I love teaching adults. Once you build a rapport with them, they are wonderful. Of course there is a bit of initial ‘edutaining’ involved, but I 'd much prefer it to teaching kids. Each to their own I guess.
[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]
I agree completely. If you walk into the classroom thinking your students are there just because they have nothing better to do, suck at English and lead sad, meaningless and underachieving lives, you probably won’t enjoy the experience and neither will your students.[/quote]
I teach the same article several times a day. In the morning, we have plenty of fun and lots of people talk and learn new things. I tell stories, they laugh, they tell me funny things that happened in their lives, they have grammar questions, vocabulary questions, and so on.
At night I have plenty of energy from the fun I had in my daytime classes, and I start telling funny stories, and they just look at me. I ask a question, nobody answers. I ask a specific person if they know (tonight two ladies were talking about something earlier, so I knew for a fact they knew what I was asking about), and they look at the ground.
That kind of audience just sucks the energy right out of me. Obviously it’s my job to entertain them a bit, and normally I do, but these people don’t respond to anything at all. Tonight several funny stories that had my daytime classes laughing their asses off got a smile or two out of my night people. That’s about it. Usually they don’t even look up from their book, so I feel like I’m wasting my time even writing things on the board for them. Or if they do write something down there’s almost no way to check to see if they actually understood anything at all since they won’t talk to me.
Tonight I put them into groups so they could read the article together and try to work on the vocabulary together in hopes that it would get them talking a LITTLE, since that has worked well for me in the past. ONE group finished reading the article and began talking to each other. Everyone else finished reading as fast as they possibly could and just stared at me and no amount of explanation or prodding would make them do a damn thing other than sit there. One guy did muster up the courage to ask me what one word meant.
So after a while I unfortunately had to stop the one group’s nice conversation since I was just totally losing everyone else (I knew it was a mistake since DOING things makes these people run in fear but we had a crappy article today and I knew I needed something to kill time).
Tonight I was asking people where a certain body part was. The group that actually discussed things was talking about this part, so I know they knew what this was. When asked where the part they were JUST talking about was, they totally clammed up. After a few tries and no response other than answering “yes” to my “where” question I made it as simple as “LOOK AT ME. I AM POINTING AT THIS BODY PART. CAN YOU POINT AT IT TOO?”. No reaction. Not a deer in headlights look, just zombie.
Ugh…
NonTocareLeTete, I will try the questions on the board thing, it sounds like it’s definitely worth a try. I usually start losing them if I make everyone answer something though. Takes a while to get around the room sometimes. This class will also likely not even do it or just leave before I make anyone read their answers. They will literally walk out of the room if I ask them to do any sort of activity (not everyone, but usually a couple). When they stick around for them, they generally talk a lot or at least try to win the game or whatever, but they’re afraid to do it the next time so they run away.
I think the main problem is that two hours is just too long if it’s not a high level class. Two hours isn’t ENOUGH in most of my high level classes. I have one that could easily be three hours with absolutely no preparation or work by me to get them talking. The only work there is getting them to shut up and read the article (not a bad problem).
In my other classes I can’t even count the number of times someone brought some small present/food/candy for me or told me I do a good job. I’ve even had several people treat me to lunch/dinner (often just showing me where a place is, insisting on paying, hanging out until I get my food and taking off, not pushing me for free English practice or whatever). So I do have a decent time with my other classes.
This class is the exception, not the rule.
I’m tempted to just tell the school I want to drop this class, but I kind of like making money from teaching it and I think if I can break these students in and get them talking I should be able to handle anything in the future.
[quote=“TaiwanVisitor12321”]I teach the same article several times a day. In the morning, we have plenty of fun and lots of people talk and learn new things. I tell stories, they laugh, they tell me funny things that happened in their lives, they have grammar questions, vocabulary questions, and so on.
At night I have plenty of energy from the fun I had in my daytime classes, and I start telling funny stories, and they just look at me. I ask a question, nobody answers. I ask a specific person if they know (tonight two ladies were talking about something earlier, so I knew for a fact they knew what I was asking about), and they look at the ground.[/quote]
It’s great you still have energy at night after teaching all day but maybe using the same article for each class is a one size fits all approach. Also, your night students may be suffering energy lag after work/school.
