[chokosaki]

Hello! My name is Richard and like most of you, I'm an English teacher! I live in China and have been teaching English for 6 months to children ranging from 3-12 years old. Previously, I have had no teaching experience. Luckily, my school is outfitted with some pretty nice stuff! The school has smart boards (interactive class room boards) and some great material for teaching english.
Well, I should say, the material was great until a bit recently. The school's material is mainly used for teaching vocabulary...but doesn't really get into using the vocabulary in sentences. It sounds weird I know, but the school acknowledged this once some parents started to complain. So, I have been given the task of beginning a conversation class for students.

I have 3 different groups of students. The first group of students range from about 3-6. The second group ranges from 6-10. The third group of students are in the 10-12 range. I have been given no material to create the classes for these students. I began my 3 classes in the same way: self introduction, how are you (happy, sad, cold, hot, etc), time based greetings (good morning, good afternoon, etc), food (i like/don't like to eat...), and daily meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner).

My school told me at first that I would be getting some material to help with this class but nothing has come my way so far. So, now I come to ask for some help. I need conversation class ideas. Anything to point me in the correct direction. I use games to help and have had a lot of fun so far. Normal classes have been put on hold lately because of the Chinese New Year. Our school ran some special class promotions so we have had a special set of classes lately. However, these special classes end this week and normal classes will resume at the beginning of next week. Yikes!

Thanks in advance!

[bread_baker]

Hi Richard,
Try this website. It's a goldmine of free resources.

Free Printables for Teachers - Free flashcards, printable games, free worksheets, printables, phonics, clipart, projects, ebooks and other resources

Also, to me it's essential that students learn to use vocabulary in sentences. I don't know how this will work for your students, but for my adult students I frequently use conversations which we practice in class. I have written many, many conversations. When I write one, I am careful to use only one grammar structure (if possible). I give each person a copy of the conversation, and I also project the conversation on the whiteboard using a document reader. I have conversations of different lengths. As the course progresses, students practice ones that are longer and more complex.

[Beatrix]

hi chokosaki
welcome to the forums

haha mark's site (mesmark free printables) definitely provides very good teaching stuff

I understood you are working with kids so I would suggest pair work during which they give orders to each other
(for example drawing parts of the body, choosing which colour to use for colouring etc)
always works in my case

[chokosaki]

Ah, that's a good idea. Thanks for the advice. I've paired children together to piece together the fragments of conversations (the older students) and had them do a little roleplay afterward. I never thought to do that for directions. Sometimes, I'll pick a student that I know can understand the instructions and will have him or her model the particular task at hand. That works well too. Thanks!

[Pillsbury]

Hi,
I have suggestions based on re-assessing material you already have to help give you more immediately tools at hand while you acquire more. If I haven`t offered anything new to you, sorry.
I`m assuming that your students have learned a broad range of vocab such as prepositions and adjectives.
If you have flash cards and pictures with your material, take a good look at them and see how much more they can be described. For example you may have simply started off showing an animal, 'elephant.' Call it, 'Big/large elephant.'
Where you may have used a picture to teach a word, use the same picture to teach the word in simple context. (It is large, it is blue, it is fast.)
E.g. "Elephant, An Elephant, Elephants are big/large." Then follow through with mouse (small), then cheetah(fast), giraffe(tall) etc, to keep things on topic AND in perspective.
You may have already done something like this, however the same goes for any simple games you may have played. There may be a game like a snap game where the students match two of the same card and then only uses one word to get a point or the cards. (If they pair off two apples, they say 'apple' get the cards and point.) Use the same game but up the challenge. If they pair off two apples, they must now describe the apples to get the cards and points.
This is simplistic, but with verbs, prepositions, and adjectives you will have more room for extra vocab from cards or pictures because with, eg. verbs, something or someone is doing something. (It goes from 'run', to 'He/she/it is running.' 'The boy/man/girl etc is running. You can move to past and future in the same class if you want to do a class on tense.)
One of the added advantages of this appraoch is that your students are already familiar with material itself. You do not have stop playing popular games which work well, and discard them for something else more complicated, (new in terms of rules that have to be explained), which may seem more appropriate to you at first glance.
Your students will grasp the fact that you are simply increasing the level of challenge with an already existing game, and you will have time to introduce new ideas gradually, rather than suffer having them bomb straight away because you didn`t have enough time to introduce them slowly.
I hope I was some help. Good luck.

[chokosaki]

Those are great ideas. Actually, what I was creating now is a description unit (similar to what you mentioned). I'll use some of your ideas and see how it goes! Thanks a lot. I'll keep you updated on how the class goes.