Some days, it just works

I'm currently working on my bi-annual chest cold of death, so I've been trying to minimize my "talk-time" in class in order to conserve my energy and my voice.  In my extra non-credit 45 minute classes today, there was basically nothing worthwhile to do in the book, so I improvised with my own conversation activity.  

First, I wrote on the board:

What are 5 things you're an expert in?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

I then filled in the blanks with my own answers: Cooking/ Canada/ Teaching English/ Scuba Diving/ Reality TV

I gave the students about 3 minutes to do the same.  Then, I narrowed my list down to the 3 that I thought were the most interesting to other people and wrote them on a folded over paper that can stand up on the desk.  Once the students had done the same, we all broke off into groups of 2 and had 5 minute conversations about the topics on the papers.  After 5 minutes, we all switched partners.

This is a beginner (ish) class but they were all asking and answering questions in a relevant, understandable kind of way *(in English!).  It made my heart feel happy.