How about with the lower-level classes, focus on headlines and the first paragraph in any article and not a whole body of the text. Break it up into easily digestible pieces.
That’s the spirit! Treat it as a challenge. You will eventually succeed, after all, you’re the boss.
I have a class at the moment that is a bit like the one you describe. Initially, I kind of resigned myself to a pretty high failure rate, but now I treat it as a challenge to pass them all without lowering my standards. They are basically decent people, but they have no confidence to speak (it’s not really their fault - they never had to open their mouths in English class before), and they really need their hands held every step (and half-and quarter-step of the way). For example, only after lots of reading aloud and choral repetion are they in any position to do even very short exchanges independently. But it’s a start. And now there is hope where previously there was none.
That hasn’t been my experience at all. Not for the most part anyway. Sure, I have one or two adult students like that, but the vast majority of my adult students are there to improve with a specific goal in mind. [/quote]
Ooops. That may have come across in the wrong way.
There are a lot of adult students who are in the class because they have nothing better to do, or because their boss told them to go, or their parents think it’s a good idea, or some other such bullshit. The one thing they have in common is that they haven’t mastered the language yet, and being frustrated because they won’t talk is kind of unproductive.
Whatever their reason, they’re almost always people that you can get to like if you get to know them. The onus is on you to break through whatever it is that is holding them back, or circumvent it, or find some other way. There’s an active learner inside almost every one of them, if you can reach it. But expecting them to walk in full of excitement is not realistic, due to their background.
I like teaching adults, and the classes are fun and stimulating. No criticism of the students intended. My previous comment was an acknowledgement of the realities we’re dealing with, and a reminder that it’s up to us to provide the leadership and motivation sometimes.
All the same, it’s worth pointing out that the people in the room are there in response to some or other marketing message. It could be the image consciously projected by the school, or it could be the reputation it has earned and spread via word of mouth. (Or chat on PTT) People go to the school that they think will meet their needs. If they want passive learning, they will gravitate to schools that they think won’t push them. If they’re serious about learning, they will mostly end up in a school where they believe someone will encourage them to participate.
Within the school, if the students are allowed to choose the class they go to, they also tend to cluster with similar students. So it’s quite possible to get a class dominated by people who won’t participate, because they’re looking around and seeing that nobody else is trying.
I did once have a class that was completely unresponsive and lazy. Students would join for a few weeks and then disappear. The core group that remained constant was the most apathetic disinterested bunch of wasters imagniable. I remember one girl who would reply “I haave no idea” to every question. Eventually I gave them a stern lecture that could be summed up as “if you don’t participate then there is no point you being here.” the following week, half of them had prepared a topic to discuss and the other half had transferred out of the class. Within a month, the room was full again and the revolving door environment had changed.
Sometimes, you do have to put your foot down. In that case, be prepared for complaints and be ready to get fired. There are classes that are not worth teaching, because of the demographics of the group. You may genuinely get a room full of people who are effectively unteachable, and in that case there’s no point trying.
But in the vast majority of cases, even if they’re hard work at first, you can find a way to engage them and bring out the best in them.
Small victories:
An email a few weeks ago from a former student, haven’t seen her for five years. She was a quiet girl, didn’t like to talk at first, but she got over it and eventually brought up an issue in class that she needed help with: sexual harassment at work. With support from the class, she got it sorted out, got on with her life, met a nice guy, and wrote to thank me on the eve of her marriage.
Sitting at a traffic lights one night last year, a guy ran up to me to say hello. Another former student, who had been in classes because he had to. Under my influence, he started learning photography, then he gave up studying English and started taking cooking lessons instead. Again, the message was ‘thanks for helping me change my life’
Email last week from one of last year’s crop, currently backpacking in Australia. She had never believed she could do something like that, now she’s having the time of her life.
Yeah, we all get situations where we’re tired and frustrated. Keep at it, dude. You may not even realise the effect you’re having. But the more under-inspired and lifeless they are, the more they benefit from your care.
I had a good experience yesterday. I was trying to get them to form sentences using “used to”, and so I put a picture of Li Jing (利菁) up on the screen. THAT got a reponse from my mostly male class. 
