English Corner at a University - Ideas?

[Eagle's Nest]

Mrs. E. and I have been approached by students and staff to see if we would take part in English corner twice a month. They are looking to us for ideas. My immediate response was to accept but to put the ownership for ideas back on the students, a foreign concept. I know that the only way for an English Corner to be worth anything would be for the students to have ownership of the event, otherwise it would be just another foreigner talking, talking, talking.

Any ideas?

eagle

[Ruth]

I ran English corners last year during lunch hours at our senior middle school. Limited the number of kids who could come so that everyone would have a chance to speak. Not sure how yours will be set up. I gave them the topic ahead of time and they were supposed to come prepared to talk for about a minute on the topic.

Topics I used:
Introduce yourself, telling where you were born and when, and what your likes and dislikes are.
If I could be any animal, I would be a ___ because ___. This one was a fascinating insight into the minds of Chinese students. One boy wanted to be a mule so he could help the farmers. Time at the end, so I handed out pictures of animals and they discussed in small groups the good and bad things about being that particular animal.
If I could travel anywhere in the world, I would visit ___ because ___.
If I had 1,000,000 RMB I would ____
I distributed travel brochures from Florida. They had to discuss in small groups what they would do if they visited that attraction. I went around the class hearing from each small group and exchanging brochures so they always had something fresh to talk about.
Discuss the weather. Which season do you prefer: spring, summer, fall, winter? Why?
The most interesting thing I did during the May holiday was ___
If I were a school leader I would _____ This was a great topic, too. Generated lots of good ideas, none of which will come to pass, sadly.

Surely your uni students will be better at conversation than my high schoolers. I did very little talking. After each student had a chance to speak, I gave my response to the topic. As they were speaking I occasionally asked questions pertaining to what they had said. This froze some students (deviate from what they have rehearsed and they can't cope), but was an awesome chance to have a real conversation for others.

[Lotus Eater]

Don't is another good option! English corners can drive you nuts. Previous university had hundreds of people turn up for them, and they would literally surround the English speakers who came and you end up answering the same questions over and over as the groups shift. Although one time I did end up having a long converstaion with one guy on gene therapy.

Here they are on at 10:00pm - and the students use them to meet members of the opposite sex - so I am NOT required!!

[Dajiang]

I had some people translate chinese kids' songs into english once. that was fun. had a prize as well (some candy). Also the activity where you've got teams with a balloon, some rope, newspaper, tape, and an egg. Teams have 20 mins to make something that will allow them to drop the egg standing on a chair after which the egg does not break. Funny.

I used to have a document somewhere in which I've stored some ideas but I can't find em. anyway, have fun. Oh yeah, it's a good idea to have the students run it. I tried setting up a student board with guys that could run it. Even had some money from the school for this purpose, that the students could use. Exams came up though, and I doubt if anything ever came of it. They could arrange things like karaoke, and excursions outside.

Dajiang

[Dajiang]

The songs I mentioned earlier:

"Big Head"
Da tou, da tou, Big head, big head,
Xia yu bu chou. When it rains, I don't worry.
Ren jia you san, Most people have umbrellas,
Wo you da tou! I have my big head!

"Night-Time Thoughts"
Chuang qian ming yue guang, Bright moonlight falls near my bed,
Yi shi di shang shuang, Like frost on the ground.
Ju tou wang ming yue, I look up at the moon,
Di tou si gu xiang. Then lower my eyes, and think of my home.

"Sister"
Mei mei bei zhe yang wa wa, Little sister carries her foreign doll
Zou dao hua yuan lai kan hua, to the garden to see some flowers.
Wa wa ku le jiao ma ma, The doll cries for its mother.
Shu shang de xiao niao xiao haha. A bird up in a tree laughs.

[Dajiang]

Here's something I've found online:

We hold an English Corner at our school twice a week (late Monday and Friday Afternoons). We are reasonably experienced and have done about 50-60 over the past year. We found that the simple talk to us does not work as the students are shy and usually one or two dominate the discussion.

In preference for English corner we will play games (to encourage speaking) like:

1. Bingo (with words or numbers) - if you google you will find software that will generate the bingo cards and call lists. The kids love it as we give prizes and it gets them to practice their listening skills (we also call reasonable fast so that they have to think quickly).

2. Logic Games - we bought a book that has good logic of thinking games but there are others on the net. We try to make them hard so that the students are forced to ask questions in English. It encourages them to speak.

3. Quizzes - things like general knowledge, Australian Idioms or Slang multiple answers etc.

4. Crosswords - make a simple crossword and get them to do it orally. They have to yell out the answers.

5. Find-a-words - again a good oral activity as the students call out words.

6. Story telling either by us or from the students.

7. Jokes or riddles. Use half the time for your own riddles and them open the floor to others. This is a good one to do after a few weeks and the students are less shy.

8. Treasure Hunts - use slightly cryptic clues for a treasure hunt. For example the first clue may be "Where you enter and leave school" - Answer is the school gate and post another message at the gate house and them they follow the trail to the treasure which is usually us. We give the first students that find us and have all the locations they have been to written down right a prize.

9. Mixed up sentences or words. Write a sentence like "I keep ice cream in refrigerator" (but a lot harder than this) and give the students "Ice I refrigerator cream in keep" and get them to find the right sentence. The student that can first say the sentence is rewarded or gets a prize. Mixed up words would be like "Australia" and give them "Aaailrstu" and they need to decipher the word and then yell it out loud.

10. General discussion where they can ask questions about a topic say "food in Australia", "Schools in Australia", "Life In Australia" etc.

Prizes may include Chocolate, Souvenirs or even something like sitting with them at lunch. Just use your imagination.

***
cant remember who it's by though
DJ

[Eagle's Nest]

I want to thank dajiang, lotus eater and Ruth for the excellent ideas. Our English corner will be meeting during school hours in the late afternoon. They are weekly affairs but will only need our presence and participation twice a month. I have been told that there is typically about twenty to thirty students who take part in the English Corner. It has s student council of sorts that run it with one of the weeks devoted to English film. As I find out more, I will pass on the information.

One of the games I thought we would play would be "Twenty Questions" using the names of famous people from the English-Speaking world, people such as musicians, singers, athletes, politicians. We have fact sheets on about 50 different people for use with this game. of course, Steve Nash is on the list, a good thing as most students love basketball and are familiar with this two-time MVP of the NBA who is Canadian.

I will continue listening to ideas.

eagle

[Mr Nobody]

We don't use topics. We just chat. Works well. Topics tend to kill conversation and the FE does most of the talking. Just talk, let the students bring up what they want to talk about, especially at a uni.

I fight pretty strongly to keep ours informal and without topics. It is the students who need to do the talking, after all, and sticking to a single topic is boring to more than the topic interests.

[Eagle's Nest]

Mr Nobody, this is what I have always thought would/should be the case. My habit in any similar situation is to answer the questions with questions in order to get students then answer their own questions. If they are going to talk well, they need to talk about what they know best, usually themselves. Well, I will let all know how this works out.

eagle

[Newbs]

Eagle, love the new avatar. Not saying the old wasn't good, but this one

Have a search through stuff that Ozgronk posted. I seem to recall, early this year, that he had a good English corner going.

Okay, I know that "good English corner" is an oxymoron in most people's books, including mine, but we still gotta try.

10 minutes later. My goodness that didn't take long. Eagle, check this out. It seemed to work for Ozgronk. I've also bumped it up for us all. Cheers.

chinateachers.proboards17.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=rants&thread=1137746904&page=4