergasted at the handouts I gave them and either wouldn't participate or couldn't understand what i was saying. Please someone help me! For next week I'm planning as my topic Video games/Internet but how can I plan out a lesson with the possibility that none of my kids can understand or communicate their opinions???
jazzychica:
I feel for you! This has happened to me last year. I started with around 20 students. I was sick the first day, so I just showed a movie. Then, as soon as "real" lessons started, attendance dropped. At one point I had 2 students!
What I've found is that even my super nice, A-level students just aren't at their best during these optional classes. I slowly convinced myself to dial back the academic stuff and focus more on games and fun speaking activities. This is even more important if your students are lower levels.
I've always had luck with Apples to Apples. First, I made a super simple set of cards (which I ended up playing with my students when only 2 or 3 showed up :), then I got the real Apples to Apples Jr edition from gmarket--about W30,000; too hard for below A-levels, though.
My students have also really liked conversation battleship. I made a set of boards based off of Eat Your Kimchi's game. You can make it about any questions you want and most students will have fun with it for at least 20-30 minutes.
Some sort of Categories game might work, too. I have the Scattergories card game, but it would be easy to make a set of your own. There's a deck of category cards and a deck of letter cards. I flip over one of each and the first student to have a word that matches the category and starts with the letter says, "I know!", then gives their answer.
I hate to say it, but the students love bingo and they all know how to play. You can have the students be callers and give them big boards to make the game go longer. Just review some vocab with pictures in ppt, then play a couple of rounds of bingo.
Another fun game is Pass the Paper. Play some music and the students pass a ball of paper. When the music stops, they answer a question (any level, any vocab).
I have some old materials if you're interested (battleship, pass the paper, apples to apples). Good luck!
rexbaylon:
Thank you so much jazzychica,
any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. Maybe it's because I get nervous so I don't give my students the appearance of utter confidence but I try to always be high energy in class, but that still doesn't keep students from falling asleep or just talking back to me.
SKotyluk:
I played "Would You Rather" with my after school conversation class and it went pretty well. Choose questions that you think they might be interested in. Mine are 3rd and 4th grade elementary so I did questions that were better suited for them. I think all of them like games so try to play some games that will get them talking.
jazzychica:
Glad to help :)
I've uploaded Apples to Apples before, so I tracked down my old post. If you have a fair amount of free time to print, glue to construction paper, laminate, and cut apart the cards (whew), it's definitely worth the effort, since you can use them again and again: http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,16813.msg133959.html#msg133959
If you want something a little "academic", I made some cards for "How do you spell...?" too. My regular classes loved them: http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,5483.msg157169.html#msg157169
I attached some battleship templates (credit goes to eatyourkimchi.com), and a Pass the Paper template. Make sure you unzip the folder, then keep the music & ppt in the same folder.
Make sure you understand really well everything you want your students to do before class. Then you can just do a simple demo (minimal speaking comprehension required) and everything will work out fine :D
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