I have collegues who reward students with marks for participation. However, I feel that such an approach just accepts non-participation as standard. So I punish them for non-particpation by marking them absent (too many absences and they automatically fail.). They have to be pretty bad before I go that far, but just the threat has had the desired effect. I don’t have students putting their heads down on their desks anymore.
fucking hate that look more than anything in the world. I finally told my students that not responding to a question is considered very rude in Western culture. I went over possible responses- “I don’t know.” “Just a sec, let me think.” etc. and told them to write it on the front of their magazine, and if I ask them a question they absolutely MUST say one of these things, IMMEDIATELY. It got some laughs anyways, when people were scrambling to look at the front of their magazine in order to answer me immediately.
Another thing, I really try to learn their names. It’s one thing to ignore the teacher when they just point and say “You. Answer the question!” but if you say their name, they aren’t as likely to ignore you. I learned names (even though I see hundreds of students per week) by sending a ‘roll sheet’ around at the beginning of class - sometimes I write “name” in one column and then ask a question in the next column “What’s your favorite food?” and if we have five minutes at the end of class I make them answer the question aloud.
Anyways on the roll sheet I’d also write a quick physical description to remember who they are. This worked great until someone found a roll sheet I left behind one day and the physical description for a new guy was “hairy mole” :roflmao: SHITE!
Now I write the description in Italian 
Anyways, I’m going to guess you work at GVO- is that right? It can be frustrating because you never know who will be in class on any given day and can never guess what the classroom dynamic will be like. I struggle with the lower level classes too. I’ve got a few ideas simmering on the back burner to help with my current problems.
1.) thinking of giving a sheet to new students explaining some of the activities I do in class so they won’t be totally confused, plus the ‘answer my question immediately’ thing, etc.
2. ) thinking of giving a ‘survey’ to new students, asking what their English learning background is and what their goals are. I can better serve them if I know what they want.
3.) thinking of writing a ‘schedule’ on the board, telling the students roughly what activities we’ll be doing in that day’s class so they can prepare themselves. I guess if a lot of students leave before a certain activity, I won’t be trying that particular activity again
If I end up doing any of these ideas I’ll tell you how they work.
Absolutely agree about knowing names. Also, it helps if everyone knows everyone else’s name. I usually start by asking everyone their name (they usually know the answer to that) and writing them all on the board at one side, so everyone can refer to it. You can add a supplementary question, such as how old or where from, something simple, and put the info next to their name too.
Very often, students have learned English by recognising complete phrases that are familiar, and giving responses they learned by rote. eg "How are you?/ I’m fine thanks.’ and “How is life?/ Nothing special.”
In the case of the latter one, they’ve understood that you’re making some kind of enquiry about their situation, but they haven’t really parsed the grammar at all and are falling back on stock responses instead of producing a meaningful response. If you ask them anything more complex then they’re stumped. They simply don’t have a method for dealing with something new. They probably know all the words individually, but are having trouble picking them out from each other in the sentence, couldn’t understand the combination of words anyway, and have never learned to formulate a reply even if they do know what you want from them.
If you’re seeing the same students every week, try this: do a mini-lecture about subject and object, and basic sentence structure. They should know all this stuff theoretically, so it’s just a reminder. Keep it simple. Then list a bunch of common greetings on the board and have them explain what kind information the question requires. Again, you’re expecting one-word explanations from them. The purpose is to make basic grammar real and meaningful, and to help them decipher the meaning of all those questions you keep asking.
How’s life? - requires an adjective, in a sentence where the subject is the student’s life. “(My) life is great/terrible/boring.”
How are you? - requires an adjective (other than ‘fine’, because that’s a standard lazy response) describing the student. “I’m tired.”
How are you doing? - requires an adverb describing the student’s progress through life. “I’m doing badly.”
What’s going on? - requires a noun or verb describing events or actions in the student’s life. “The sex toy show is tomorrow.” or “I’m going to the sex toy show tomorrow.”
What’s up? How’s it going? How’s everything? What’s new? What’s the news? etc. etc.
A lot of adult students really struggle with these at first and it can be a lot of fun. Start by going through them all, and asking the students to identify what kind of answers they need to give. I usually write something like “adjective, your life” next to each one after the students have given me that info. You can even have them each write down a sample answer to each one, if they’ve actually brought a pen and paper to class.
