Hello Georgia Jane.

I think it's important to meet everyone on the same level whether a child of 8 or someone old enough to be your mother/father. We all have things to learn from each other and one approach is to go into your group saying this as an opening.

 I have never trained as a teacher, although I've worked for a great many years as a trainer/coach in adult personal and professional development. Now coaching in English here in France, I often meet teachers who do sometimes have a patronising attitude towards me and students. They have an assumption that they know more about everything because they are teachers. (They describe adult businessmen to me as "naughty" for example and think they can teach "management" to directors of large and successful companies!);

My approach is to get students talking by explainig their often complex and pressured work to me - an outsider. They're usually keen to do this which makes them work hard at their English to explain things to me. I am then grateful which increases their confidence and thus their performance. If you maintain an adult - adult relationship, you can't go far wrong and won't indirectly patronise.

 As for getting started - the size of group and lack of knowledge of their language skills presents a real challenge; however the lack of curriculum presents a real opportunity!  Careful observation will tell you their interests and so point to useful materials.

For the first session, maybe get them in small groups to question each other on basic questions you write on board. Then they present each other to whole group. So each person agrees to present one other person.This way they can work out answers as a small group or pair so sharing resposibility and helping each other. Make questions very basic, so the presentation to the group will be something like:

This is Peter.

He is 34 years old

He lives in Paris

His job is in the Accounts Department in a perfume manufactutring company.

 I suggest you model this first by presenting yourself in same way. At least this will get age out in open to start with!

It will enable you to see how well they do speak English and help them to feel it's OK to work together and it may be fun.

If they seem to do this well, a second round could be to add another sentence to each statement eg. He lives in Paris in a flat in the centre.

 False beginners are often people who've done English at school, often didn't enjoy it as see it as grammar exercises, verb tables, etc.

 So, they're "rusty", but may develop skills very quickly as memories surface. especially when they realise English is  a useful and enjoyable communication method. Progress often very quick. Working to make a very short presentations to the group can be useful. Everyone has something they want to tell and everyone learns a lot about unusual things (husky racing, old cartoons and making model furniture recent topics I learned about). They can question each other. good way to get everyone in a large group to do something.

This is off top of my head so somewhat muddled but wanted to respond while it's in front of me.

I started as a very young looking social worker going into family homes to try to help parents deal with their juvenile offender children! Very difficult when one looks about 17! Found it very useful to build upon confidence by really appreciating what they could teach/show me (eg fantastic vegetable gardens at a time when I had just had my first failed crops!).

This sort of thing works for me. If it doesnt seem right for you keep thinking and searching  until you find something you like. You seem well aware of potential difficulties which is sensitive and practical approach. I'm sure you'll do well. Would love to hear what you do and how it goes. Let me know if anything I can help with.

Jane

Hi there,

I'm afraid it sounds like you've been landed with a class they only want to take in a lot of money from.  I'd be running a mile for 2 reasons

1) the size of the class

2) the level of the class.

I'd say it's unfair to make you try to lead a conversation class, successfully, with so many at this level.  They'll need constant monitoring, and unless they are simply repeating phrases verbatim from a sheet then that's going to be hard.  They will need lots of vocab to be pre-taught, and most likely some grammatical structures too.

Here are one or two ideas that you could use.  They're not amazing, but they might help.

First of all I'd suggest role plays.  They can either play themselves or you can give them a role.  Situations for role plays could include phoning a hotel to book a room (get them to turn their chairs away from each other so they can't see what they other is saying) and having problems - make sure to give them several words to spell, the alphabet always causes problems!  In addition to giving information about themselves and their stay they could also ask about local attractions or regulations of the hotel. 

Also consider in a restaurant - ordering food, complaining about a meal; at a hospital or doctor's surgery; at a police station.  As you can see, all of these scenarios would require some vocabulary to be checked/elicited/taught. 

You could also get them to pretend that one of them is a movie star and one an interviewer.  Give them a minute or two to come up with interesting facts from their lives/a few good questions to ask, then let them loose (they'll probably need to jot down a few notes).  You could give the journalists a maximum of a few minutes with each "star" and keep moving them about.  Remind the journalists to ask a question, and then a follow up question based on what they are told by the star.  This makes sure that they both listen to each other.  At the end of the exercise you could ask the journalists which stars had the most interesting lives.  If they enjoy the exercise, repeat, but this time with the roles reversed.  This would give them the chance to practise any vocab they already know and stick to familiar topics. ... Which is another thing you are likely to find - at this level, the students might be reluctant to talk.  Yes, they've signed up for a conversation class, but when push comes to shove, they might not want to embarrass themselves.

