Hi Noego
I also teach English in a Chinese context, and the Communicative Approach coupled with the Lexical Approach works wonders.
I. Investment
Invest the students in the topic by having them talk about what they already know about the topic in pairs or in small groups. This could be a question, a series of questions, pictures, whathaveyou. The purpose is two-fold:
(i) the students have a chance to warm-up their English while getting to know their classmates.
Rapport gets people talking more. Isn't it always the case that in, say, a meeting or a lecture, people are afraid to ask questions, to speak out, as they don't know what the people in the room know and how they will react? This is why pairwork and groupwork is important. Get the students to switch pairs/groups now and then so they can find out what the other people in the room think. It'll have them confident to want to speak more).
ii) the teacher has a chance to monitor the students' existing language base. The reason here is not to assess their level--rather, it is to give the teacher a chance to see the common mistakes shared by the group as a whole.
Monitor
While they are talking, monitor what they are doing. Walk around, interact with them, add in new language, correct their mistakes, and above all write down the common errors shared by the class. Why? You need to be able to show learners the gaps (errors;mistakes) in their ability. With 40+ students it will be difficult to remember their common errors, so writing them down helps.
Motivation
Do this and you will gain a very attentive crowd, because they want to know how to improve, but first they need to know where they need to improve. That motivates learners. No need to entertain or edutain. Motivation is support: monitoring followed by constructive feedback. That the BIG secret. Try is out and watch how your students change their opinion and attitude about English class.
Feedback
So everytime you give the students a task/an activity, get them to focus on the task (i.e., use these words/phrases on the board) and monitor what they are doing. Then show them how they did as a class by giving them feedback on their common good uses and common bad used. Use the board to do this as Chinese are visual learners.
II. Input
Give the students an example of real English in use using the same topic they just discussed. This could be an article (from a magazine or a newspaper), a blog online, an audio, or a video. The purpose is to give the students opportunity to see how (modern) native speakers use the language. After all, the investment had them showing you and them what they can do; now it's time to show them what other speakers do.
Lexis Activities
Lexis refers to single words, phrases, and event sentences. During this part of the lesson, give the students opportunity to practice the new words and phrases so that they "own" the language (i.e., are able to produce it spontaneously, without the help of a sheet or the book). This part of the lesson should house a minimum of three activities. If you are using an audio, do pre-listening, listening for a short time, and post-listening activities. The same holds true for video and reading based activities. The goal is to get the students to "own" the new lexis. Note! Chinese can read and write English quite well; they've been trained to do so, but when it comes to 'speaking it', they have a hard time. So don't worry about selecting materials the vocab of which they may already know. They can read it, sure, but can they 'speak it'? And spontaneously.
Monitor every activity
Feedback on every activity
III. Role Play or Discussions or Debates
The final part is getting the students to use what they have just learned. During the input stage the students had a sheet or book as a crutch, but during this the final stage the students have nothing. Just the lexis on the board that they have been using in the lesson. Focus them on those lexis as that is what they should be using in the role play, dicussion or debate.
Monitor every activity
Feedback on every activity
Feedback on the lesson as a whole (i.e., show the students what they did well and what they still need to work on)
With this kind of approach, all you need is a topic. You can use the same activities as you are using now but with more focus. Each activity should have the students focused on a set bundle of lexis. By the end of the lesson, they should be able to produce at least 8 "chunks". But of course you will have given them more than that, at least 40, if you consider that each new lexis has an antonym, a synonym, an idiom, and sits inside a fixed phrase and inside functional language.
Try it out and see how easy, productive, and "meaningful" teaching 50+ students can be.
All the best,
