TeachingEnglish
English Speaking Club
Submitted by Qaisar Masood on 11 July, 2009 - 14:32
How useful an English Speaking Club can be. Please advise as how to open, conduct and maintain a successful English Speaking Club.
Qaisar Masood
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Hullo Qaisar,
This is a good topic as I too am running spoken english classes in India and had been wondering about the plight of students after they leave the institute finishing the course. The students usually don't get people to talk in English and they slowly are losing the skill they aquired in the institute. Hence I too came up with the plan of holding a meeting for all the out gone students once a month as any frequency other than this might upset their regular life. There was a great enthusiasm among the students and they are eagerly expecting to start. I would suggest you to start and may be we can exchange our experiences. All the best.
Pathi
The thought of starting an English Speaking Club is fantastic. You can start a club by approaching excellent ELT trainers who could come once in a week and share their knowledge and expertise. You can contact some of your ex students who are in touch with you and form a core group to ensure that someone is always there to organize the schedule well.
The English Speaking Club should be held once in a week. Do not get disheartened if you do not find a good response initially. It will definitely pick up over a period of time. Plan out a schedule for one month. Ensure that you cover new concepts every week.
Make all sessions very interactive and ensure that participants take home something valuable which will help them hone their language skills.
As a new user of this site, I'm of the opinion that formation or organisation of such a club would be of immense value to the members as it would enhance their communicative skills and self confidence.
While thinking of this club, the organiser should start from the schools around with full intention to coordinate and organise series of programme that will geared towards the interest of the members. For example inter schools debate can be organised, impromptu speeches, public reading contest and considerable prizes and consolation gifts given.
To maintain such a club, the mentors and other officers should be up and doing, remain focussed, have series of programmes, avoid monotonous activities as these will definitely erase the interests in the mind of members.
The club should be extended to the tertiary institutions and be properly monitored. As earlier suggested, worksops and exhibitions should be organised to keep the public aware of the importance nad benefits of the club. Other social clubs and associations can be co-opted to boost the image of the club.
I hope these tips can be useful. Lets work together to keep the Language alive.
TE Team
Hi Qaisar
This might be useful for you: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities/guide-setting-english-l...
It's got some simple but essential ideas to bear in mind before you start your club.
Good luck!
Rob
I taught English at University in Mongolia and one of my duties was to run an English club.
At first I met lots of difficulties: the attendance was low, students presented an array of different linguistic and learning abilities, they were extremely shy and hard to motivate. After a few sessions we decided to apply some changes and we started by asking the students for their ideas in the form of a questionnaire with open questions. It worked well!
We changed the days of the English club. Surprisingly, they preferred to attend on Fridays, which I though would be the worst day for them to come.
Thanks to our questionnaire we also found out what the students would like to work on, what kind of activities they enjoy best and which ones are their least favourite.
Always at the beginning of each session we had warm-ups, and after a while some of the students decided to take on more initiative by planning and conducting warm-ups themselves with some support from my colleagues and myself.
Activities were planned carefully so all students could participate, no matter what their level of English was; to accomplish an activity students have to 'climb' steps and that there should always be a step that every student, no matter what their level of English is, can climb and succeed.
In Mongolia my biggest challenge was to motivate the students and the English club was a great opportunity to do this as you can choose topics freely, play lots of games and encourage the students to love the language that they study. The students that attended the club also loved our Film nights, they were eager to take part in organising competitions like for example an English song competition and to prepare a Christmas and a Halloween party.
English club is very useful, though I learnt that it is very important to find out who your students are and what are their needs.
My name is Mirato Komilov. My major is English. I teach English at Tajik State Pedagogical University. I also conduct English speaking club once a week. It is vital for improving students' communication skills.
I would like to thank Mr. Rob Lewis that he provided us with useful websites and I hope he will continue giving us good suggestions for making our clubs more productive in the future.
With best regards,
Mirato
Pathi I salut you. What a great idea to provide the learning opportunity to those who have already completed their English courses. Without continuous practice it can be very hard for someone in a non-English speaking country to maintain the English language skills they have aquired.
-Mariam
There has to be something more because in any club meeting you will need an activity for the members. It might be better to call it an English literature club where members come to read and discuss poetry, books or other material that helps them to learn.
Dear all,
Certainly, good discussion is going on..
I would like to present one idea that could work as expansion to their club activity that each participant would teach English (speaking) of few basic things either to younger one or elderly or adult in their vicinity or colony as a community project.
this will enable them to sharpen their skills as each teaching period whether it is 15 minutes only, requires preparation and planning.
Following the priniciple of what I call 3Ps (Planning, preparation and practice) enable them to diversify their learning and they would not loose the spirit to continue rehearsing their skills and also community service will also take place.
I tried it in my context...
Rozina Jumani