Learned Words

It's almost the end of summer - I hope you had a lovely break!

That means that the next semester is upon us, with new language classes starting soon.

Many new teachers will lead new conversation classes - a scary prospect if you don't have experience!

Conversation classes are the best way to increase fluency and confidence in a language, especially if you aren't in a country where that language is spoken.

Making a conversation class successful

Conversation classes are often considered difficult to plan for.

There are no textbooks, no resources, and it's overwhelming for both new teachers trying to find where to begin, and experienced teachers searching for new activities.

To make the first class a success, everyone has to get comfortable with speaking.

An interview style activity on random broad topics after the initial introductions reduces pressure and lets everyone get to know at least one other person in the class. This is my favourite lesson plan for the first conversation class - it never fails!

A follow-up class using travel conversation prompts is great while you wait for students to select a handful of topics they want to cover in the rest of the course.

Let me know if you find these lesson plans useful or if you have tips to share!

Did you know ... ?

3000 of the world's 6000 languages are listed as endangered, and likely to disappear by 2100.

Recently posted on LearnedWords

30 Travel Idioms

See EndangeredLanguages.com for an interesting interactive map.

Friend on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

I welcome your suggestions of articles, books, and posts that you'd like to see included in this newsletter. Send your ideas by email to kymberly@learnedwords.com.

Add us to your address book