I'd say it's around 70/30 for me. I think some bookwork is necessary especially for lower level students as it makes it clear what is expected of them in the lesson. I'd take a speaking activity or a game where students have to communicate with each other over a fill-in-the-worksheet activity every time. My co-teacher uses handouts almost exclusively and most students are unable to retain some, if any of the material that is on them.

I think a lot depends on if your teacher has requested you use a book or not.  When I have to use the book, I try and create situations which force the students to speak the points from the book -- fill in the blanks, questions that should be answered with the target structure, etc.  Even though I know my texts are a bit nonsensical, I don't want to skip over the material because I know my students will be tested on the material later, and I don't want to "set them up for failure," so to speak.  In addition to the strange book topics, however, I will try to set up the target language into something a little more relevant.

For longer activities, I will give the students some time to write down their answer before they have to say it.  But I *will* eventually make them say it.  It's difficult to get 35 kids all speaking in a 45 minute period, so I do a lot of group repetition/answers and random solicitation.  I try not to use worksheets and even my fill in the blanks require phrases and not just words.

However, worksheets can come in handy to help overcome the "language gap."  I also have to provide at least 2 or 3 examples and supply written English directions so my students can actually understand what's going on :)

Yeah, i have no book and free rein in my classes. A blessing and a curse. I like to try to get them to do a bit of writing each class, but they know at some point they'll end up having to read it out.

I teach two grades: Grade 1 & Grade 2.

In Grade 2, the focus is absolutely positively on grammar. These girls are prepping for the university exams and they WANT grammar lessons. I don't use the textbook here as much, and I actually co-teach these lessons, so I don't really have full class periods to devote to making conversations about the conservation of water. That, and the text book for my Grade 2 doesn't really have conversation/talking points. It's definitely more restictive when thinking up activites to do with the class that still relate to such dry conversation topics, but I get to do activites with them for roughly 20 mins where we leave the textbook/grammar lesson and do something more fun.

For my Grade 1, I don't co-teach these lessons. However, I've been told I need to use the book. So basically I can do what I want as long as I cover what's in the book. For these classes, I do roughly 30% book & 70% conversation practice.

I believe it's important for the students to practice the reading and writing (gotta learn to crawl before you can walk) but I do think during their classtime with native speakers that the main goal is getting them to speak. they get more grammar time in the english classes they have without us. so..i say push for as much conversation and speaking practice as much as possible...