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ESL forum >
Ask for help > Help me to make them talk!
Help me to make them talk!
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marianne1
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Help me to make them talk!
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Dear all, I see a lot of wonderful worksheets and games and so on, but I can �t really use them in class. This is the reason why:
I have 10 classes of 40 people, no place to move in the classroom, no projector and can �t make 400 copies of worksheets per week. But I have a black board ;-) The students are shy teens and their English is very poor.
Can someone help me find ideas to make them talk a little bit?
Thanks a lot!
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5 Apr 2009
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eng789
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Do a survey to find out what kinds of things interest them. For example - if a lot of kids said football, then tell them you are going to work on vocabulary dealing with football. You write on the board,
Words I know Words I don �t know (in their mother tongue)
Write on the bb the words they already know in English. Ask if anyone can help figure out how to say the words they don �t know.
Once you have the vocabulary, you can ask them to try to explain the game´s rules in English.
Then you can take another sport and do the same and then ask them to compare football to the new sport. Also compare players. You can work into adjective, comparatives and superlatives and addverbs.
I hope this helps.
 Barbara
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5 Apr 2009
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ants
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Hi Marianne,
Once they know some words, adjectives, or verbs...you could put them into teams and draw a grid on the blackboard. 
I sometimes draw a grid of 9 or 12 squares. In each square you can put verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. Then you play noughts and crosses with the teams.
One person is the captain and can choose a category such as verbs on the grid.
You can either ask them to say a sentence with the verb...or get someone from the opposite team to challenge them to give a correct sentence. They then get to put a nought or a cross on the grid and block the other team. The one who gets a line of noughts or crosses wins the game.
This way you see if two people know their verbs. You can then decide whether to award points, etc to the winning team or individual player. Each player could score points for the whole team as well as for themselves. I printed up some fake money once and the teens loved earning money instead of points. You could award little prizes of some sort to encourage them and to make the game more exciting.
Hope this has helped you. Good luck!! |
5 Apr 2009
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Marla D.
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Hi Marianne, What country are you teaching in? What are the ages of the students? Wow! Ten classes of forty people. My first suggestion is to definitely bring in visitors who speak English. |
5 Apr 2009
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danielekrauz
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Dear Marianne
don �t get desperate, I can give you some tips that really work. See, they will not have a dialogue, but will speak:
The exercises are all based on dictation.
1. Mutual dictation.
Take a text that you want them to study, they must know all the vocabulary previously, make two copies with blanks that complete each other.
e.g.: The text: If I could fly like the king of the sky, would not tumble nor fall (...)
hand out 1 - �If I could fly �____________________, �would not tumble nor fall (...)
hand out 2 -�___________ �like the king of the sky, �______________________
taking turns, the students dictate to each other the parts they have to complete the text.
For the shyness you can make �telephones � taking two cans you make a hole on the bottom of them passing a thread through it to connect the cans. When the students speak in one can they can be heard in the other, so they can spread around the school and talk to each other without looking at each other.
2. Visual dictation (can be timed)
Glue papers outside the classroom with sentences you want them to study, one student read the sentence and comes back to dictate to a partner.
Variations:
a. For there to be and prepositions - trios, one dictates, another writes and the other draws.
b. Pictures instead of sentences - for vocabulary, going to, present continuous, simple past.
c. Questions - for pairs, one reads the question the other writes the answer. For trios, one dictates the question, another whites the question and the other writes the answer.
3. Songs
Use the song in many classes, check vocabulary, separate the sentences by grammar, train pronunciation details, ask them to pick their favourite sentences and explain, ask them to pick the most difficult sentences to speak and train them, and sing as many times as possible. When they understand the song �s message they sing and they memorize many sentences. One of my students facorite is �I can �t dance � by Genesis, there is clip on you tube that is very funny and it is a story. Pick also songs with strong messages, not romantic or only popular things. The deepest the better, they will think and find a pourpouse on sing that message.
By now you have some classes to go, for the visual dictation you will save a lot because the visuals will stay with you, and can be done in minutes by hand.
Please tell me the result of your experiments.
Good luck
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5 Apr 2009
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helena2009
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I have always interesting, funny or sat events in my life. I start the story and my students have to ask me yes or no questions. At the end they have to get the whole story. The best student can summerize it. Ss love this game.
It works, because:
1. Your Ss are interested in your private life.
2. They do not concentrate on accuracy as they just want to know the end of the story. (Do not correct their grammar mistakes!!!!!!)
Try it.
Good luck.
Judy
PS1:Give me a feedback , please.
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5 Apr 2009
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class centre
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I use a simple game my sts like. I hide in my hands a small toy animal ( I have loads of them). They are to guess what it is asking the general questions ( can it, is it, does it...?) I answer yes or no. They are to follow the conversation and others � questions being answered. The one who guesses the animal �s name gets it into hisher hands for the rest of the game. And I take out another one. The second time there are much more raised hands than the first time... And so on. Try it and good luck!
Natasha
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5 Apr 2009
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aftab57
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Expert advice for classes with minimal resources.
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6 Apr 2009
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marianne1
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Hey guys!
Sorry for my late reply, I didn �t think I would get so many answers!!
Thank you all for your great ideas, really good stuff here to work with, I �ll start with some games next week and be sure I �ll tell you if it worked well...
Marla, I started teaching in China only two weeks ago and these classes are in a middle school, so between 14 and 16. The chinese education system is based on reading and writing, they almost never speak, and when they do they are so scared to make mistakes, that �s why it �s a real challenge! But now I have some good ideas and i �ll try them out.
Thanks again!!
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7 Apr 2009
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marianne1
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I said two weeks ago, it �s two months ago...
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7 Apr 2009
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