atemporaryaccount I let them discuss in Korean but I check up on all the groups continuously and ask them to explain their decisions. Why is X sitting next to Y etc.

It's sometimes too difficult to expect students to talk about lessons like this in English, until the very end once they have processed all the English. (IMHO)

I like that they have to solve a problem and give reasons; I don't think they do enough of this in my school. Korean or English, I'm happy if they struggle with the problem.

I like too checking in with groups, but I imagine in my classes the groups would rely on whoever is best at English to answer my checkup questions. Then if I asked another person in the group, they'd go blank, because they haven't had to process the English.

The more I think about it, the more I think my students could do the discussion in English, though many of their sentences would be "She here, because quiet. He no quiet." Which is no problem.

Anyway, depends on each class and teacher. I'm curious to hear how other high school teachers did it and how well it went over.

Tried this with my after school conversation class. Didn't get my hopes up bc teaching anything of substance from 6:50-8:40 is difficult. Had them do it without the rules in place. Surprised to see that even the shi-theads participated.
It was, however, difficult for them to give different reasons for their placement of people that were not pointed out on the handout. But hey, it killed an hour and got them speaking.

I used this idea late last year (thanks!) and just wanted to point out something that worked for me. After each group had finished their seating plan and explanation, I put it up on the board. Then I asked the other groups to point out any issues they saw, or reasons certain guests might be unhappy. Since each team wanted to be the best, they really worked hard to find mistakes or explain why certain arrangements wouldn't work, which created some great discussions. Overall, surprisingly effective.