I am doing 6 hours of oral English in a university each week. Teaching oral English means getting the students to speak in English as much as possible. 
Trouble is there’s only me in the room and they can’t all speak to me so my plan is to get them out speaking to westerners in the city. We brainstormed places where westerners can usually be found, for eg. Starbucks, hotels, railway station, western supermarkets, McDonalds, parks etc. Then I got them to make groups of 2 or 3 and choose somewhere where they wanted to go to do their interviews on Tuesday.
Today I turned up with lots of questionnaires so that they can practice asking the questions. I went through the questionnaire making sure they understood each of the 10 questions such as “Where are you from?”, “Are you here on business?” and other simple questions. Then I asked them to invent a character for themselves so that when their partner interviews them they can be someone who isn’t a students from China! I wrote on the board YOU CANNOT BE A STUDENT.
Then I got a good speaker up and did a demonstration in front of the class showing them how to do the interview. In pairs I instructed them to interview each other.
– The first person does the interview and when they have finished, the other person becomes the interviewer and does their interview. Do you understand?
[SILENCE]
– DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO? Take it in turns to interview each other as your imaginary person. You have to be a businessman or a tourist or something else but you CANNOT BE A STUDENT.
– OK, start. 
The students then start to speak and the room is filled with noise as they speak to each other and I can see them writing on the questionnaires. I am happy. I start to sort out things on my desk, happily knowing that they are all speaking English. A few minutes pass and go round to have a look what’s happening.
Oh My God!
– STOP EVERYONE!
– You have to interview each other. You don’t sit there and fill in the form yourself. And those of you who have started to do an interview – you cannot be yourself! You have put “Where are you from?” – answer “China” and “occupation – student”. This is a questionnaire for foreigners, you are not going to interview students from China.
– Those of you who have actually understood that you have to interview each other and have also pretended to be someone else [the girls] have to ask all the questions in the questionnaire until you reach the end then the other person does it. You don’t take it in turns to ask each question.
OK so now they finish the questionnaires in some fashion and I am frustrated; how can it be difficult to understand what is required of them, especially as I have given them a demo and e have spent ages going through all questions and interview techniques.
The second part of the exercise involves interviewing another member of the class. So I take them and a load of blank questionnaires and find a space for them to move around like they are on the street. As usual the girls stand on one side and the boys on the other side as far away as possible from each other.
I have a cunning plan to get them speaking to others. I have two sets of numbers up to 15 (there are 30 in the class). I hand out one set to the girls and one set to the boys so that it is inevitable that they will have to speak to members of the opposite sex. Well that is the plan. With numbers in their hands I say;
– You have to find the other person with the same number as you. Girls you need to walk over to where the boys are and boys you need to find the girl with the corresponding number.
[nothing happens]
– Please start now
[nobody moves]
I go over to one girl and almost shout at her
– What number do you have?
– Six
– OK now go over to the boys and find the one with the six too
[the girls giggle]
So I try it with the boys and the same happens – nobody will go over to the girls and find their partner. Instead a couple of the boys race round chasing each other. The girls put their hands in front of their mouths as they giggle and nudge each other.
After ten minutes of trying to get them to find their partner I give up.
– OK everyone, let’s go back to class.
Up they go, sit down quietly.
– On Tuesday we are supposed to be going to different places to interview westerners in English. I know you are all looking forward to going off campus and doing something exciting. However, I am afraid you have been so useless today that instead of going out, you are going to come to this classroom and I am going to give you 4 hours of grammar.
I then went on the list all the simple instructions they had failed to carry out; the failure to grasp the concept of interviewing someone even after a demo, the failure to make an imaginary person, the failure to make new pairs and the refusal to speak to anyone of the opposite sex. I sounded like my own school teachers when I said “If you want to act like children I will treat you like children.”
Give me a class of Italians any day, you can’t tear them apart!