Chat

I am thinking of trying a chat experience with a group of young adult intermediate learners next week. I have created a dedicated chatroom for this purpose using Chatzy: http://www.chatzy.com/.

The reason I want to do this is I have a couple of very shy Japanese female learners in the class and 1 very dominant male Chinese. Speaking tends to be hard for the 2 female students who lack confidence when speaking 'in public'. After having read so much about how CMC can redress the balance in the papers we have been looking at for the current module, I'd like to see if whether and in what way the dynamics of the class during interaction change.

I'd like to leave the students as free as possible to chat but will either give them a topic to discuss or a task that involves reaching a concensus (which I think might generate more output and ensure that all the students will have to participated in some way). Any ideas?

I will keep you informed as to how I proceed and how it goes.