So I've been a teacher in Korea for 19 months, but I have a new co-teacher whose really giving me a run around. I've only got 4 months of teaching left, and this is just 1 day a week, but wondered if anyone can help.

She is claiming I need less worksheet, more talking time. I'm not really sure what she wants (she's a complete pain in the ass) but she just said the old "make them speak English a lot more". I mean, fair do's, it's our job.

the problem lies it's for grade 1 and 2, for a school that got the lowest English score in the province last year. I'd say at least half the grade 1 class couldn't spell "food", and certainly can not make a sentence.
I can not use a textbook. She said games are ok I think, pop songs are ok (previously both areas I have avoided too regularly, as I concentrate on speaking writing listening reading in my classes normally). I tried the class bingo thing and she said that wasn't appropriate as they just spoke Korean. What to do, huh?

Does anyone have any ideas. Also she has insisted they sit on tables in groups, so are in groups of 6 already. O yea, and she doesn't get involved in class, apart from just actively criticizing. So, maximise speaking (their vocab is SEVERELY LIMITED) (like they couldn't even answer "how many brothers or sisters do you have?")

ANY HELP MAX APPRECIATED so I can delay her 1 day of absolute hell and abuse, 1 more week

  Survey worksheets are the way to go. Check out the textbook" Tell Me More" by Andrew Finch on the TESL Journal. He also has a website Finchpark.com

PPT with pictures. I do this at one of my schools once every week! Choose your dialog (for mine, usually one question, one answer) and write it on the board.
For example: What do you do on the weekends?
On the weekends I _______.

Then lots of ppt slides, each with a different thing they could be doing. Divide them into teams and which ever gets it right gets a point. Mix it up by adding a calendar and circling Sundays. Then if somebody realizes the question has changed to "What do you do on Sundays?" They get two points! Oooh ahhh ... amazing. I allow prompting from stronger/ more motivated students in my class because it hikes up the energy, but I would never allow it with my higher level classes.
Good luck!

Some of my students sound to be at a similar level to yours. A couple of games I have played that work well are

People Bingo – Make a 5x5 table with some basic sentences. “Have you ever played soccer”, “Have you ever been to Seoul”, etc. I find the lower level students will participate and practice speaking if I spoon feed them what to say. You can jazz it up a little more and make it more competitive by playing rock paper scissors first and only the winner can ask the bingo question. If you need to you can flash up some pictures on a slide (only if their level is mega low) of what the different activities are in the bingo questions.

Build sentences from cut out words. I posted a lesson plan here (http://www.waygook.org/index.php/topic,50311.msg343683.html#msg343683) which I found worked well for all level students. I will be using this idea in future. It is an easy lesson to plan and can be made to work with any topic.

Phil
http://gdaykorea.blogspot.kr/

Yes, look at pictures and ask them questions about what the people/animals in them might be thinking or doing. Ask really basic questions and if they're still not getting it switch to yes/no... like 'are they happy?' and run through the feelings vocab like that, instead of asking 'how do they feel?'.

Try to build on what they already know and don't throw too much new stuff at them or you'll lose them.

I agree with everyone on the sentence openers and the pictures. Another thing you can do if they have limited vocabulary:
With those pictures, give them a few key words that they can use in a sentence. For example, if there is a picture of a dog and its owner running in a park, you can put, "dog", "running", "park", and stuff like that. This will give them more complex words to describe the image. This is kind of a NEAT prep thing.
Also, there is a thread on here for NEAT materials that you may find helpful. Lots of pictures are already there for you.
Good luck!

I should be great... All my 2nd grade co worker says is " Neh, neh " :D