Ajarn Forum - Living and Teaching In Thailand - View Single Post - Games for large unruly classes
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Old 31st January 2005, 15:56   #2 (permalink)
Sheep-Goats
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Nightmare situation. I suggest you do the discipline hardass thing for a month or so before offering any games. And I mean hardass. You'll also need to simultaneously cultivate discipline allies in the farther reaches of the room -- kids who want to learn and are diplomatic enough to hush those around them appropriatly.

When that's solved, you'll need English Monitors sprinkled around the classroom for your games. Be sure to offer some kind of grade for any game or activity (on the board, and write it down in a book so that they give it at least a little effort). The English Monitors I mentioned are students chosen on a rotating basis and their grade for the activity is based soley on how much English their charges speak. I reccomend giving them an inflatable plastic hammer or bat to whack kids with.

You can maybe do a game along these lines every two weeks.

Be sure you change the location you teach from, as well as the student's seating positions, periodically. Letting them sit where they want and teaching from the front for a whole semester will spell disaster. Be sure you have them stand up and move furniture around for mixers (The "Find someone who's slept in a cave / owned a buffalo / etc etc" game works well if they're language is up to it), and to participate in the mixers yourself rather than just monitor.

Team games will apply, though the language production will be much lower per head than it usually is. Convoluted jigsaw activities can be done once you have their ducks in a row, but also require massive prep time on your part...

I had classes of up to 70 in China and after three months I'm fairly happy to say that I had most of them learning a little English each day I saw them and not howling or throwing shit.
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