i teach English conversation in Mexico. getting my teenage students to talk is often like pulling teeth.?

Question

do you think getting them to use this forum would elicit more enthusiasm in them? they could ask questions and then practice reading them.

Answer 1

I understand your problem. I'm a retired English second language teacher, and I often encountered this problem.

There are many things you can do to promote conversation. I don't think using this forum is the best for oral communcation, especially as you didn't indicate if your students also had problems in writing.

There are several texts that will give you ideas. Google or go on TESOL website to check for some of them.

You may want to start by having them respond with "yes" and "no" to questions you ask them.

Just some quick ideas off the top of my head: 1) give them jigsaw conversations, where 2 (or more) people try to find information from each other, yet each has only 1/2 of the original information; 2) model dialogues and have students talk to each other using the dialogues as a basis; 3) have students find out information about each other; 4) do a round robin where students work in small groups and you start them off by asking the first student a question and after that person responds, he or she must ask the same question of the next person, etc; 5) have students report in class on the information they have gleaned about other students, etc. As you can see, many suggestions involve questions and answers.

Hope this helps. This is an age-old issue that most teachers have to work through.

Answer 2

Hi. I teach english in Italy. The problem with this forum or any other is that there is a lot of misspelling. It is also full of grammatical errors.

What I do with my students when they don't feel like opening up is this:
take any women's magazine and photocopy the advice section. You know, the letters about cheating spouses, etc.
Don't give them the responses. Ask them to come up with responses and then compare them.
Somethines someone will say "Oh, I know someone who had that happen!"

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Maybe they are embarassed. I was always embarassed learning foreign languages. I'm scared of pronouncing stuff wrong or mixing up words. Teenagers are under a lot of pressure, no one wants to look or sound stupid.

Get them headphones and have them talk out loud and no one will hear eachother, haha... but your website idea does sound good.