Communication means constantly inventing

How do you convince a class of 17-18 year-olds to speak when they prefer to stay quiet? Quite a challenge. A language class feeds on student participation and interaction. Welcome to the engine room of the good ship Teach English in a French secondary school. This is the story of a class of pleasant, intelligent students who are curiously quiet. Is it fear of making mistakes? Or that speaking requires something they can't give? It's up to the teacher to take the first step in trying to understand the situation. Wish me luck. I'll have to come up with something. But that's okay because I know that communication is constant…