6. Conversation (In) Classes

There is so much that is possible to say about helping one’s students speak in class.  This presentation is dedicated to both conversation classes and ideas for promoting conversation in other kinds of classes as well.  It is a very practical approach, a mix of ideas, reminders and advice that could be useful for a wide range of interests and teachers.  I had to be selective to keep the information concise and easy to refer to so if there are some aspects that weren’t covered but you would have liked them to have been included, please let me know by sending an email in the CONTACT section of this website.  (I would also like to hear from you, getting some feedback if you found any of this to be useful to you in any way.)  Many teachers are looking for new materials to use in class and to that end I have created some cards for speaking about certain themes.  Every month on the 15^th (except July & August), there will be some topics on cards complemented with vocabulary items which might be interesting for you to use in your classes.  They can found in the top menu bar under MORE LESSONS and under the title of TODAY’S THEME.

Where to find some activities directly

If you’re only interested in having a quick look at what activities are being presented here, go directly to
Section #4:  First class and beyond  (activities to start the course off and a few more for after the first days)
Section #8:  At a student’s home  (some ideas that can be easily modified for your class)
Section #10:  Sources (listing of online activities)

Determining what the objectives are and how to carry them out gives substance and direction to your classes.  It gives you ideas on what to do in future classes and how to make them more successful.  It provides a feeling of well-being in the students, knowing that they were right in where to place their trust when deciding to enroll or start the classes.  And of course it helps the students make progress and feel they are making meaningful progress if their objectives are acknowledged and incorporated in the activities that take place in the classroom.

Your objectives are to meet the expectations of the school you are working for, your students, and any that you set for yourself.  We’ll have a look at each of those.

1. THE SCHOOL’S OBJECTIVES

If you are working for a school, chances are that many of the objectives are already laid out for you.  Your objectives are to meet the expectations of the school, the students, and any that you set for yourself.

Whether the school is a public or a private one, most of their objectives for you are the same.  They want their students / clients to be happy and to know that you are an effective member of their team.  This could include actions out of the class such as completing reports, meeting with people or researching how to develop something needed for the classes.  It also includes attitude, dress codes and how you deal with people and approach your work.  Your objectives, in part, are to meet the school’s demands and interpretations of what constitutes a good and professional teacher.

If what has to be done is not immediately clear then you should take the initiative to find out.  This will save you a lot of anguish later on.  Some things to check out are:

2. THE STUDENTS’ OBJECTIVES

This will be covered in more detail in the section under NEEDS ANALYSIS.  Still, it is important to know that the information received from a questionnaire handed out in one class is not likely to be enough to guide you in how to approach your classes.  Much of what you learn will also be gained through your interactions with the students.  There are many things left unspoken but can be discovered over time.  For example, some appear that they don’t really want to participate much but the fact is, they are excessively shy and one of their important (unstated) objectives is for you to help them overcome their shyness so they can participate more fully in a conversation.  I have frequently encountered the situation that there are many students who feel that it is the teacher’s job and responsibility to know their needs and how to go about helping them successfully meet them.  It would be of great help if those needs and what they perceive to be obstacles to overcome are more clearly communicated, but it is often not the case.  Those unmet needs might be communicated at the end of the course in some form of feedback session, or among the students themselves before or after the class, but that won’t help the teachers in their preparation or execution of their classes.  As teachers we can’t always perform magic or be all-knowing, but being sensitive to what occurs with individuals and the dynamics among them can help us create a stronger class and meet those individual and collective needs of the students.

You could also pass on some of that responsibility back to the students themselves.  You can ask them to state clearly what it is that they want to achieve in your class.  They write it down and give it to you.  Respond to those requests in a positive and realistic manner.  Wherever possible think of those objectives to be in some form that can be ‘objectively’ quantified or verified.

To take an example from a student:

“I want to feel more comfortable speaking about current topics.”

Your response – “One way to feel more comfortable about something is to become more familiar with the situation.  In this course we will be frequently looking at what is happening in the news and I expect you to watch the news on TV or YouTube and to read articles in the newspapers or on the internet.  We will cover a variety of themes that is happening and affecting our world today and I will give you some ideas and expressions to use while discussing them.  Halfway through the course I’ll ask you how you feel about speaking in these situations but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to tell me at any time.”