Then jump around the class asking random people random questions, go back to people who already answered and ask them a different one. Keep it moving quickly. If someone can’t answer, just say “I’m coming back” then go to someone else, then return to the first guy. Remember “How’s it going… David?” is better than “David, how’s it going?” because everyone is trying to think of an answer while they wait for you to pick who it will be.
Once they get the hang of it (I spend an hour on this with a class of 15-20), move on to something else. But make sure they know that next week you will be repeating the activity, and every week after that. ie you will ask their name and one of the questions instead of “how old are you?”
If their answer is an adjective, ask why. Get a factoid out of them, and write it up. “How are you? I’m tired… Why? Too much sex.”
Then you have a warm-up that produces a list of names with a conversation topic next to each one. Over a few weeks you can build on this by asking follow-up questions after the warm-up, and then by pushing the students to ask one question each of someone else about the topic by their name.
Eventually, they’ll arrive at a point where you can introduce the concept of “what’s new and interesting in your life?” which requires everyone to come to class armed with a 1-minute speech about something worth talking about. It’s a conversation class, after all. If they have absolutely nothing in their lives worth talking about then there is not much point learning another language.
You can also encourage them to bullshit instead. If they whisper “nothing” then repeat loudly “David killed a policeman this morning” and look at the class to follow up. Someone will ask why.
[quote=“NonTocareLeTete”] I’ve got a few ideas simmering on the back burner to help with my current problems.
1.) thinking of giving a sheet to new students explaining some of the activities I do in class so they won’t be totally confused, plus the ‘answer my question immediately’ thing, etc.[/quote]
The ‘answer my question immediately’ thing sends a message that they are there to participate actively, not to sit there and suck it up. I think it’s important to be clear about your expectations. This is good.
[quote]
2. ) thinking of giving a ‘survey’ to new students, asking what their English learning background is and what their goals are. I can better serve them if I know what they want.[/quote]
Make sure it’s a multiple-choice questionnaire. Also, consider asking them about negative experiences. find out what barriers they see.
I’ve found that students like to have structure, but will pre-judge an activity. Getting them up to talk to each other (I get the whole class out of their seats to exchange specific info with three other people) meets with groans and extreme reluctance at first, but if it’s properly framed then they enjoy it and getting them to shut up and sit down is harder still. If you tell them they will be doing it in advance, then they might duck out.
[quote=“Loretta”]
How’s life? - requires an adjective, in a sentence where the subject is the student’s life. “(My) life is great/terrible/boring.”
How are you? - requires an adjective (other than ‘fine’, because that’s a standard lazy response) describing the student. “I’m tired.”
How are you doing? - requires an adverb describing the student’s progress through life. “I’m doing badly.”
What’s going on? - requires a noun or verb describing events or actions in the student’s life. “The sex toy show is tomorrow.” or “I’m going to the sex toy show tomorrow.”
What’s up? How’s it going? How’s everything? What’s new? What’s the news? etc. etc.[/quote]
I assume that you then encourage students to ask a follow-up question after their stock reply statements. This is how I would see a typical conversation between two native speakers, who didn’t know each other particularly well, going:
A. Hi. How are you?
B. Not too bad, thanks. How about you?
A. I’m OK, thanks. What have you been up to?
B. I’ve been blah blah blahing
I don’t think any native speaker is likely to reply to the inital greeting with details about their tiredness. In this situation a reply from B ‘I’m tired.’ would seem quite odd, and would at best lead the conversation in a strange direction that a non-native speaker possibly couldn’t deal with. I can see how getting students to immediately launch into descriptions about themselves is helpful in class, but in my opinion encouraging adult students to ask questions is far more important. The whole point about native speakers is we have developed the habits necessary to show interest in our interlocutor even if we aren’t the least bit interested. The exception is us expats who are generally just plain rude 
.
Let’s face it. Most of the conversation that goes on in the classroom is contrived, but it’s my job to facilitate some kind of interaction.Encouraging some adult students to open up takes time and patience. I have a lot of shy students who find it difficult even speaking chinese at times. I think it’s about showing that you are genuinely interested in what they are saying, and being prepared to help them. Basically making learning English fun.
