What happens at the Listeners' Club?

To start out you may want to have your Listeners’ Club once a month. As you discover what works best for your listeners and volunteers you can expand it to more nights.

Listeners come to the Club and by their own evaluation, sit in the section for the level of their proficiency: Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced. If they are too modest in evaluating their speaking ability, we encourage them to move up into a higher group. As the listeners arrive have someone greet them and give them a copy of the text and any activity handouts that will be used that night. Give the conversation starters and activities to the English Speaking Volunteers as they arrive.

The Club coordinator gives discussion topics to the English speakers to use in small groups. After welcoming everybody, the Club coordinator makes any announcements and facilitates an ice-breaker. After the ice-breaker the program for that evening is played – either over the radio or from a CD downloaded from the internet. Listeners can follow along by reading the script as they listen. After everyone has heard the broadcast they split up into small groups, each with one English speaker, to practice speaking. The Club lasts an hour and a half, followed by an optional coffee time.

Coffee break is a great time to build relationships