TEFL - get enthusiastic!?

Question

ok so im teachin 15 Italians pre-inter level and the school rules are : students must speak english AT ALL TIMES.

So my students are the least enthusiastic bunch of teenagers I've ever met! we play games they look at me blankly. They speak Italian - I give them a red card (extra homework) that they can pass to the next person they hear speak Italian. They dont seem to care if they get extra homework. One day I got them to stop speaking Italian and they stopped speaking altogether. Even when I explicitly ask them for their answers they just say "i am tired" or "i dont know". Ive tried to make it interesting using Music (Famous Pop songs gap fills) topics like Alcohol, dating, drugs etc and NOTHING can get this class to speak english or even talk to each other! pairwork is a nightmare. they refuse to talk to each other they just swap copies and take down the information!

Does ANYONE have any tips?! Im dying here! THANKS A MILLION!!!!!

Answer 1

First off if they are that bad there is not a lot you can do. But you know they did the same to me in high school where the teacher only spoke Spanish and after a while I was so lost. I finally started getting tutored during lunch. So maybe they are just lost. You might want to try some one on one conversation. Maybe show an American video. Something high school kids would like, especially the boys. If you know what I mean. Maybe even show a TV series. While you show the video make a place in the room where you can sit and talk with a student alone and practice their English, but only for a few minutes at a time. Then call the next one and go from there. After the show ask them if there were words they want to know or even have them write them down during the show. That might get them more into the language. Just don't show those boring culture videos that they made us watch. Let me know if that helps and we can go from there if you like more examples. I am sure you probably tried a few of them already.