Teaching Conversational Skills - Tips and Strategies

Teaching conversational skills can be challenging as not only English skills are required. English students who excel in conversation tend to be those with self-motivated, outgoing personalities. However, students who feel they lack this skill are often shy when it comes to conversation. In other words, personality traits that dominate in everyday life tend to appear in the classroom as well. As English teachers, it's our job to help students improve their conversational skills, but often 'teaching' is not really the answer.

The Challenge

Generally speaking, most English learners feel that they need more conversation practice. In fact, over the years I've noticed that the number one requested skill by students is conversational ability. Grammar, writing and other skills are all very important, but, for most students, conversation is the most important. Unfortunately, teaching conversational skills is much more challenging that teaching grammar as the focus is not on accuracy, but on production.

When employing role-plays, debates, topic discussions, etc., I have noticed that some students are often timid in expressing their viewpoints. This seems due to a number of reasons:

• Students don't have an opinion on the subject
• Students have an opinion, but are worried about what the other students might say or think
• Students have an opinion, but don't feel they can say exactly what they mean
• Students begin giving their opinion, but want to state it in the same eloquent manner that they are capable of in their native language

• Other, more actively participating students, feel confident in their opinions and express them eloquently making the less confident students more timid

Pragmatically, conversation lessons and exercises should first focus on building skills by eliminating some of the barriers that might be in the way of production.

Here are some suggestions to help 'free up' students in conversation.

• Point out that it's not necessary to always speak the truth in class. In fact, not worrying about exactly what happened can help free up students.
• Create lesson plans that focus on functional skills such as asking for permission, disagreeing, etc. rather than open ended lessons that students might find vague.
• Set micro-tasks such as the use of specific verbs, idioms, etc. within overall speaking tasks. 
• Use tasks such as information gathering or problem solving activities that encourage students to communicate in English in order to complete the tasks.

Here is a closer look at some of these ideas:

Focus on Function 

It's important to help students become familiar with language functions rather than focusing on a grammar based approach when developing lessons to help with conversational skills. Start off simple with functions such as: Asking permission, stating an opinion, ordering food in a restaurant, etc. 

Explore grammar issues by asking what linguistic formulas should be used to achieve the desired results. For example, if you are comparing two side of an argument which forms might be helpful (comparative, superlative, 'would rather', etc).

Use formulas to encourage correct usage such as:

• How / What about + Verb + Ing for making suggestions -> How about taking a trip to San Diego?
• Would you mind + Verb + Ing for making requests -> Would you mind giving me a hand?
• Would you rather + Verb + or + Verb for asking for preferences -> Would you rather take the train or drive?

Expand this approach slowly by asking students to create short role plays using cue cards. Once students become comfortable with target structures and representing differing points of view, classes can move onto more elaborated exercises such as debates and group decision making activities. 

Assign Points of View

Ask students to take on a specific viewpoint. Sometimes, it's a good idea to ask students to try to state opinions that they don't necessarily share. Having been assigned roles, opinions and points of view that they do not necessarily share, students are freed from having to express their own opinions.

Therefore, they can focus on expressing themselves well in English. In this way, students tend to concentrate more on production skills, and less on factual content. They also are less likely to insist on literal translations from their mother tongue.

This approach bears fruit especially when debating opposing points of view. By representing opposing points of view, students' imagination are activated by trying to focus on all the various points that an opposing stand on any given issue may take. As students inherently do not agree with the view they represent, they are freed from having to invest emotionally in the statements they make. More importantly, from a pragmatic point of view, students tend to focus more on correct function and structure when they do not become too emotionally involved in what they are saying.

Of course, this is not to say that students should not express their own opinions. After all, when students go out into the "real" world they will want to say what they mean. However, taking out the personal investment factor can help students first become more confident in using English. Once this confidence is gained, students - especially timid students - will be more self-assured when expressing their own points of view.

Focus on Tasks

Focusing on tasks is quite similar to focusing on function. In this case, students are given specific tasks they must complete in order to do well. Here are some suggestions on tasks that can help students practice their conversational skills:

• Create student surveys to gather information
• Team work activities such as treasure hunts
• Board games - especially games that require 
• Build something - group activities such as a science project or presentations allow everyone to join in the fun

Quick Review

Decide whether the following statements are true or false.

1. It's a good idea to have students report their experiences truthfully and in great detail.
2. General conversational activities are best for more advanced students while beginner should focus on functions.
3. Assigning point of view helps students focus on linguistic accuracy rather than stating exactly what they believe.
4. Problem solving teamwork tasks should be avoided as they are not realistic.
5. Outgoing students tend to be better at conversational skills.

Answers

1. False - Students shouldn't have to worry about telling the exact truth because they might not have the vocabulary.
2. True - Advanced students have the linguistic skills to deal with broader issues.
3. True - Assigning a point of view can help free up students to focus on form rather than on content. 
4. False - Problem solving requires teamwork and conversational ability.
5. True - Motivated outgoing students tend to allow themselves to make mistakes and thus speak more freely. 

https://www.thoughtco.com/teaching-conversational-skills-1211772

9 WAYS TO GET BACK INTO WORK MODE AFTER A HOLIDAY

The prospect of going back to work after a chocolate-and-rum-drenched vacation is a tough thing to face. Nothing is worse than having a gravy hangover while dealing with an inbox full of emails, and seriously, who is sending so many goddamned emails over Christmas?

