I guess I should give some background first.
This is my third year of teaching middle school, but my first year of teaching boys. I work at a co-ed school where the classes are separated according to gender. The classes are also huge - I have up to 38 boys in each grade 2 class. Like most middle school NETs, I am pretty much on my own in terms of classroom management, lesson planning etc.
When I started to teach at this school, I would do the same activities with both the girls and boys classes. The girls classes were fine, but in the boys classes, most games I tried just turned into pandemonium. The classes are just too big.
My co-teacher told me that I should just do the key expressions, textbook and some little practice activity, and then any kind of calm activity (not a game) for the last 20 mins or so.
I have been doing some cultural activities, incorporating videos, and the lessons have gone a lot better. I did school lunches around the world, some funny just for laughs videos, the age-appropriate parts of Conan O'Brien's trip to Korea, etc.
The problem is I'm kind of running out of ideas. If anyone has ideas for good videos and/or other types of activities that will keep such large classes from descending into chaos, please let me know. Thank you! :) we
