What to do if breakingnewsenglish.com fails you?

[cutieturtle07]

So I just had my second day with my teachers class. I teach 3 women and we only meet once a week for 45min. The first class we were all talking the whole time and I figured that since they could form decent sentences that their level was intermediate and that they could read an article and we could discuss it. Basically right when we started some of the activities that go along with the article, they started claiming that it was too hard and boy they were struggling. They said they liked reading and discussing, but they want something easier. I looked all through that website and could not find anything easier. I've looked at some other posts and have seen books that peope buy and go along with, but I'm not really at a point to pay for anything.

Does anyone else have some ideas at what else I could do for teachers level that is probably above beginner but below intermediate? Pictures, videos, power points maybe?

Thanks so much in advance!

[lotte world]

How about Simple Wikipedia?

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Find an interesting article.  Print.  Discuss.

You could even discuss Simple Wikipedia itself.  Maybe they are curious about how it came to be.

[teachermc]

So I just had my second day with my teachers class. I teach 3 women and we only meet once a week for 45min. The first class we were all talking the whole time and I figured that since they could form decent sentences that their level was intermediate and that they could read an article and we could discuss it. Basically right when we started some of the activities that go along with the article, they started claiming that it was too hard and boy they were struggling. They said they liked reading and discussing, but they want something easier. I looked all through that website and could not find anything easier. I've looked at some other posts and have seen books that peope buy and go along with, but I'm not really at a point to pay for anything.

Does anyone else have some ideas at what else I could do for teachers level that is probably above beginner but below intermediate? Pictures, videos, power points maybe?

Thanks so much in advance!

I never had much luck with BreakingNewsEnglish when I taught teaching classes; I ended up using them more as ideas to start from while adjusting the language difficulty and adding some visuals to make it easier to understand.  Still, the topics themselves were hit-and-miss.

Check out the advice here and here along with the curriculum suggestions at the bottom.  This in particular worked well with some adaptation for my class.  The basis of the curriculum is talking about Korea, which may lead to more active, genuine participation from your class.

[Chris-Fick van niekerk]

Hi

I can relate with your situation. I teach three colleagues and tried breakingnewsenglish once to realize that I will have to take a different approach. I think of things I would like to say in Korean and then teach them that in English. I try to set up real-life exchanges with them (shopping in Australia, ordering a burger in New York, planning a holiday with a tour guide, swapping phone numbers, talking with a friend from abroad) and I always make sure that they have the full sentences of what we did in class for practice.

Last week I did a writing and story telling class. We talked about folktales and they shared examples of Korean folk tales or any folk tales that they knew (that weren't Brother's Grimm stories). Then let them choose a picture and they had to write a story of at least 10 sentences about that picture. Since it was a two-part class we continued the following day where they told their stories. I corrected any mistakes in the writing, explained why I did it and then had each of them read their stories.

It worked wonders for me and my colleagues had a great time.

[cutieturtle07]

wow everyone....thank you so much for these creative and fun ideas. I'm going to try these out!  :D