Hello,

I'm teaching some teens ranging in age from 15 to 17 and they come to me in the evenings...so I can't get them to work too hard as they are often tired after their long day working at school or doing their apprenticeship.

I'm playing some verb games and I have Mark's questions cards but am not sure how to go about using them? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

It would be such a shame to see this group fizzle out at this stage because two of the boys have been coming now for nearly 7 months.

Iwould love to see this group grow and hope that it does in the near future.

I'm playing a catagories game at the moment but I know that I can't keep that going forever. We're also listening to "Friends" in English and then I'm asking some simple questions and trying to get them to answer in English. Their progress is slow but they are very motivated and that helps a lot.

What else can I do with them to keep them happy and learning?

Depending on the level I would get them working on a long term project -something that they have to take responsibilty for. Let it become their own and something they are interested in.

I taught at a low level high school and found that music was pretty much a universal topic for all my students.

I asked them to make a profile of their favorite band or artist. They had to give me the history of the band -when it started, how they chose their name, their first concert, band member changes, etc. They also had to profile each band member -birthday, hometown etc., and provide a piece of trivia regarding the band.

Then they had to choose their favorite song and provide a copy of the lyrics. If they were in Japanese then they had to choose some lines and translate them. If they were English lyrics then they had to translate to Japanese. They had to tell me why they liked the song, how it made them feel etc.

This project took about 4 or 5 60 minute lessons as we took time to learn the target language for each section and the research was homework. They did a few rough drafts first and then a final copy, brought in photos to paste to the final draft and then we bound all of the profiles together. We then did a verbal presentation of all the bands and the students could bring in a CD to play for the class.

Hi Linea,

Thanks for those tips...the only problem is that I'm not teaching in a school and some of my teens come after they have finished a long day doing their apprenticeship.

So, I only have one hour in which to get them interested and keep them going because they are often very tired after working hard for 8 hours.

But I will try a lighter version of what you have told me and hope that I can get them working a bit more. :=)

At the moment, I'm trying to get them to read Penguin Reader books at their level....that seems okay and not too tiring.

They love watching friends in English so I keep asking questions or getting them to try and tell me something about the 10 mins they watched.

If you have students who would like to write letters to my students...they are aged between 12 right up to someone of 17....then please do let me know as they really would like to write to someone in another country.
I feel this way, the language would come alive for them and make it more interesting!!

Have a nice weekend.
Fiona.