View Single Post
  #1 (permalink)  
Unread Jul 19th, 2010, 10:43 pm
chokosaki chokosaki is offline
eslHQ Zealot
 
Join Date: Feb 24th, 2010
Location: Jinhua, China
Age: 39
Posts: 78
chokosaki is on a distinguished road
Default ESL conversation upper intermediate-lower advanced conversation course

Hey there. I'm currently working on setting up a course outline for my future conversation lessons at a school I temp. This school calls me when they can get about 3-5 students for a conversation class. I'm about to finish my second group at the school. Things are going well but the school gives me no teaching material or suggestions. Being at the end of the second group, I'm a little burned out and my brain is a wreck. To make sure this doesn't happen again, I'm saving all my lessons I prepared (I saved the lessons the first time...but I was a new teacher then so I'm not too fond of the setup...some were good...some I scrapped.) Next time I'm going to set up the class in units and I was hoping some of you could check this basic outline and offer some suggestions. The class starts after the 42 hours and there is no continuation.

Unit 1: Introductions and life information (each class in this unit will begin with a fast, new icebreaker each day as the school usually lets new students 'demo' the class for the first month).
*Self introductions, icebreaker fun
*Biography and Autobiography
*Family
*Health
*Emotions

Unit 2: Around the World (Each class in this unit will offer various tips to improve/practice pronunciation)
*Transportation
*Traveling and Countries
*Weather
*Culture
*Animals
*Environment and Future of the Planet

Unit 3: At the Store (Each class will have a brief stint...ie...10 minutes or less...to practice sounds through tongue twisters and other various means...particularly sounds difficult for the students....such as the /th/ sound.).
*Buying and Selling
*Clothing
*Marketing/advertising
*Restaurants

Unit 4: For Fun (By this point, students will have been assigned to watch an English movie. At the beginning of each class, one of the students must give a movie report and the others will ask questions about it. This may also be done with books or a music album...if the student prefers).
*Entertainment
*Movies
*Music/Art
*Hobbies
*Holidays

*Farewell class...last day, random question fun

This is the outline of the basic course. The students are in the intermediate range...some lower advanced. The students in my current class (there are 8) are aged from 16 to somewhere in the 40s. I wanted to avoid anything controversial...I teach in China and I don't want to offend anyone.

If anyone has suggestions, please, let me know.
Reply With Quote