How do you plan conversation classes?

Thanks to everyone who joined us to think about planning conversation classes this morning.

There was a lot of interesting chat during the session about what a conversation class is and how we can find resources for them. Here are some of the questions which came up and our responses to them.

What is a conversation class?

This was quite a big question that we came back to a number of times during the session. We identified that it’s essential that we know what our learners’ expectations, needs and wants are. For example, is their focus more on fluency or accuracy? Do they want to ‘learn’ English and will our role by more that of a teacher or learning coach?

Is a conversation class just chatting?

For some learners, yes. For some it’s about increasing their confidence in conversation and feeling able to talk on a variety of topics with ease. Some learners want to have a natural conversation, others want more structure. Sometimes a conversation class might involve scaffolding a task with specific language we want them to use; other times there might be more of a task-based or TTT approach in which we do a conversational task, look at how to upgrade their language and then repeat a similar task again. Other times the conversation might be an extended engage stage which then leads on to a communicative task based on the topic, hopefully encouraging the learners to use some of the emergent language which has come up.

How can we plan these lessons?

We talked about who is responsible for planning the topic for the lessons. Some teachers said they liked to have something as a back-up if necessary, but were very happy to let the conversation happen naturally and take the lesson in the direction the learner(s) wanted (more of a Dogme approach). We also suggested having a functional syllabus as this would both allow us to develop our learners’ conversational skills whilst also feeling a sense of progress and structure in the lessons.

There was also an idea that a conversation class should have a linguistic aim, whether it’s functional language or thinking about one of the ‘Can do’ statements, e.g. ‘Can talk about experiences’. Again, this allows there to be a sense of progress within the lesson and provides a focus.

Another suggestion was to think of a broad topic, such as travel, and develop a series of lessons on that theme, perhaps covering a couple of weeks’ worth of meetings. This would then allow you to get into more specific details around the topic, such as ecotourism, local tourism, types of holiday, etc. without trying to cram too much into a single lesson.

What resources can we use?

Some people liked to set the learners a task ahead of the lesson, such as to read an article or think about some questions ahead of time.

Current affairs are a good go-to, though it’s worth being aware that our learners might not have the same background knowledge about a topic.

We talked about picking bits out of coursebooks – love them or not, they are a very useful resource, particularly if you do have the freedom to use the bits you want to without being tied to it.

Another suggestion was choosing a topic and giving learners (in a group class) time to write questions about it, then posting the questions around the room and having them mingle to discuss it. This is a nice way to focus on question formation too, as we noted that natural conversation often involves a lot of interaction through questions.

For younger learners and adults we talked about using ‘show and tell’ – this gives us a starting point for the conversation and also encourages a lot of natural communication in that a huge part of everyday communication is sharing experiences, admittedly perhaps not whilst holding a hoilday snapshot or other memento, but we talk naturally about what has happened to us.

The topic of debates came up as well and that debating in normal conversation can be very different across cultures. One teacher mentioned that she had set up some ‘proper’ debates with a group of teens – including someone to chair the debate – and that they had enjoyed the experience so much that they set up a debating society in their mainstream school. We also noted that if learners are told what their opinion will be, it can oftem make them research a topic more deeply and encourage them to ask for more language.

There were some useful shares as well:

Fluency First
60-second idea to change the world
10-step guide to teaching effective conversation classes
What’s going on in this pitcure? from the New York Times
Discussions A-Z (Cambridge)
Questions from the Internet TESL Journal

Feel free to add any others in the comments!

What are some of the challenges of this type of class?

From a teacher’s point of view, this type of work can be very tiring, especially if you’re trying to keep the conversation going in as natural a way as possible whilst thinking about how to upgrade your learners’ language, choosing which errors to give feedback on and trying to use a wider range of phrases naturally yourself. We said as well that part of our role as a conversation teacher/coach is to maintain interest in what the learner is saying in a natural, encouraging way.

It can also be difficult to get a sense of progress, which is why it’s important as well to identify what the learner hopes to get from the lesson. We suggested that learners could reflect at the end of sessions as to how much they enjoyed the lesson and how accurate/fluent/confident they felt they were. This also gives you the opportunity to assess in an ongoing way whether the classes are meeting their needs – if they originally said they ‘only’ wanted conversation practice but then feel they’re not making progress, it could be time to negotiate how the lessons take place.

Another option could be to record learners during one of your first sessions (with their permission, of course). You could then record them after a number of lessons and compare the two to give them tangible feedback.

Feedback was also a challenge we discussed, which again comes back to identifying expectations together with your learner(s). How much error correction do they want? And how can we upgarde their language?

We chatted briefly about the possibility of peer correction in a group class with one teacher saying that she set up a ‘Listen and Learn’ session. Although peer feedback wasn’t implicitly advertised, the idea was very much that participants could and would learn from each other.

Another issue is repetition, both in terms of the topics we discuss (which is where some kind of syllabus can come in handy) but also in encouraging learners to use new language so that it becomes more natural. One suggestion was to ban certain words or phrases (such as I agree or What do you think?).

Linking back to the idea of progress, we discussed whether there’s any takeaway from the lesson: do learners write down any emergent language? Is there a handout of any useful phrases if this has been the linguistic aim of the lesson?