What I have in mind is through having attended your pilot class that I wonder if there should be a sense of conclusion to the topic the participants discuss. Will it be enough to just begin class with "Now start" and end with "OK, it's time"? Yes, they might have talked and talked and talked, maybe blue in the face (ha!). Gaps will have been filled in by chatting among the peers. Is it too oppressive on the part of students to get collected pieces of information to be reduced to some main points/prominent or salient features? They may share the same information, for example, about 'Part-time Job." The main points/features they may share among them would be something like:
1. Such and such jobs are either tough or easy.
2. Such and such jobs make them good money.
3. Such and such places are comfy and safe.
4. Such and such jobs are informative.
5. How such and such good jobs come in students' way or are had.
.....
The process I could, if I try, layman as I am as an ESL instructor committed to "Communicative Approach", think of would be, in my imagination alone:
Making groups---changing partners inside a certain group---the group coming together---collecting information and scooping main points---presenting them to the rest of the groups (yeah! the presentation part is the toughest and most frustrating part of it all for both parties: students vs. teacher; speakers vs. listeners. I agree with you letter perfect.)
Sorry, I don't know. Whatever form it will be in, it sure is worth trying. I mean the form you suggest afraid of making the participants scared. Making them scared is the worst sin in the kind of class where the participants are low in their TOEIC score, or ability and fluency of using English. I may be asking too much. However, in my perception a class should consist of a variety of activities for the participants to fight shy of getting bored of the single on activity of chatting with occasional intrusion of the instructor who gives around chips. The variety needn't be widely ranged. They may need to be in accordance with the points they are supposed to elicit from the lesson.
The main principle is, not that the instructor teaches them something, but that the participants learn something through using English by/for themselves. Do you and I share the same principle? If so, it's tremendously easy to work.