I’ve taught plenty of students whose progress stopped years ago but still insist on the same “method” of chatting on random topics in class, and few if any where it was the best possible way of improving their English in class for any length of time. Here are some possible reasons why:
– It’s (still) a reaction against the grammar translation approach of their school days
– They experienced a sudden jump in their spoken level due to the first few months of free con due to the passive knowledge their built up at school etc, and haven’t noticed or haven’t reacted to their lack of more recent progress
– They didn’t feel any real progress when studying any other ways, so this seems equally (in)effective, much easier and much more pleasant
– It’s just a hobby and in fact they aren’t that fussed about progressing
– They just want someone to listen to them (in any language)
I don’t really blame them, because as a teacher it took years for me to realise that I shouldn’t be laughing at their school teachers for the sudden jump in spoken level some students experienced in my classes, I should be thanking those teachers for the passive knowledge that they successfully built up.
I’ve also started writing about how we can tweak free con so that even students who insist on it can show some actual progress, but that will take a while to ruminate on. Ideas for that? More reasons why free con remains popular? Better ones perhaps? Have your say below:
TEFLtastic 
This is really interesting and beneficial for students as well as people like me who are new in the field of teaching. thank you for your stuff.
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I have a lot of students too who want to focus on free speaking activities, and I think it’s for the reasons Alex mentioned above — that they feel too “caged in” by traditional (i.e. grammar-driven) lessons and find discussion-based classes more relaxed/relaxing and pleasant. If I have a class that wants to work on free con, I still insist on bringing a little structure and purpose to the lessons, though. I like to use articles with good lesson plans as a basis (breakingnewsenglish.com is a great source, for example), and make sure we do at least a little focused brainstorming and language work on grammar, vocab, comprehension, etc. before we dive into the discussion part.
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I teach at a very high level high school in Korea (although it specializes in science not languages). My students can read English language newspapers, scientific papers and websites no problem yet sometimes struggle to answer very simple questions. I imagine for students like these, free con is very useful as they obviously have the knowledge but have close to no experience of actually using it. I try to have at least one section of all my lessons lesson focusing on some kind of topic specific free conversation activity.
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I had never heared of ‘Free converstation’ lessons until I fetched up in Korea and it was called ‘freetalking’. Having a diploma I was totally opposed to this kind of aimless waffle purporting to be teaching and would have no truck with it….insisting on ‘proper speaking activities’ instead. Most of my classes got on board with my ideas but there were always diehards who yearned for the ‘let’s pick a topic and all say what we think’ days.
I assumed they were just lazy and didn’t want to work but I suppose some of them might have had good reasons to ask for free conversation.
I think it could work with a small group of highly motivated, inquisitive learners but such groups are rare. As such, given the pitfalls I think it’s always better to select a speaking activity/task or even a good language game and use the class time profitably. It is also less tedious and irritating for the teacher. If you’ve had the experience of trying free conversation with a typical group of Korean/Japanese young adult learners with mixed low levels it probably wnet something like this:-
teacher – do you like muzic.
Student – I very like.
Teacher – What kind of music do you like.
Student – All kind.
Teacher – Really – [feigned interest] – how about you – [to other student]
Other student – I’m agree.
Repeat until teacher has torn out all their own hair and run screaming for the door..
If you’ll forgive my jaundiced view I reiterate that it could work with ideal students – but then these don’t need to be in class anyway and should just make a few English speaking friends and hang out…
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D’OH – can’t spell muSic and forgot to click notify me box…must be my age.
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