Last week, we had a pretty good experience and activity in my ESL class . During 3 days we (my classmates and I) worked with high school students and we had a magnificent experience with them.
I think that was one of the best ideas in this semester, because we worked with American students and that helped us to improve our English in all ways.
We did three different activities with them. The first day, we worked on poetry, in my opinion it was pretty cool, because I have never read a poem in English, so it was something different for me. Second day, we did a debate about drinking age in United States, if it should be lower or stay like that. My team was for lowering the drinking age and we won the debate.
And the last day, we did a play about some American short stories. That was fun, because we dressed up with costumes and it was fun to see one of my classmates dressed like a old lady and another classmate wearing a tiara.
In my opinion, this kind of activity is completely working for international students, because they can prove to themselves that they can talk with American speakers.
Even though, the students are in medium level and they did not pass the TOELF test yet, that could help to make something easier for them.
In fact, I think every ESL program should do this kind of activity for their students.