Oh I don’t know about that. If you are talking about just bumping into a stranger on the street, then such an interaction wouldn’t be common, but we are talking about a group of people who meet on a regular basis, maybe even work together. It’s not that much of a stretch to go beyond “Hi how are you? Fine, thank you, and you? Fine, thank you.” in an adult class.
I definitely prefer working with adults over kids. They are generally far more motivated, being in the class because they want to and not because they have to. The key is to get to know them enough to find content at a level they can handle and of a topic they can connect with.
With someone I know, I might reply that I’m knackered, pissed off, full of beans, or any of 100 other things. I don’t think tired is too much of a stretch.
But that’s not really the point. The point is that tired is an adjective and “nothing special” is a noun, and in response to a question beginning with ‘how’ they should answer with an adjective. This is quite often news to the students. They kind of know it theoretically, but when they have to do it in real life it all starts to make sense at last. Knowing that there is a correct kind of response, which they can figure out, instead of a standard answer that they try to apply in new situations, makes the task more manageable.
It teaches them to view the language as a system, something that can be figured out and made sense of. They get a sense that they may be able to make progress, because they’re doing something else that suddenly enables them to have a basic conversation.
Q: How are you?
A: I’m tired
Q: Why are you tired?
A: I was sick last night
Q: What kind of sick?
And so on.
Short questions, short responses. Everything is a simple sentence, one-word answers or anything lazy is not permitted.
In the first week, we master the basic idea. Then we do a simple activity to build on that skill, such as play alibi.
The next week we repeat, and maybe add one question. Have the students each ask one question of someone else.
The next week, make it more demanding, and so on. Pretty soon, they’ll be coming in and telling a story about their recent activities. And people will be showing an interest.
Part of the fun is that “I was late for work today” or “I’m very tired because of my exams” is something that everyone can relate to. Once people stop being shy about the content, they are able to have a conversation. Making them focus on language takes the emphasis away from whether they are genuinely interesting, and turns the most mundane aspects of their life into a topic that people are happy to talk about. It’s familiar non-challenging material they can use to get mastery over this language that has been eluding them for decades.
A bit of small talk at the beginning of class is, I think, more valuable than the activities we do later. It’s creating a framework and reminding them of basic principles they tend to ignore when they’re focusing on the topic.
For instance, I do an exercise that requires them to use “if… I would” and always precede it by making a bet that someone will say “maybe you can” instead. If we start by focusing on the basics, they are much more likely to catch themselves and correct it, without me having to do anything more than high-five them for doing so. Once they’re self-correcing, in mid-flow, they can make progress and will feel good about it. It’s still hard for them, because we’re dealing with the habits of many years, but at least you’re offering hope.
Anyways, I’m going to guess you work at GVO- is that right? It can be frustrating because you never know who will be in class on any given day and can never guess what the classroom dynamic will be like. I struggle with the lower level classes too. I’ve got a few ideas simmering on the back burner to help with my current problems.
1.) thinking of giving a sheet to new students explaining some of the activities I do in class so they won’t be totally confused, plus the ‘answer my question immediately’ thing, etc.
2. ) thinking of giving a ‘survey’ to new students, asking what their English learning background is and what their goals are. I can better serve them if I know what they want.
3.) thinking of writing a ‘schedule’ on the board, telling the students roughly what activities we’ll be doing in that day’s class so they can prepare themselves. I guess if a lot of students leave before a certain activity, I won’t be trying that particular activity again
If I end up doing any of these ideas I’ll tell you how they work.[/quote]
I’d rather not say where I work on here, but your post pretty adequately describes my classroom situation.
Knowing names is certainly important, but it gets tough when I have different people on a day to day basis. I know the regulars for the most part though. The main problem with taking roll is that everyone comes to class late.
They come to class late because I apparently have a reputation for chatting too much before class starts, which I generally do because I’m waiting for at least some of the late people to get there. Apparently the late people are at least in part late because they think I chat too much at the start of class… ugh. It can go from one or two people being there at the start of class to 15+ by the end, easily.
About your ideas, we seem to think the same way, because those are on my backburner too. My sheet would have my class expectations on it too though, mainly that you really need to TRY to talk, and for the love of god, answer me when I talk to you. “I don’t know” is fine in my class, just say SOMETHING. Show me you’re alive.