Your implicit promise of assigning them homework on current news stories and the direct one of speaking about those themes in class can easily be verified in future classes.  How comfortable the student feels is less tangible, but speaking with him or her can give you some indication of progress in that area and even provide hints at how to approach it in a more effective manner.  After the student has experienced 3 or 4 different occasions when s/he has been speaking about current topics in class, you can approach her/him (and not wait until halfway through the course) to see how s/he has been making out.  Maybe you can get further access to what is hindering her/him by again formulating the question or the answer into something more concrete.  For example,

“I would feel more comfortable speaking about current topics if _________________________________ and if the activity ____________________________________________ (were designed in a certain way or had some particular characteristics like the groups were smaller or if it was a topic I was more interested in or that I feel I have nothing to say so I don’t know what I can offer).”

With that feedback you might be in a better position to fine-tune the activities to help your students.  You can clearly define the task in some way to make sure all of them are participating more and that they have a clear task to carry out beyond simply talking about the theme.  For example,

– Find out if all the students in your group feel the same way about X.
– Student A, you are a reporter asking people in the street about how they feel about X.  Interview them now.
– Deliberately disagree with one student and support another, finding arguments and examples to strengthen that point of view.

3. YOUR OBJECTIVES

One of the intriguing challenges of teaching is that one can never hope to be a master in all its aspects.  There are always areas that one could develop further.  Each and every teacher has his or her strong points, and those which could use some improvement.  Consider including in your objectives for the course something you’d like to work on in your teaching.

Don’t overcomplicate things by making a long list of everything you’d like to be better at.  Choose something that is personally meaningful to you; one, maybe even two things you’d like to explore further and think a bit on how you could work that into your classes.  Maybe it’s becoming more familiar with the phonetic script and you can work more pronunciation activities into the classes (assuming the students need some work in those areas).  Perhaps you want to improvise more, or be more structured.  Maybe you’ve heard of simulations and have never done one.  See if your students are up to it and if so, plan for one to be part of your classes.  Here is a perfect opportunity to try things out, but again, think it through a little before implementing the experiments.

I used to spend a lot of my energy in the classes, focusing on the students and giving to the students.  At the end of the day I ended up exhausted.  Then someone gave me the idea that I can continue doing that, but also look for ways to use their energy and work with that more.  It took some time to clarify what that abstract idea meant and how to deal with it, but I did find much success in my explorations.  And I not only come home with more energy, but I feel I am a better teacher in incorporating that approach along with the many other things I do.

Here are some things that you may want to attend to before your first class and some later, after you’ve gotten your feet wet and have a better idea as to what might go over well or not.

If you’re in the situation where you are told that you have to evaluate your students and give them a grade at the end of the course, and that it is you that decides how the evaluation is to be done, there are several things to do.

First of all, savour the moment.  In this world which is rapidly closing in on us and telling us what can and cannot be done, this is an opportunity to learn and feel how it is to have an alternative to simply following enforced standards.  You may very well look back at this conversation course as a breath of fresh air in your younger days.  You could do what you think is right and appropriate for the situation, and that is something special.

If you don’t have much experience, not to worry.  There are several options and you can choose or blend them in a way which makes you feel better.  Whatever you choose, make sure your students are informed when and how they will be evaluated.  Here are some possible ways to evaluate your students:

If you have to evaluate your students in some way, be it comments on a report, feedback on a presentation, even marks on a speaking test, think of the criteria involved.  What constitutes ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ or ‘needs more work’?  Some schools provide guidelines or a list of descriptors to help you zero in on the characteristics of what each grade means.  If you don’t have anything like that available you can check out these two locations to get some ideas.

Once you have some idea on how marks will be awarded (and this should be before or at the very beginning of the course), begin thinking of subskills and goals which can be worked on in your class.  For example, consider the following descriptors where a student receives a good mark if s/he demonstrates that s/he  ‘is able to speak for two or more minutes with little hesitation’ or ‘intonation is used well in emphasis’ or ‘includes a variety of verb tenses’ or ‘has a good range of everyday vocabulary’.  If you know what you are looking for, then you can communicate that to your students as objectives to work towards and you can design or include activities which promote that end.  Often it simply involves you as a coach to make sure they use those words you just introduced in their speaking, or have a ‘game’ of two-minute speaking where one person speaks for a certain length of time and then others ask follow-up questions.  The criteria of awarding marks can be a good source of inspiration of what activities to do and how to approach them in your classes.

