After School Class - Speaking Class Topics/Ideas

Okay, so today I was informed that "the principal would like you to focus on speaking activities to increase fluency." I suppose this is because I like to do a lot of different activities and games in my after school classes and not just listen and repeat.

The problem is, I teach grades 1-6. I've been focusing on beefing up their vocabularly, which they pronounce well and remember well, and working on phonics, but now the school would like me to basically repeat what they do in class.

The kids chatter to me all the time in their limited English both in and out of class. They can spit out stock phrases like pros but have no idea what they mean. It's kind of depressing they want to make the kids do more route memorization when I worked so hard to encourage critical thinking.

So I am to present my curriculum for the year next week and THEN they might order me in some textbooks.

Any tips on speaking only activities? They did a role play last year with the previous NET and it... was incomprehensible to me. It was suggested to do speech competitions... I have no idea how to go about doing that.

I see why the principal wants to do it this way, but they don't seem to understand the lack of vocabularly really hinders the kids more than their pronounciation!

With my after school classes, I'm also supposed to focus on speaking/conversation activities. I often try to make games or activities that require students to work with a partner (rather than always with a large group where a kid can opt to not participate or speak at all). Some examples of good speaking activities include: information gap activities, surveys, charades, dice games, snakes and ladders, tic-tac-toe, and the flick-the-coin game. I have a ticket system in my class where I draw for prizes every month or so, and if they don't use English during the games, they don't get a ticket!

Some small group activities I frequently use are: go fish, whisper games, and PPT games (Mario, Blockbusters, BAAM, etc).

Once I've chosen the books we'll use (currently I'm using the "Gogo Loves English" series), I just modify all of my activities for each topic. I usually start each lesson off with whole class review and rote memorization, until I feel that they're capable of using the language on their own. I also use phonics books to supplement my after school classes which have some short sentences after each chapter (I've used the Phonics Star series in the past, and am now using the Sounds Fun! series). We practice saying the sentences together as a class, I have each student read one sentence aloud so I can correct any common errors, and they practice at home using the CD Roms. I give them individual speaking tests every month or so.

Attached are some examples of the various activities I've mentioned. Hope this helps! ^^

Thank you for all the great information! I do a lot of speaking games and flashcard games, but I don't think the school views them as appropriate  ::) I do various PPTs, Go Fish, Concentration (saying the card names/phrases), Pass the Ball, etc. But I also mixed it up with games like Bingo (which I still made into a speaking activity by having the kids call out the bingo cards), Simon Says, Hangman and occasionally word searches and crosswords and a little bit of coloring. I'm hoping the school is just objecting to the latter, which I did to fill my 3 pointless hours of winter school every day for four weeks and give the kids a break.

The speaking tests are a good idea though.

I was considering doing a media project with the older kids. Anyone have some advice about that? I'm HOPING my advanced kids in Grade 5 will be the only ones to sign up for after school... but since they won't give me the attendance, I have no idea. That coupled with the lack of books makes "planning a curriculum" rather difficult. Oh Korea...

I teach a speaking class after school with students from grade 3 to 6 in it.  I don't have any curriculum or textbook and the levels of the students is really varied, as you'd imagine.  Each week I try to teach a topic that I think is interesting enough to hold the attention of the students, otherwise it turns into chaos.  Here is a list of topics that I've covered.  If you're curious about what I did for a particular lesson, I can share   

I'd like to hear what other people in a similar situation have been doing.  Coming up with lessons that are easy enough that the 3rd graders understand but hard enough that the 6th graders don't get bored is a challenge.


Greetings / Feelings – How are you?
Nationality – Where are you from?
Sports – What do you like playing?
Hobbies – What do you like doing?
Occupations – What do you want to be?
Foods, drinks, vegetables, fruits – What do you like? What do you want to eat?
Toy Story 3 – listening comprehension / critical listening
Adjectives – You are very smart / brave / kind / etc. 
April Fools Day + Review
Animals
Insects (students had to guess whether the animal was an insect or not)
Important English Part 1 - survival and classroom English
How to Train Your Dragon – listening comprehension / critical listening
Wants – I want to (eat, play, etc.)
Next week, last week + action verbs (past, present, future)

One trick I just tried was having an open-ended question and trying to have a general discussion about it.

I wasn't expecting for this question to take up as much time as it did, but kids were loving it and I didn't want to stop.

"If you (could) change one thing about this school, what [sub'ed 'would' for sake of clarity] will it be?"

I had my kids write down this question in their notebooks, one answer in sentence form including what and why, asked for volunteers, played a completely different game, and they have to write another 'what and why' for homework.

It worked true surprising wonders, and I'm excited to cover more conversation topics in class.

