I teach Korean Freshman students that have studied English for at least five or six years before they step foot in the classroom. They might have proficient basic grammar, a moderately sized vocabulary, and be able to hold simple conversations. Some of them might have traveled abroad, or have interacted with foreign native speakers of English in the past. Some might have studied English extensively in an academy, or with private tutors, but need English only as a secondary part of their degree. My class is designed to help people increase their confidence speaking English, giving lots of practice to students to use English in different situations.

Today I ran through my first exercise with students. We did an introductory activity, an “ice breaker”, that let the students have semi-structured conversations from modeled worksheets, then diverge into free talking if they found an interesting topic. I handed out a standard “Getting to know you” set of questions , then allowed the students to take time to fill out the information while I got administrative paperwork done for the new students in the class. Once the majority of the students had got to work writing on some of the more difficult questions, I put the students into groups and had them look for common responses or differences using a Venn diagram.

This is my typical first day “get to know your class” introduction. After they have sufficient time to complete the Venn diagram, the students need to introduce themselves to the class, then explain what they found out about one another to the class at large. Everything they need to discuss should be easy for them to articulate, and if there is anything very difficult they can either check a dictionary or ask me personally. They don’t need to finish the questions if they have interesting conversations, it’s only a start to their conversation, not the entire purpose.

Because of the number of students in the classroom, I ended up being paired with two students in the class at random when I split the students up into groups. The students joined me at my desk while I finished up my paperwork, and I had them take turns interviewing me as I went through the sheet I had given them, looking for common things we had in common. The students were clearly freaking out to be put in a group with their professor to practice English. Every time I asked questions, one of the students would visibly “exhale” in relief if they weren’t the one to have the answer first. Every answer out of them was like pulling teeth, and I had to remind them to calm down and talk among themselves while I dealt with questions from other groups or looked in on student’s progress.

I wasn’t asking anything difficult, or needing to know anything personal, but the students were really nervous when I started trying to have a “conversation” and went off the script of prepared questions. After twenty minutes of conversation, no one had come up with anything in common that all three of us shared. One of the students might agree about something, but never all of us. That’s fine. I don’t know if I got paired up with some “dud” students that aren’t very talkative, or that they were just too nervous to talk to me on their second day in class and it will end up being the exception to the rule. Perhaps I should ask for volunteers if I know that the class will end up needing to have me act as a group member in the future to prevent students from feeling they are on the spot before they are comfortable with me.

The next round of ice breakers this set of students will do are all about me, instead of about themselves. This is where I can sometimes be put on the spot and made very uncomfortable when students cross the line into creepiness.