I tried the question on the board thing last week with limited success. It eats up enough time that it makes the rest of class bearable for me, so that in itself is a huge improvement since this is an activity I can repeat each class. I have one particularly annoying kid (with great English, when he decides to use it) who flat out refused to answer, and I had some students show up during that activity (a full hour into class) who were just there to hang out for a bit and leave again (this happens regularly, but they talk a LOT and are very friendly, so I don’t do anything to discourage them), so having them there probably made everyone else a bit nervous while they were reading their answers to the class.
They had a hard time figuring out my pretty basic question, but everyone aside from the one kid did give me a sentence or two, and read it almost loud enough to hear. That’s better than usual for most of them.
I had them do two questions, but at the end of class I didn’t really leave enough time to let them work on writing sentences so I just tried to chat with them about the topic. They looked at the floor, but after I told them the whole idea of this was to give them a chance to practice and that they should stop worrying about grammar rules or whatever they were worried about and just speak, one girl did start talking to me. A lot of them can speak, they’re just afraid to, especially in a class where nobody else is speaking. My girlfriend (Taiwanese) says I should keep telling them not to be afraid and things like that. I generally don’t since I think it’s an adult class and they won’t appreciate being treated like children, but she insists that they will.
I had very few students there to test my new schedule on, because I made them do an activity the last time I was on here complaining, and like I figured, most of them didn’t come back. I think my new strategy is to not give a crap about anyone like that and do activities EVERY class to keep them out permanently while I slowly build a group of people that will at least attempt things (I hope). One main problem of that class is that a more experienced teacher already has all the good night students in their class, at the same time mine is going on. For the most part I think I get the people that just don’t want to be forced to do his activities because they don’t want to actually do anything, just listen.
Pretty regularly people from that other class try mine out, and most of them seem to like me, but they don’t come back. They start going to my other classes, but not that one. The obnoxious students drive them out with their silence and bad attitude, as far as I can tell, so I’d really love to just get rid of some of those people. If I keep making them actually DO things, I might accomplish that. I might drive everyone else away in the process too though, since they all seem to be like that…
I had almost zero response to my teaching of the article during that last class. Maybe two or three people said ANYTHING outside of the activities. The next day I taught it several times again in the daytime and couldn’t shut the students up long enough to get through the whole thing by the end of class. Day and night classes are almost like night and day! (ha ha ha)
In theory your idea is good, but in practice, the same people don’t come every week and every attempt I’ve ever made at something like this just falls flat. I had a movie class last year where I taught movie genres and had a bunch of activities to really drill into their heads what each genre meant. On the last week where their big task was to write their own description of a genre and read it back to me, I was criticized by the boss, who dropped in to observe that week, that it took far too long. Well, it did, but only three or four of them were even there for the previous activities, so it was all new to them.
Also, I kind of like your posts about making language a system they can figure out, but I’m not so sure it’s really a good idea in Taiwan…
I’ve met a lot of students that said they came out of their shells when a previous teacher told them to just stop worrying about grammar at all. A lot of them studied grammar forever and when they’re in English class they’re just trying to remember rule after rule, and it keeps them from talking because they’re afraid they’ll mess something up. These people were encouraged to just not care about making mistakes (at least putting communicating an idea at a higher priority than doing it properly without mistakes) and now they talk pretty freely. They make mistakes, but they’re open to correction, and actually hope I will fix their mistakes in front of the whole class.
I think giving them more rules to follow might not be the best approach. In another culture with a different education system, it sounds great, but here…
So why are you there? Ask the students, and they’ll come up with crap about teaching English. (If anything.)
Explain that you’re there because you need the money. If you keep it light-hearted, it makes them relax. Most of their education has been at the hands of people who wanted to get a result out of them. Now you’re taking the pressure off.
In order to keep your job, you need to occasionally teach something to someone. If nobody ever makes a mistake then they don’t need to come to class. You need them to come to class to make mistake so that you can teach them something and keep your job, so that you can drink beer and chase girls.
If nobody speaks, then you risk getting fired. You want people to speak and make mistakes so that you feel useful and happy. Mistakes make you happy, and they’re in the class BECAUSE they make mistakes. Anyone who doesn’t make mistakes in the wrong class.
