Every other week I have to do a three hour conversation class (all boys HS). There are thirty students, and most of there speaking and listening levels are very low (although I have a few students who have basic conversation skills). The students interest level is also mixed, most just want to watch movies (which I am told not to do but once a semester), while others look for me to enhance their conversation abilities. For me, this is the worst part of my job. I can do basically whatever I want, but most of kids are at a low level and are shy.

I've used some of the very best lessons on here, and they have been met with mixed interest. One time I did nothing, but show my favorite speech and told my students they are free to do what they wish. I got yelled at by the principal for this, as he likes to walk around and spy on all the teachers. I've googled many ideas, but still feel lost. Any advice would be helpful.

http://community.eflclassroom.com/forum2/categories/conversation-discussion/listForCategory

check out eflclassroom.com - look in the 'Resources' section - there are a number of Conversation powerpoints & role play kind of stuff.  I've used some of them w/ my low level HS kids ... BUT my co-teacher is actually pretty helpful w/ translating.

Also google "larry ferlazzo best of series" (if the link below doesn't work).

He's an ESL teacher in Cali who has TONS of links to useful websites.  I'm sure 'Conversations ' is one of the topics he lists.  He only posts 'the best' websites in each category.

I mainly only use eflclassroom, larry ferlazzo & waygook for my planning .. so far , so good.

   http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/about/my-best-of-series/

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it. I've got my weekly lessons down, but this 3 hour class has been a thorn in my side for some time.

Hey - seeing as it's now the next semester I was wondering if you have any advice on what worked well with the conversation class? 

I have the same thing e/o Friday and am looking for some fresh ideas. I had this last year and did some games and activities but also resorted to movies most of the time as this is what the kids begged for and I was a pretty easy pushover 

Anyway if you have suggests of what worked well i'd be glad to hear it! 

Well I'll start with the bad. It's not going to be ideal. I had some kids that couldn't put together a sentence, and many who had no interest in being there. I just had to accept it and do my best.

On the first day I had each student write three or more topics that they were interested in. I got a lot of answers like soccer, lol, movies, etc., so I would do lessons on PC games, soccer, movies, food, and basic things.

I don't know what kind of technology you have, but I can recommend to have the students present topics they know in groups. For example, I would do a presentation on food. Show them some of my favorite foods (they love seeing pictures of foods they aren't used to like Chicago style pizza, or maybe a clip from epic meal time). Then I will have them discuss there favorite foods in groups. Finally, I would have them work in a group to plan a restaurant outing for a foreigner. I would tell them they need to have several courses and drinks, and that the meal must be Korean. Then they would use the computer to look up pictures of what they were talking about and tell me about the food. 

I have several computers so I can probably do more things than most. I had students take personality tests and make a ppt presentation on countries.

Also use holidays to your advantage. There are several good Halloween lessons on here, and this week I am doing a St. Patrick's day lesson.

My students also like to play mafia, and I plan on teaching them wink mafia.

Finally, I did resort to movies in some classes. Almost every other teacher just showed movies, but co-teacher was adamant that I don't (despite not actually doing anything but sit in here office and check up on me every so often). I tried avoiding full movies (although I did sometimes), but would use the last 50 minutes to show a couple episodes of The Simpsons or something like that. By the end they usually lost any desire to do anything.