49 ESL Conversation Games & Activities - Jackie Bolen 2020

1: Don't hope for miracles
Top 5 Tips for teaching low level conversation classes

I really get how difficult it can be to teach “conversation” classes to very low level students who can barely say their name or what they ate for dinner last night—we've all been there. Then there are the expectations of the parents, our bosses, and the students themselves that we are supposed to perform a miracle of sorts and turn these very low level students into fluent English speakers who are comfortable conversing in English over the course of a single semester. To make matters worse, we often only see our students for two or three hours a week, if that and in a class or ten or more. It's very unrealistic but unfortunately, it's the situation that we often find ourselves in. Here are a few tips for dealing with this difficult situation.

#1: Don't hope for miracles

Just because our bosses, the students and the parents unrealistically expect miracles from us, doesn't mean that we need to as well. Be gentle with yourself and of course sincerely try to help students improve their English speaking skills, but in the end it is up to the students to either take what we give them and run with it, or not. If not, there isn't much we can do besides continue to do our best to inspire and motivate. Certainly don't lose any sleep over it.

I've had plenty of students in South Korean universities, who, despite having had studied English for ten years or more couldn't tell me their name or what city they were from. I knew that simply getting that student to be able to tell me these things by the end of the semester would be a big improvement and that the goal of having an actual conversation was just too far beyond their capabilities that it would have been futile to even try.

When teaching beginners in conversation classes, celebrate the little improvements and focus on those things. For example, the student who struggled with pronouncing a word correctly finally got it. Cherish the moment when a student says something besides, “I'm fine, thank you, and you?” in response to, “How are you today?” Or the student who had been struggling in a previous lesson but then is able to answer your review question at the beginning of the next class. Enjoy the feeling when one of the very shy students talks to you in the few minutes before class starts. There are plenty of little things in the stages before a “real conversation” to celebrate.