Once they understand this, they don’t feel so bad. But it does sound like you have one of those groups that has aquired too much inertia. In your situation, I would probably try to scare them off and start again.
After a couple of years of teaching when I started to ‘crack’ getting adults to relax in class, I found that even though I could get a student to talk it was essentially one-way traffic. Either I would be asking question after question, or it would be highly controlled practice. I’m at the point now that I realise it’s not going to be like that outside the classroom, and this is why I provide students with so many examples of how to ask questions, and encourage them to do so. I don’t have a problem with a student giving an answer without a reason, or even a one word answer, as long as they ask a follow-up question which is related to the question they have been asked. Otherwise the conversation grinds to a halt.
I think that giving more detailed answers is very useful in developing conversation skills, but acquiring the habits of asking suitable questions is much more so.
Abso-bloody-lutely! This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I tell the students that their best friends in English are who, what , how, where, when, which and why. Anything that results in a yes/no answer is bad. Conversation is a circle, answer a question and then ask a question.
Try playing the yes/no game with them as a warm-up. You ask questions, they’re not allowed to say yes or no. (For advanced groups, you can even forbid nodding or shaking the head.) It forces them to answer with simple sentences. Then flip it round, so that they’re trying to catch you - and make sure they win enough that they good. Then set them to work on each other.
Introductions: list a bunch of topics such as age, family, job, English background, hobbies, fave movie or pizza topping, travel, how they get to class, etc. Elicit some sample questions about those topics. The put them in two lines facing each other, and give them five minutes to get to know the person standing in front of them. Walk around reminding them “answer a question, ask a question” while they talk. They’re usually pretty nervous about doing this, but you’ve given them a framework they can work with, so it’s not as hard as they imagine. Then call a break, get them to admit that it wasn’t so hard, then move one line along, so that everyone is facing a new partner, and repeat. They should have no problem keeping going for more than five minutes this time, because they’re repeating something familiar. Then do it again, and see how long they can keep it up. I once walked away from a class for 20 minutes and came back to find them still talking. The bigger the class, the better it is because it gets noisy and they have to shout. Make sure you do this standing up, too. It gets the blood flowing to the brain.
Another thing I’ve noticed that seems to hold back Taiwanese adults is the way they tend to communicate in Chinese. After answering a question we tend to ask further questions to probe the topic. I’m happy to be corrected by anyone with better Mandarin skills (probably most of you ), but Taiwanese seem to answer a question then ask a completely unrelated question. Here’s what I mean:
A: Are you OK?
B: OK. Have you eaten?
A: Not yet. It’s hot today.
B: Very hot. Are you going to work?
A: Yes. See you again.
B: See you again.
Sometimes they might say ‘and you?’, but in general the cultural norm seems to be that they don’t tend to probe more deeply into questions quite as frequently as we do. I have the feeling that this is quite an important factor as to why they feel quite nervous when they have to think ‘English’ and ask questions.
Another big problem is vocabulary. It’s really hard when you’re bad at a foreign language to take the risk of developing a conversation when you simply don’t have the words. In class it’s easy to get around this problem, just pre-teach the vocabulary, with collocations, relevant to that day’s conversation topic. However, as we all know, they don’t acquire many of these new words. Therefore it’s not that much help in teaching them coping skills when they get into a conversation outside the classroom. Makes the lessons go more smoothly, though.
Nothing’s ever simple, is it?
Okay, so I used plenty of the advice from this thread and crafted a smooth running schedule that got everyone talking in my class.
Now there is only one student left attending regularly. I had a spy of sorts grill the one student about the situation in Chinese and the problem is that I made those lazy jerks do more than just sit there like idiots.
Doing things, ANYTHING, is the problem. I make them speak, they don’t come back. That’s how it works. Nice attitude.
So I hope I can start building a class with non-lazy people, but I have no way of knowing if they’ll come or not. I do have some good students in that class, but none of them come regularly.
Really annoying that the class I put the most effort into respects me so little. My activities worked great, they talked, the class wasn’t boring… they just feel that they shouldn’t have to DO anything.
So now what? If people come back I just stand there and drone on about bullshit for two hours? Why would anyone want to sit through that?