[Eowyn]

During my "summer camp" period I have only one morning that's reserved for mothers of the students. It's only 2 forty minute periods. Any suggestions of what I should do? I don't want to do anything that's too serious and it doesn't have to be too complicated. Since it's only a one time thing I want them to have fun. I thought about making food with them, but then there's the burden of preparation. And, games are fine, but I can't play games for 80 minutes. I'm also not exactly sure of their level. A movie is out, because it would take up the entire time. I'm always afraid to do chants with adults, because I find that certain groups take to them and others don't.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[mesmark]

One shot English lessons are tough. The problem is there are any number of things you can do but with one shot nothing will really stick.

I would probably either teach travel English or English for self introduction and greeting new people.

You can probably drill a little but adults won't repeat as many times as children will.

I would make up a short vocabulary list to accompany the lesson and definitely play one game probably 2.

[Eowyn]

OK, thanks. I just find that greeting dialogues get boring after a while. However, it would be easy to put a lesson together with that. Travel English sounds like a good idea. I could even include greetings in that.
I know this was in another thread, but I'm trying to think of what kind of games I could develop for adults. I usually teach children. Maybe information gap excersises or a board game with questions that target the lesson. Maybe we could even learn a song. It's just that 80 minutes can be a really long time. I don't think the mothers are expecting to really learn a lot from this, but I don't want them to be bored.

[livinginkorea]

I suggest spending time in the start with a small toy or sponge ball in a "Getting to Know You" exercise. I always find that this works wonders and is a great ice breaker. Probably the mothers will have some friends in the class but the majority of them will not know all the other mothers so it's a great way for them to practice English while having fun and making new friends.

I suggest (depending on how much space you have) arranging the mothers into a circle and have them throw a sponge ball to each other saying - "My name is ______, what's your name?" Best to bring a few sponge balls in case you have a big class and have to break them up into groups. Then after a few minutes of this, change the target language to, "Her name is _______, my name is _____, what's your name?" and so on and so forth. And it doesn't have to be in a circle.

If you don't have a lot of space it can be in a straight line like Chinese Whispers passing the ball to the person beside you, down the line to the end and the group (break them in teams A and B) and the team that goes through the target language the fastest is the winner. I know that they are mothers but they act like kids (especially in Korea) so have some prizes as well for the winners.

Best of luck

-livinginkorea

[livinginkorea]

Also I suggest giving them English names beforehand in the beginning and even have them designing name tags if possible. I did this with mine and they address each other by their English names because as I said before some of them will have a friend or two but most of them will not know all of the mothers in the class. Again print out a list of names for some mothers that don't have an English name and get some name tags if you can. Give them some colours so that they can write their name and then away you go!

[Eowyn]

Thanks a lot guys! I never thought about giving them English names, so I'll think about that more. I didn't know if they'd like it or not, but they could have fun with it. You don't think they'd find it insulting? Actaully, it might make things easier. With Korean names, some of them will put their family names first, others will put them last, and I won't end up remembering them anyway.

[livinginkorea]

Quote Eowyn

Thanks a lot guys! I never thought about giving them English names, so I'll think about that more. I didn't know if they'd like it or not, but they could have fun with it. You don't think they'd find it insulting? Actaully, it might make things easier. With Korean names, some of them will put their family names first, others will put them last, and I won't end up remembering them anyway.

I always tell them that Korean names are so hard to remember (which they are) and most of them understand. Some of them still want to use their Korean name and that is fine just as long as they wrote it in English on the name tag.

In that way everybody is happy!