Some schools have a list of expressions which the teachers copy and place into the report form.  These comments that are to be given to the students at the end of the course can also be something you can draw from early in the course.  Rather than waiting until the last day to give out these comments, look for which ones might be appropriate for which students and make them goals to work towards improving throughout the course.  Here are a few examples:

1. BEFORE THE CLASS

If possible, get a class list which includes the names of the students.  Perhaps some names will have to be added later but with this list you can make a modified copy which will help you build a better student and class profile.  For example, you could have several columns next to each student’s name which you would fill in during the first class.  Maybe it’s important for you to know if they are a returning student and would like a quick idea why they signed up for the course.  You want to remember their names and get to know them early in the game.  Some teachers use name tags or place a folded paper in front of each student with their name printed on it.

2. SOME ACTIVITIES TO START OFF THE FIRST CLASS

You will probably want to start by briefly introducing yourself and making sure you have the right students in your class.  At some point you will have to tell them a bit about what the course entails.  Other than that, there are many directions to go.  Here are a few ideas for the very first activity where the students get to know you and each other better.

3. MORE ACTIVITIES

The previous section introduced activities that work well as ice-breakers, but some could be used in future classes such as Hot Seat or Two True, 1 Lie.  Besides warming the students up to each other and to the class, you also want to have an idea of where they are as English language users.  Plan on including an activity or two to see how they use the language and to get some ideas for your future classes.  Besides getting input from the needs analysis, it’s good to see how they act and react in different situations.  That includes placing the students in different groups for different activities.  Here are some activities that allow you to listen in easily and have a better idea of their capabilities and ways of interacting.

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4. FINAL WORDS

Many teachers feel as nervous as the students before and in the beginning of the first class, and that includes very experienced teachers.  Once things get moving, people feel more relaxed and open up more.  This is something that you can keep in mind, that you want to have a class that is warm and welcoming, that people feel comfortable in from the start, including yourself.  Your main goals are to set the tone, have people get to know one another a little, and to have them start interacting, using the language.  The idea is not to move mountains, just feel good in the class and be off to a good start.  Plan to have a few activities in the class, and a couple of back-up ones on hand if you find yourself a bit short or need something a little different to what you have been doing.  Beyond the ice-breakers, you’d also like to introduce the students a little to your approach and to check out their level, strong points and areas they may need to work on.  Some ideas for activities to this end were presented in the previous section on More Activities.  They could give you some insight on how to go about planning your next and future classes.

A needs analysis orientates the teacher to what the students feel they need.  The questions asked may not always be the best ones and the responses may not be as complete as one would hope, but the information gathered can be very useful in developing and maintaining the students’ motivation and provide direction in the planning and execution of the classes.  If you are working for a school it is very likely that they would have conducted one themselves but it is still recommended to conduct one yourself.  Most conversation classes are not accompanied by a course book or a strict programme that the teacher must adhere to.  There is usually some or a lot of room for the teacher and students to maneuver in and together can create a rewarding series of classes.  Here are some ideas on approaching a needs analysis for your group.

A class with more than one student brings not only what each individual can offer, but also brings the dynamics that can arise when they are placed together in different ways.  People tend to sit next to those they feel better with so generally it’s a good idea to let them decide who will be their speaking partners much of the time.  However, people also learn from others so it’s a good idea to mix them up from time to time, too.  You could arrange those groupings:

Many of the activities presented on this site are good for one-to-one classes, but at times you would have to take on the role of another student in addition to that of the teacher.

This is a more intimate setting, good for the student speaking more (as long as you give that person the opportunity to do so), but less rich in the potential variety of having a number of different partners.  Things can become less dynamic, especially if the student is shy or doesn’t volunteer much.  You also have to be especially aware of what his/her needs are and to make sure they’re addressed so some progress is made towards those ends.  It can be very easy to be side-tracked like speaking about fun things, which can be appealing at first, but at the end of the course when the student is assessing whether or not the investment of time and money was worth it, there might be regrets in diverting from the goals so much.  Sometimes, too, it is necessary to adjust the goals after having some classes with that individual.  Priorities can change over time and it’s good to catch them early.

Generally speaking it is good to have a variety of approaches and ideas in each class as well as some on ‘standby’, just in case the student suddenly announces s/he wants to do something different today.  Find a balance between what the student needs and what the student likes to do.

Pretty well everything mentioned before would apply but there is the added advantage that the student is in their home turf and will feel more relaxed.  There are other possible benefits and considerations, depending on the student’s needs.

