90 minute conversation class?

[girandola]

Hey all, my school's having me do a 90 min. conversation class for afterschool once a week this semester and I'm kinda stuck for ideas. A 90 min. reading and writing class doesn't seem that intimidating, but my kids are soooooooo shy that I'm a little worried about 90 minutes of speaking. Does anyone have any good games or activities to get kids talking for such a substantial chunk of time??

Thanks for any help :)

[lisselou]

What age group will you be teaching?

To start, I recommend teaching a simple English song. In my middle school, I let them choose from a list of songs. To make it easy, it should be fairly repetitive and slow but still catchy (you are my sunshine, don't worry be happy, three little birds, jingle bell rock). We talked about the lyrics and the meanings. We played listening games with the song (last one standing, fill in the blank) and did an art project (students illustrate different lines of the song).

[Aadi]

Last semester I had a 90-minute "conversation" class with 9 students, only one of whom would speak to me.  On day one I tried a game and only 3 students were willing to play it.  I sat down with the worst non-participators and encouraged them to try speaking.  They nodded at me.  In the end I learned how far I could go with a  relatively small amount of material and no student participation:  90 whole minutes!  I was amazed.  It was a long, boring semester but I did my best.

This semester I'm hoping for different, motivated students and will be trying adapted Waygook lessons with lots of supplemental games to see if anything will work.  If it doesn't, I already know how to get through a one-sided 90-minute conversation. :'(

[girandola]

I'll be teaching all middle school ages, mostly 1st and 2nd years....definitely think I'm going to be using a lot of games!!

[displayname]

in m convo class we mostly play games-- scrabble, apples to apples, uno. my class is only for students who have lived in the US tho. so their english is good. this year i am making them do actual work.. we have short novels ordered (hopefully ordered.. i asked for them.. but i asked for them a while ago.. and then re-asked for them last week.. we'll see about that)

i was considering doing something with the following:
storylineonline.net
readinga-z.com
funbrain.com

check out those sites for some stories and worksheets to go with the stories.

moderators-- maybe a folder for convo classes?

[mariag]

I keep my class as lighthearted as possible. The kids have no interest in doing anything too serious. I find bogglesworldesl pretty good. They have loads of cards on there and you can get great mileage out of card games while also practicing the target language. They also have loads of crosswords, wordsearches, word game handouts. It has been really helpful for me. You have to have a good look on there to find the good stuff. Waygook has also been really helpful for my after-school classes. I also just play games sometimes like scrabble, guess who and jenga. You could also get them to make a music video: they draw pictures for the lyrics of the song and you can put the pictures to the music using windows movie maker. I've done this for 'My Love' by Westlife and 'Friday I'm in Love' by The Cure. There are a few examples of these videos on Esl Classroom 2.0.

[lillellis]

The games mentioned above are wonderful.  I have after-school classes two nights per week that last nearly two hours.  I usually start with a fun icebreaker game (Two truths/One lie, "I Have Never...", the "survival" games, etc.).  Then I'll teach them a bit, like an English expression or two for the day that they write in their notebook and we practice.  To wrap it up, I alternate between showing video clips with worksheets and/or playing more games (Uno, Jenga, Clue, etc.).  As mariag said, keeping it lighthearted is best.  At first, I put in a lot of effort and tried doing serious stuff.  It failed miserably. 
Another alternative that has worked well for me is to follow a theme--you can easily find plenty of material under the "Summer/Winter Camps" section.  I used the "Detective Winter Camp" for my night class last semester, and they loved it!  Now that I keep it fun, both I and the students enjoy class more! 

[Yu_Bumsuk]

90 minutes is a long time for middle schoolers. I'd plan a break, with the serious stuff covered in the first half and more games and multimedia in the second half.

[portlandzach]

My winter camp was the same way. I used a textbook with a bunch of prepared dialogues that were More interesting then anything they would find in their regular textbooks...teachers will argue over the effectiveness of doing dialogues but i believe it helps Reading comprehension, speaking and pronunciation skills...how much it 'helps' though it quite debatable..... ::)