Presented by Andrew Boon at Mesei University - Nov 5th 2011. Abstract - Have you found yourself faced with too many students in your communication classes? If the answer is yes, please come and join this presentation. We will share the challenges of managing large classes and discuss strategies for facilitating communication so that our students can find their voices in the crowd.

1. Voices in the crowd:
Strategies for teaching large classes
Andrew Boon
(Toyo Gakuen University)

2. Right?

3. Eigo Communication – the beginning
• What is Eigo • 67 students have
communication? signed up for Eigo
communication!
Should be a
challenge! 06 May
at 10:24

4. Remembering names?

5. Taking the register?
• At the beginning?
• In the middle?
• At the end?

6. Grouping?
• 4s by numbers • God I love teaching! Just
• 2s by numbers had 47 for my eigo comm
• Rows class. We were able to do
interaction and
• Shogani presentations. One
• Students decide student even applauded
me at the end of the
lesson! 27 May at 12:19
“Hello. We are group ___ and we would like to talk
about ________. We think the US and Japan are
similar / different because _________”

7. Creating opportunities to speak?
• Pair work • 50 students again for Eigo comm.
• Kaiten Zushi They answered questions on a
• Stand up / Sit down handout about culture shock. We
then did stand up and sit down in
4 groups. If students answered,
they could sit down. I wrote down
individual answers then showed
the group answers on the OHC. It
worked well again!· 10 June at
12:13
1] Would you like to live in another country?
2] What would make you stressed living in another
country?
3] How would you overcome culture shock?

8. Monitoring?
• Quiet • Eigo communication - 44 students
• Group / Pair work today. We looked at culture in
• Creating the need to produce language and I taught the class 9
idioms. I made 22 pairs and they
made dialogs with the idioms.
Pairs then chose random numbers
and students came up to the front
to perform their dialogs using one
of the idioms - worked well today!
Still have to find ways of keeping
them quiet between tasks! 24
June at 17:38
Sleep tight Under the weather
To let the cat out of the bag To blow my top
To pass with flying colors On the ball

9. Assessment?
• Vocabulary tests • That was one of the
• Assignments toughest classes ever! 46
• Most Wanted Lists students did poster sessions
- round 1 - 12 presenters,
• Poster Presentations round 2 - 12 presenters,
round 3 - 12 presenters,
round 4 - 10 presenters. It
took all my skills of
classroom management, a
lot of shouting, and a lot of
Japanese - but we did it!15
July at 12:33