You could dedicate one class to a room in that person’s home or a series of classes, one class per room.  If you’re the kind of teacher who likes to prepare, have the student introduce the room to you the class before so you can become better acquainted with it and perhaps get a few ideas on how to approach the class.  Make note of what vocabulary might be relevant (stick to everyday themes, nothing too unusual), what topics for discussion could be introduced to use that vocabulary, and alternative ways to explore speaking about those themes (such as role-plays).  For example:

A few role-plays:

1- One of you lives there and the other is the cleaning person.  It’s his/her first day and you have to say what needs to be done.
2- One of you is somebody contracted to redecorate or fix up the other’s flat or one of the rooms.
3- You are going through a divorce and you argue about which objects belong to whom and how it is that they are yours (Aunt Bessie gave it to me for my birthday).
4- You’re a couple and you are thinking of changing your home to accommodate somebody paying rent or a mother-in-law who is soon going to be staying with you.
5- One of you is the landlord and the other the tenant and you speak about what needs to be done or what shouldn’t have been done (because it isn’t your property).
6- Another role-play is that a documentary is being done and one of you is being interviewed (the personal interest story).  You go through your home, explaining what might be of interest to the viewers, or if appropriate, your fans.
7- You need money and have to sell things.  What could be sold and for how much?
8- You are going to move to a much smaller place.  What will you take with you and what will you do with the rest?
9– You are going on holidays for a month and want to explain to your friend or neighbour about watering the plants, walking the dog and the general looking after of your place.
10– A friend you haven’t seen for many years is over at your place and you’re showing your home and talking about your life.
11– Go through a room and invent memories which provoke much nostalgia in you.  “Remember when…?”  And you talk for a short time about that ‘shared’ memory before moving on to new examples in that room.

If you have two or three people who live there, all taking your class, then you have them do the role-play, give them feedback, then switch roles and do it again, keeping your recent suggestions in mind (more intonation, inclusion of vocabulary or negotiating, for example).  Sometimes there might be a sensitive issue between husband and wife or mother and daughter, for example, so leave it alone or if it arrives, deal with it carefully.  You want them to feel good about the classes and playing with the language.

It isn’t necessary to only use role-plays to draw out the vocabulary and speaking situations.  You can focus on one object and exploit it as much as you can.  For example, a sofa:

1- I love your sofa.  Where did you buy it?  Then go into a series of tangents.  This can be quite fun.  You always start with the target vocabulary, work it into the beginning of the conversation, but then let or deliberately lead the conversation away in some other direction which you explore more.  You never know where it will lead.
2- Another version of playing with tangents is deliberately steering the direction of the opening theme back to the one that one speaker (subtly) insists on returning to.  There is something that speaker really wants to talk about.  For example, start speaking about the sofa and the recently divorced man who is heart-broken shortly says how much it reminds him of the sofa he used to have before his ex-wife took possession of the house.  When you talk about the amazing technology in your new remote control, he participates for a while, then mentions how he and his wife would squabble over which channels to watch.  You just painted the kitchen and the colour is similar to … The idea is to speak for a few minutes using the target vocabulary and then start to work in those tangents.  You can even have both participants have their own agendas.  One can work in how fantastic one is (wanting to impress the other with his/her incredible personality or experiences), for example, while the other works in how angry s/he is with ‘the system’.  Or any other particular theme or group of themes.
3- Tell me about the sofa.  (where it was bought; how it got into the living room (movers, friends?); what was done with the old one; what was the old one like and how is this one better; who likes the sofa, or not, & why; what is done on the sofa (sleep, watch TV, eat, chill out).  Basically everything you need to know and more to satisfy the curiosity of a person obsessed with the sofa.  Then maybe one more object greatly explored and that’s it until the next class when you start looking at more possibilities.

This isn’t always easy.  There are a number of options, depending on your circumstances.  Here are a few:

Teaching English in this day and age is a good time to be doing it.  Never before have there been such resources available to help the teacher.  Below are some suggested sources to help you in your quests and I’m sure you will find others as well.

More sources can be found directly through the internet.  Some good ones are suggested below but there are always new sites and updated older ones with a wealth of new ideas you can use.  The sites listed here don’t require you to register or be a member.

FEEDBACK

And that’s it for now.  If this has been helpful to you in any way or if you have some suggestions, I would love to hear from you.  Simply go to Contact and send in your comments.  As mentioned early, receiving feedback goes a long way in shaping how materials and ideas are approached and a brief comment or two is very appreciated.