Another idea you might try would involve copying pictures of the news from the net. Try for a mix of international and local news (local to your city).  Have about 6-8 pictures on the top half of a folded piece of paper and get them to speculate about the pictures.  If they don't know what the story is tell them to make up a few facts from their imagination - it could be a wild and crazy story, but tell them they must try to produce at least 5 facts per picture. On the bottom half of the sheet, which they shouldn't look at, put the headlines (in a different order of course) - you can even put the ones in Spanish untranslated.  They match the pictures with the headlines and again talk about what the story might be.  Then get them to translate the Spanish headlines into English.  I'd give a max of 3 Spanish headlines out of 8 pictures.  Finally, if they haven't already guessed, tell them what the story is, and put relevant vocab on the board.

More pictures from the net, this time to do with presents.  As First Communions will be coming up, you may want to tailor it to that, although it could just as easily go with birthdays or anniveraries.  The scenario is that they (in pairs or groups of 3) are going to be choosing a present for a boy or girl for their First Communion (or for a birthday, or parents for an anniversary or Christmas, or whatever you like!).  Give them a sheet with maybe 10-15 pictures of ideas for presents and tell them that they are going to choose THREE of those pictures as possible presents to give TO A GIRL.  They could talk about what a girl might like about those presents, or how useful they would be, and they try to reach a conclusion.  This is a great way to practise language for agreeing or disagreeing ("don't you think it would be better..."; "in my opinion..."; "as far as I'm concerned..." etc).  After a suitable amount of time - you'll be able to tell when they've almost finished - mix up the pairs/group and this time tell them they're going to be doing the same but for a boy (so obviously the sheet of pictures would need to be 50/50 boy/girl presents).

I think that a 90 minute lesson is going to be somewhat frustrating, both for them and for you.  For me, False Beginner is somewhere between Elementary and Pre-Intermediate.  At such a level they can't have extended conversations as they simply don't know the vocabulary to deal with situations.  Additionally, grammar is going to be all over the place, so you're going to need to strike a balance between how much you correct as you are monitoring and how much you ignore for the sake of a fluid conversation.

One final tip - as you walk around, jot down mistakes you hear and between each exercise write the mistakes on the board.  You may wish to underline the wrong fragment to help them.  Give them a few minutes to discuss with their partners what they think the corrections should be, and then go through them as a class.  I'd suggest a MAX of 10 sentences/corrections.

For other ideas, look through coursebooks for Elementary and Pre-Intermediate.  It'll give you an idea of the level of language to expect from them and it'll also give you an idea of the topics they'll be familiar with.  Teacher's Books may also have additional speaking exercises you could steal.

I think it's good that you're already aware that you may come across as patronising, however, from my experience this rarely happens (at least with me).  A smile and genuine encouragement can go a long way.  You have the advantage that you're the teacher, and with that comes a certain degree of respect, but also of expectation.

Best of luck,

Mark

Hi GeorgieJane,

Mark has given you some great ideas.  I think you should go in with an open mind.  Many adults can give the impression that they are alot more knowledgeable than they are.  Speaking ability can be very different to writing ability.  If you have some confident speakers use them to demonstrate a roleplay or situation that you want them to practise.  After a couple of weeks, you could ask the students to suggest situations where they have had difficulty and base a lesson around vocabulary for that situation. An example could be 'complaining about something' in a shop.  You could start by giving students one or two scenarios and let them discuss in groups of 4-5 what they think should happen.  Then let them suggest ideas and you write the key vocabulary/ideas on the WB.  Discuss the appropriate ways of dealing with the situation.  Give them the correct vocabulary to use, perhaps in a sample roleplay conversation.  Let them practise using thelanguage, either in groups amongst themselves or actually in front of the class.  This gives the others a chance to see the language being used, and for you to monitor easily.  If you have students that are more able, use them to help you encourage the weaker speakers.  Adults can be very interesting to teach.  Treat them with respect, but don't feel intimidated by them.  Once they begin to realise that you can help them they will begin to respond.  You could also take a cartoon strip, cut it up and mix it up.  Let the students work out the order and then discuss what is happening in the story.  Leave out the last picture and then get them to discuss and predict the outcome.

Good luck.

Harinder

Hi there...I saw you got lots of useful advice...and wondered how it had gone?

I would have suggested you give our stuff a go.  You can guide the students through the materials and exercises (very little if any planning required) and then homework is to go onto Facebook, Skype or an online language exchange like Livemocha.com or Italki.com and put the language from the lesson into practice.  Students can record their conversations and send the one they like the best to you for assessment.

Here is a case study comparison of a beginner/false beginner adult from their first session with our materials to their sixth (about 18 hours)...have a listen you might find it surprising, she starts with a beginners lesson and chooses an intermediate for her sixth lesson:

http://languagesoutthere.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2010-04-29T10_09_39-07_00

Cheers

Jason