TeECHUr TipZ

MAKING THE FUCKERS TALK


In many jobs in many countries, your main job is going to be making small talk. Students in most schools in Japan and Korea, for example, will almost certainly complain to the management if you try to teach them grammar and make them do written exercises. They know that shit backwards and forwards, far better than you do.

So, there you are, in a class with 11 Korean salarymen wearing their one suit and reeking of kimchee and cigarette smoke, or a group of students who spend 16 hours a day studying. Upper-intermediate level, let’s say.

Your instructions are to make conversation with them. “Free talking” they might well call it. You have absolutely nothing in common with any of them, other than the fact that you are all breathing.

You choose a topic, or get one out of the text book. “Movies” seems a good one. “So, has anyone seen any good movies lately?” you gamely begin. They almost certainly have – you know damn well the cinemas are packed every evening and weekend.

They all smile at you and say nothing.

“Has anyone seen STAR WARS EPISODE II?”

They all nod, “Yes,” is murmured a few times.

“So, what did you think of it?”

They all nod, look at each other, and say, “Yes, good movie. I like.” More silence.

“You liked it. Good. Why?”

“It was funny,” volunteers one game individual. More silence.

“Mmm-hmm, yes. What do you mean, funny? What was funny, exactly?”

More smiles, a shrug, silence.

You’re beginning to sweat. “What do you think of the other Star Wars films?”

A few more nods, “Yes, good. I like.”

You decide to try the individual approach. “Mr. Kim, what was your favorite part of Episode II?”

He smiles and turns bright red, nods violently. “Yes, good movie. I like.”

“What was your favorite part?”

He smiles and the silence stretches into a minute. “I no remember,” he finally admits.

The clock ticks.

Agony, pure and simple. $20 an hour isn’t nearly enough for this kind of shit. If you’re lucky enough to be getting paid that much.

There is the possibility you’ll have one chatterbox in the class, who’ll be happy to speak nonstop for twenty or thirty minutes about everything he liked and didn’t like about Star Wars, and then say that it’s just another symbol of American military nationalism and how he hates America, and America shouldn’t have bombed Kosovo and . . .
.

So what can you do?

Well, many teachers fill the silence by talking themselves: telling jokes, stories, etc. Okay if you’re that type who likes that kind of shit. Personally I hated being a performing bear. Certainly it won’t teach the students much. Although it is what most students seem to expect.

Modern ESL theory has it that “pair work” is the answer to this problem. Some fucking experiment they did in Bangalore in India. You see, the students will maximize their speaking time as well as being more comfortable when speaking in pairs or small groups. So, if you’re a CELTA-toter, you might at that point say, “Okay, now get into pairs. Ask your partner some questions about films.”

More than likely, you will get a few questions in English out of them like “Did you like Star Wars?” with the answer “Yes,” and maybe “Why did you like Star Wars” and “Because it was funny and exciting.” and then they will lapse again into uncomfortable silence, or perhaps begin talking to each other in Korean.

Text books, in most cases are remarkably lame in this category. The “Discussion” section might well consist of nothing more than the instructions “Discuss your favorite films. Why do you like them?” which as I said, will get you no more than a few minutes of uncomfortable speaking, and then a deafening silence.

So, how to get the fuckers to talk.

It took me years to get the hang of it.

Basically, leave nothing to chance. Assume your students have absolutely nothing to say. You’ll usually be correct. Tell them every fucking question they must ask, and forbid them to use one-word answers. Do it in groups, indeed, so you won’t be so exhausted by their intransigence.

In the above nightmare scenario, I would have done the following.

I would have either photocopied or written on the board an exhaustive list of questions about film and perhaps about Star Wars, if I in fact knew they’d seen it. I mean EVERY fucking question about film I could think of. For example:
1) What’s your favorite film of all time? Why?
2) What’s the last film you saw?
3) Did you like it or not? Why?
4) What film playing now would you like to see? Why?
5) How often do you go to the cinema?
6) Which cinema in town is your favorite?
7) Tell the plot of the last film you saw.
8) Who’s your favorite actor? Why?
9) Who’s your favorite actress? Why?
10) Which famous directors do you know? What do you think of them?
11) What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen? Why?
12) Which do you prefer, American films, or films from your home country?

And so on. If you’re feeling teacherly, after you show them the questions, ask them to explain the tenses used, and why, and talk about the meaning of some film vocabulary. Put them in groups and have them ask the questions, then if you want you can ask the questions individually to them, or have them ask you questions.

Once they get warmed up you might even find they have something interesting to say. They’ll probably be happy to criticize American films as stupid and violent, for example. You can ask them why the fuck “Titanic” made over a billion dollars, if everybody hates American films so much.

Another very teacherly trick is to write the questions in skeletal form and let them make them grammatically correct, for example:

1) What / your favorite film?
2) What kind movies / like?

And a final (and usually pretty effective) trick is to give them a format for questions to ask like “What do you think of ________?” or “Have you seen the film ____ ?” Then they can fill in the blanks with as many different variations as their tortured little minds can come up with.

So there you go. One hour of conversation. Now give me my $20.

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