LIA BANDUNG IN FLASH

Monday 22 August 2016

HOW TO SURVIVE A CONVERSATION (Conversation Class)

Oftentimes, the students in our English Classes (even in Conversation Class) find it uneasy to develop a  conversation and to make it last longer. When they have topics in hand, they just skip from one topic to another so quickly and meaningless. They tend to ask just one question for each topic meaning that if they have even 10 topics to discuss, they would complete their conversation in merely less than ONE minute!
Practicing in pairs making a longer and more meaningful conversation
To anticipate this, the students are therefore to encourage to ask more questions to build up a better and more meaningful conversation. When they can ask more questions for each topic, they eventually enhance their speaking ability in terms of fluency. People say "practice makes perfect"; no pain, no gain. Without practicing, they cannot become a fluent speaker of English. Too much theory will kill their inventive creativity.

The following steps may help teachers in giving their students more chances to practice:

FIRST STEPS: Ask the students to list down as many as 3 questions to ask their friends. The questions may vary in topics. Topics which are oftentimes chosen by the students are those dealing with hobbies, sports, music, foods/drinks, celebrities. But sometimes when coming to certain students with special interests, the topics may shift into a more challenging ones such as religion, universe, politics, futuristic concepts, etc. We cannot just limit their creativity and imagination since both are precious assets in enriching the conversation so as to make it more interesting to the both speakers and listeners involved in the conversation.

SECOND STEPS: Say, you have only six students in the classroom. Then they will sit face to face (look at the picture above) to have a conversation. Since each student has made 3 questions by his own, so in each pair then they will have 6 questions to start with. It is certainly more than enough for a 12 minute conversation. The pairs have to make a trivial conversation using the questions they have made. Every 12 minutes the teacher gives a sign that they will have to change partners. Since there are 6 students in the class, each student will have a chance to "make a conversation" with 5 different partners. All in all, they will practice their English in 60 non-stop minutes.

TIPS TO SURVIVE A CONVERSATION:


  1. Pick a topic (pick a question).
  2. Ask your partner Questions dealing with the topic
  3. LISTEN to your partner's ANSWERS
  4. USE the ANSWERS for your next questions
  5. Go back to number 3
  6. If you get bored (with the topic), get stuck (cannot ask more), then go back to number 1
  7. Don't give up easily on ONE TOPIC
The teacher has to practice the tips above with the students before they practice by themselves. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments system

Disqus Shortname