 Need help on my very large tricky classes!
Hello,
I could really use some advice and ideas on how to teach my classes.
I am in my first ever tefl position in a Chinese school. My students are 15-16 yrs old, I see each class once a week for 45 mins and I have 16 classes in one week. My classes are very large at an average of 80 students in each lesson. They are in small classrooms and as such I am not in a position to move the desks or to be getting them up and moving around - the aisles are not wide so although it might be possible to do board run game with a portion of the students at a time it would not be ideal. Pair work is probably the easiest way to get them working together - or possibly groups of four at the most. I don't think I'm allowed to take them outside either.
The students themselves are of varying levels of ability and confidence and for most of them their listening and speaking skills are not very good. If I write on the board they usually understand what I am saying but I don't want to have to rely on this. Even when using the most simple explanations for tasks I often get blank faces (I have a clear south English accent). The teachers here want me to focus on getting the students to talk (I am here to solely develop their oral skills) but with a class of 80 and only 45 minutes I feel like its near impossible to get everyone to talk confidently unless the majority of the lesson is choral repetition. I'm sure there must be ways around this but I feel really quite stuck on how to proceed.
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thankyou in advance and thankyou for reading :-)  |