Greetings,
My name is John and I teach in Taiwan. For Senior Classes and some Junior classes,I have to use magazines such as:
Let's Talk in English
Studio Classroom
ABC English
and there are other magazines available such as:
Times magazine for Kids
A Plus
Some BBC mag.
National Geographic.

I find that the magazines are all the same in that there will be some story, something about a star, travel,some kids hiking, and the like.
The Chinese kids don't care about the magazine much less understand the vocabulary in the magazines. Sad fact is,much of it is vaocabulary they have had through their texts,whichever text their bushy ban has or school uses,and they have no clue what Taiwan has. Frankly the kids hate the magazines with a passion.
They get stuck on words such as had, with, for, or, nor, with, Fruit, and the list is endless. As mentioned before there is a lot of vocabulary they should be familiar with and new ones usually in bold or they don't recall within the text.
The other problem is:
They know nothing about their own country.
They can't have discussions about the article in the magazine as they can't tell me what Taiwan has. I change the topic from the magazine as the kids here don't do any thing but play computer games or basket ball.
Most do not travel and will probably never leave Taiwan much less travel around with in Taiwan.
That kills any conversation about travel. Get a class full of kids and the slightly smarter kid will come up with a place to go travel to and the rest will repeat it. They can't imagine themselves going some place much less talk about any place else.
I have given home work to find out about an assigned country and none of them bother to do it. That kills any future conversation.
They are intimidated by the articles,as there are too many words, and they have no interest in the articles.
So,after this sad story,how can I teach these magazines?
my wife says teach the useful phrases. There are usually 2 to 4 of those phrases,but my god I certainly don't want to teach those phrases for 4 hours on end.
What are good ways to teach those magazines? Any Ideas out there?
The kids don't give a toss about the magazines nor anything in them. I hate to teach them,but that is all I have to go on. The only other books are usually Far Eastern English, which they can't handle either as they are really difficult for the students to learn. If any of you are at number one ranked schools here in Taiwan,you may as well tune out as I don't want to hear,
"my kids don't have any problem with those magazines and we do blah blah blah."

Any ideas on teaching those magazines would be greatly appreciated as I have classes that last for 2 hours to 4 hours and I hate them as the kids have nothing to say about anything. I end up teaching what the Chinese teacher would teach.
It is a euphamism to be hired in to teach Conversation classes as the kids just don't know anything and lack any imagination to leap to anything. That comes from the education system over here which is like some parts of the US. Especially Arkansas. Nugh said!

Any suggestions to this forum would be greatly appreciated.
I end up telling the kids about thier national parks, etc. . Very few have travled any where. those that have don't remember what they say or say anything about it. Some of these kids have been at the bushi ban for 8 years now and they still can't put things together.
I have dropped most of my Senior classes thank God,but I still have one school where ABC magzine is used and I 'm looking for new ways to deal with teaching that material. More talking on their part and less on mine.
Also, I have to constanly come up with easy ways to explain what some word means. Some they don't know and others I have to say again for the umteenth time. My brain is burning out trying to come up with simple explanations for words.
Since there may be 500 to 1,000 words or less in the articles, I really don't have the time to make a lesson plan with defined words as I would have to define all words as every student picks words they don't know or would know if they didn't forget.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Hey John,
I have just finished the Global TESOL foundation course, and have no experience yet so please forgive me if you have already tried this, Get the kids to sit with a new partner, interview each other about basic things they enjoy at home, then each tells the class about the other, you make notes on vocabulary, corrections etc, then have class discussions about each profile, by asking the class to suggest alternative words or ways of expressing the content. Gradually open up the limits of the subjects to incorporate their street, neighbourhood, town, and beyond as homework, seems everyone loves to talk about themselves.
Where are their fav basketball teams located? ask them to search info on that town, the teams stars etc. then expand to the country, same with the games, aske them to discover where they were made, info about the towns and country, do they have access to atlases? Perhaps this is not a good idea atall, but could provoke some thought processes.

Cheers

Ray in Toronto :-(