Teaching a Brand-New Conversation Class w/ No Curriculum to Follow... HELP!
 

Hello,

I had an interview a little while ago and was offered the position of teaching a brand-new conversation class for a night school for adults (all sharing the same L1). I haven´t had communication with the interviewer since. All I know is that there will be a maximum of 12 students in this class, of various levels of proficiency. That was all the information that I was given. I do not know anything about their ages or occupations, nor their reasons for taking the conversation class. Now the fate of the class is in my hands in terms of designing a curriculum, activities, etc..

Because I have complete and utter autonomy for the course, the pressure is on, and it´s hard for me to plan for this class since I really don´t know anything about the student population that I will have. I know that the first class is the most critical, but also the most challenging, since I´m essentially working out of a vacuum.

I basically have 2 bottom line questions:

The first is how to go about making the most out of the first class (icebreakers, getting to know the students and their backgrounds) and any ideas for that first, crucial day.

The second question pertains to the best strategy to organize, structure, and effectively teach a weekly class of 90 minutes?

If anyone has any ideas for anything, or has had prior experience teaching under similar circumstances and has any advice, it would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Teaching a Brand-New Conversation Class w/ No Curriculum to Follow... HELP!
 

I love this site:

TEFLclips

and this site is a great starting point as well:

Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom (I-TESL-J)

I can't give more advice because the details of the class you'll have are still very slim!
Sounds like you are very excited, though. You'll do well!

Re: Teaching a Brand-New Conversation Class w/ No Curriculum to Follow... HELP!
 

Is anyone going to give these students placement tests? You really need to know the levels that you will be dealing with.
I have taught multi-level conversation classes to adults, but I always knew beforehand what levels would be in each class. I'll need more information before I can give you much advice.
For the first class meeting I would definitely prepare a written needs assessment (a form that the students will fill out anonymously). Keep the wording of the questions very simple and do not use any past tense or high grammar. After the students settle in, you can pair up the highest and lowest students and let them work on the needs assessment together (but still 1 paper per student).
Icebreakers are great for the first class, but the tricky part will be to choose icebreakers that work with a multi-level class.
When will your class begin? Can anyone at the school give you more information before then? You really need to know, among other things, if the class will be a vocational ESL class.

Re: Teaching a Brand-New Conversation Class w/ No Curriculum to Follow... HELP!
 

It's always good to try to get students to speak to each other. You could pair them up and tell them to conduct interviews. Then ask them to interview each other to the class. Through these interviews they can exchange experiences and ideas that compel them and carry out meaningful discussions.

I suggest you try Compelling Conversations. It's a textbook designed to promote authentic classroom conversations. You might want to check out compellingconversatins.com to review sample chapters or buy PDF to the entire textbook.

Good luck!
Mariam