You might have covered this in your nationality class, but an idea I used was comparing my country, its customs, geography, food etc, to Korea. My students love to tell me about their country so it was a great way to get them talking.

I used this material for my speaking class.
Sts can speak and write.
Make pair of group and ask each other about their name hobbies... etc.
And write about their partner and introduce about their partner.

[Mod edit - removed duplicate attachment and edited title]

I used and modified some of the already uploaded materials here and also added additional materials.

Hope you can use it!

1. Introduction class: All about yourself, what you like and what your friends like.
2. Real or fake ppt (modified) and a bomb game.
3. Stranded on an island lesson ppt (modified)
4. Form a rockband ppt (modified)

I'm trying as best I can to try get ideas that will interest the students,

perhaps not everyone wants to talk about bullies but I think we need to.

Students needs to be accountable for their actions! Students cant just sit there and watch other students be bullied.

I started a facebook group about Bullying in schools in Korea.

I'd really like advice and info about how to use this more in class, making it fun of course.

Lets encourage team support and less judgement over age, appearance, race etc!!

See these interesting videos about bullying in schools.

I have just started an after school advanced English class for the strongest grade 5s and grade 6s.

Attached is what I have done so far.

There are two intro/ about me exercise options.

It may seem like a lot of writing but I get them to write everything out first and then read it out/present to the class. This is just to get them feeling comfy and will come to an end soon (I'm hoping for tons of free speech by next week)
For the Mr Bean activity, show them this clip before you hand them the answer sheet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssiUeL7I3r8

The inventions project is spread over tweo lessons.

Please continue sharing your resources.

Thanks a mil :)

A simple PPT to talk about winning the lottery and about what you would buy. I added an interview table so that students can ask eachother questions.

A tongue twister round robyn/knock out type exercise for my advanced class

I teach a speaking class after school with students from grade 3 to 6 in it.  I don't have any curriculum or textbook and the levels of the students is really varied, as you'd imagine.  Each week I try to teach a topic that I think is interesting enough to hold the attention of the students, otherwise it turns into chaos.  Here is a list of topics that I've covered.  If you're curious about what I did for a particular lesson, I can share   

I'd like to hear what other people in a similar situation have been doing.  Coming up with lessons that are easy enough that the 3rd graders understand but hard enough that the 6th graders don't get bored is a challenge.


Greetings / Feelings – How are you?
Nationality – Where are you from?
Sports – What do you like playing?
Hobbies – What do you like doing?
Occupations – What do you want to be?
Foods, drinks, vegetables, fruits – What do you like? What do you want to eat?
Toy Story 3 – listening comprehension / critical listening
Adjectives – You are very smart / brave / kind / etc. 
April Fools Day + Review
Animals
Insects (students had to guess whether the animal was an insect or not)
Important English Part 1 - survival and classroom English
How to Train Your Dragon – listening comprehension / critical listening
Wants – I want to (eat, play, etc.)
Next week, last week + action verbs (past, present, future)

@Sprite06 If you have any of the materials for this, I would be interested.  I tried searching posts, but I keep getting errors today :(
Thanks!

Need some fresh ideas for after school club for elementary.

Here are some things I have done/planning on doing.

Sports- kickball, capture the flag, ultimate frisbee,

Crafts- Bird feeders (haven't tried it yet), paper mache pinatas/volcanoes/masks (kids love it, not a lot of Engish), greeting cards, paper plates masks/fish, 

Activities- Blockbusters game (I downloaded from here), Photo scavenger hunt, classroom treasure hunt, charades, Real or Fake pictures, describe the picture,  Guess Who wimpy kid, Fan mail

Any new crafts/project ideas??

Updated new activity:

Who? What? Where?- card game from  https://en.islcollective.com/resources/printables/worksheets_doc_docx/clue_cluedo_for_kids/elementary-a1-activity/43063
I found a great activity that I borrowed from another website, not sure if I should post a link (Mods let me know if it is problem). It is a clue like game using people, food, and rooms in a house. The inquiry sentence is, "I think _____ is eating ______ in the ________."  I played it today and the students were into it and said it was fun. Possible for variations in the sentences or items.  I did make a little home map to help illustrate the rooms for the students.


Jeopardy games- http://www.waygook.org/index.php?topic=57137.0

Thanks for this post! Perfect timing.

I teach at 3 schools and do after school lessons at two of them... so far everything has been hit and miss. Just today my coteacher for one of my schools told me I need to "prepare more materials" for afterschool classes, but nobody has ever told me what they expect (I tried asking but it's just so hard to get any kind of solid answer) or what the goals are for these classes.

Today she told me she wanted me to focus more on speaking so I'm going to try using some of the ideas found in this thread! :D


EDIT: just noticed this thread is years old... well thanks to whoever revived it!