'conversation' class - anybody any suggestions?

[edsel]

I'm helping a co-teacher out with her English at the moment and she said just wanted a 'free conversation' class. This is ok and her level is decent, but it I feel sometimes the lessons will lack a sense of direction and the conversation can go a bit stale sometimes. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on teaching ' conversation' classes. I am teaching her idioms at the moment, and played some card games like pick a card from the deck and it corresponds to a question on the question sheet. I'm kinda struggling now though.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[DirtySexyMoney]

I'm having my first one tomorrow with two of my co-teachers and they suggested bringing a newspaper/ magazine article every now and then that addresses a slightly controversial issue that we may or may not agree on, and then have a debate about it. They also like discussing cultural differences and differences in value systems.

I'm also struggling a bit with finding material for these classes, but I know that they enjoy English novels so maybe even a bookclub kind of thing, where we spend 1 month on each book.

... I don't know...  :(
Thanx for starting this thread. Will need to check it out from time to time to see if there's any good suggestions.

[daveb]

breakingnewsenglish.com

[camw83]

I think it's important to choose a good topic, and think of some sub-topics for discussion points.Scan the internet and cut and paste statements for your handout (you may need to simplify them). You can put them under a heading 'True or False?' or organise them however you like.
I did my first conversation class on Happiness, so we began by discussing what the word means for each person,  then we looked at a quote I had printed on a handout and discussed that. We discussed what happiness means in Korean culture in general - the importance of family, etc, and after I directed them towards the question of whether money can buy happiness.

[camw83]

Here's an example of a handout.

[camw83]

Sorry, I should have mentioned the example I posted was for a teachers' conversation class.

[camw83]

Here are two more handouts I made.

The classes I gave using these were engaging for my teachers, although the topic, technolgy, was a slighty difficult topic for some. The other handout is about pets.