But fret not! As a master of keeping my job after all sorts of absences, explained or otherwise, I've developed several tricks for just this situation. Here then, for your job-keeping pleasure, is a system of battle-tested tips you can use to get back into "work mode" after a long vacation.

1.      This might sound insane, the kind of suggestion that causes you to throw a thing of coffee completely through your monitor.   But hear me out. Well, first clean up your monitor, then hear me out. When you arrive to work early, there's usually no one else around, because arriving for work early is monitor-wrecking insane. But that means you can get stuff done without your colleagues giving you more work to do. Half the task of cleaning off your desk is moving crap on to someone else's desk, and if you can get all that done before people start shoveling it back to you, you can avoid that frustrating sensation of trying to clear a big pile of work while that pile is still growing.   So go ahead and roll into the office a couple hours early. It might hurt up front, but you will benefit in the long run. More importantly, you'll be able to make a huge ass of yourself lording it over everyone all day, which is, for me at least, perpetually one of my New Year's Resolutions.

2.       The reason coming back to work after a holiday is so depressing is because your brain is suffering under the weight of the knowledge that everything that is fun and good is behind you, and everything that is drudgery and whippings lies ahead.  The simplest way to break out of this is to find something in the future that's fun, something you can look forward too. This could be another vacation, but as that's probably still months away, why not pick something simpler, like the mini-vacation we get every day when we go home. What fun activity do you have planned for tonight? Visualize that, and watch it give you the energy you need to power through the day.

3.       OK, so you made it into work early and spent a good half hour or so visualizing leaving

4.        work. Now you're ready to start actual work. Only to be stopped cold by a password prompt. It turns out that the part of your brain responsible for remembering passwords was murdered by liqueur-filled chocolates about two weeks ago. You can try to tackle this by thinking about it really hard. Like, it ended with a 7, didn't it?  But that probably won't work so good. You might not even really consciously know your password, it being sort of this muscle-memory thing you do when you sit in front of a keyboard. Just stop thinking about it and start typing. And now you're locked out. Well, that's OK. IT can reset it for you. When they get to the office in an hour. Still, you can hardly be blamed if someone else's sloth is slowing you down. You're the hero of this story, the diligent worker being slowed down by parasites.

5.       You've Earned a Break. This is as good a time as any to take a breather and catch up with your co-workers as they start trickling in. After a holiday there's always a lot of chit-chat about what people did, and what they ate, and what airlines they're no longer welcome on. These conversations can keep a bit of that holiday cheer rolling, and that actually boosts morale a bit. By participating in it, you are legally working!

  

6.       Do the Easy Stuff First

               The chatter's done, your password is reset, and it's time to do actual work, because it's                           now like 11 a.m. Time to buckle up, then buckle down.  To start, I'd recommend knocking off the easy stuff first. This will give you a nice sense of momentum that can carry you into the harder tasks. First, go through your inbox and read all the emails that require no action on your part. You know the ones. Corporate newsletters, joke threads, that kind of thing. Nice, right? Avoid anything from your boss, or a client, or anyone that knows your actual name and what you do. If the subject line of the email implies it might contain work, just set that aside for now. So, what'd that do? Cleared like half the emails out of your inbox, didn't it? Nice! And you did that in like 10 minutes. At this pace, you'll be done with all your work by 11:20. That's almost insultingly efficient, and you now run a serious risk of making your co-workers look bad. In the interest of promoting a harmonious work environment, it's time to throttle back a bit. You know, I bet a ton of websites have put up great content for you to check out?

7.       Change Your Sitting Position

Now it's time to seriously get some stuff done, because everyone's been watching you chuckle at your computer in a way not normally associated with the act of performing grueling work, and also because that inbox has been filling back up pretty quickly. It's no longer time for jacking around. It's time to make a drastic change to your posture. More than just a way to preserve your spine and scare away predators, your posture can send subtle psychological signals to your brain that something is different. You relax when your feet are up and are more alert when you're standing, so let's use that to our advantage and get ourselves in an assertive, "not jacking around anymore" posture. Place your feet flat on the floor and lean forward slightly. Type something, doesn't matter what, as hard and as fast as possible. Feels good, right? Like you're accomplishing something vital.

8.       Put the Hard Stuff Into a List

OK, it's now like 1:30, because it turns out that lunchtime also had some pretty good content. So, carefully, carefully, open one of your hard emails and see what these people are asking you to do. Oh shit, that's a lot. Don't panic, though. What you're going to do now is take this tough, sweaty task and write it on a piece of paper. That was easy! Do it with all the rest of your emails, painstakingly copying all of the things you have to do on to this list, taking breaks as necessary to check the web for new content.

9.       3 to 4 p.m.

No one works between 3 and 4 p.m.

10.   Visualize Leaving (While Leaving)

Announce loudly, like, bang some spoons together first, that you got here early and are heading out for the day. "Tough getting out from all this holiday backlog," you can add while waving your to-do list around. "Might get some of this done on the train."

Don't do any work on the train. Do you see how easy that was? A whole day gone by, you lunging into work mode and getting tons done without feeling depressed at all. Sure, you now technically have more work to do than you started with and everyone is angry at you.  But by the time they get angry enough to bring out the big whip, you'll hopefully have made it to, like, Easter or something. Everyone will go on vacation for a few days, and when you get back the cycle can begin again.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/9-ways-to-get-back-into-work-mode-after-holiday/