It's easy to set-up an English speaking club in your city or town. Here are some tips to get started.
- 1) Find a venue
You're going to need a place in your town or city to host your speaking club. When choosing a place for your speaking club, think how many people are likely to come? You could choose a pub - alcohol usually helps fluency ;) - cafe, or you could rent a room if you want to run it privately. Pubs and cafes will probably appreciate the custom that you will bring, but maybe not so much the noise, so it's best to speak to the manager of the place before you decide on your destination. - 2) Structured or not?
Decide if you want your speaking club to be one big social gathering without a topic where people just come, sit down and basically just have a conversation with the people on the table they are sat at or have a topic for the speaking club with specific questions. Remember, if you're going to go down the latter route, you or someone is going to have to host this, so make sure you are prepared with questions and/or tasks and you are ready to manage the speaking club.
- 3) Advertise
Now you have the place and have decided on how you're going to run the speaking club, you need to get people to know there is one and to get people to come. I'd suggest starting a Facebook group or Instagram page and paying to advertise for the first couple of meetings. This way you can advertise local and target the right type of person - those who are interested in English and want to speak English - also, if your city is listed on our site like Torun contact us and we will list your speaking club for FREE. - 4) Charge people or not?
If you're going to host an English speaking club in a private place where you have to pay to hire the room, then it makes sense to charge to help pay for it. Plus, if you're going to put in the work to create interesting speaking clubs, then also your hard work should be rewarded. If you're going down the social-gathering road, then it's best to keep them free. - 5) ONLY ENGLISH
It's called an English speaking club because the language is English. The reason why everyone has come to the speaking club is to SPEAK ENGLISH. Not Italian, French, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish or Czech. Try to remain in English, but if you have low-level comers, translate, but still try and encourage English usage only,.
- 6) Have Fun
Make sure you're having fun! Make sure you're hosting the speaking club for the right reasons, and ask for feedback to help improve.
Good luck, and who knows, maybe next time I'm in your city, I'll come to your English speaking club ;)