Conversation Class Resources - August 2020

There are a plethora of conversation class topics out there to choose from. Here are some of our favorites from the past several months along with how we approached them.

Word Associations

From the Internet TESL Journal, this is a fantastic and fascinating activity for practicing vocabulary and discovering what things come to mind when you think of specific words. If you want to spend a class talking about a diverse range of subjects, this is a great way to do it. In the course of an hour and a half long class, we discussed about 11 different words. Follow-up questions to expand the conversation is key to making this topic work.

Some of the words we talked about included: Friday, Africa, Hippie, Beauty, Hero, Villain, Catastrophe, Rain, Intelligent, California, and Happiness.

Generalizations

This was a topic which we were initially uncertain of but proved to be a lot of fun and another interesting one from the Internet TESL Journal. We started out with a powerpoint about generalizations and the ways in which English speakers make them, courtesy of information found on english-at-home.com. The powerpoint was followed up with discussion about a list of generalizations, whether we agree or disagree, whether the same generalizations are made in Peru and the US, and so forth. Some generalizations that we discussed included:

Married people are boring.
You can’t be friends with your boss.
Men are bad at expressing their feelings.
Mathematics are for intelligent people.

In the course of the discussion, other generalizations can come up naturally. You can also follow-up discussion of the list of generalizations by asking what other types of generalizations your students have heard.

We ended the class with a few concluding questions:

What are your thoughts about generalizations?
Do you think they are helpful?
Are generalizations a good thing?

Persuasion

Sometimes we like to start a discussion off with a fun video to get everyone thinking about the topic at hand. Here’s the video we started the class about persuasion with:

After the video, we then followed a lesson plan we found on Lesson Plans Digger. First, we had a short discussion about what persuasion is in general and the students’ experiences with persuasion. Questions included:

What is persuasion?
When is an example of a time that you had to persuade someone?
Are you easily persuaded to do things?
Do you agree with this opinion: Persuasion is often more effective than force.

Then, we talked about some sample situations and asked the class to come up with sample arguments both for and against the situation. The situations we used were:

Your friend isn’t sure if they should accept a new job.
Your friend isn’t sure if they should buy an expensive apartment in the city center.
Your friend isn’t sure if they should take language courses over the weekend.

After coming up with our own for and against arguments for each, we then reviewed a list of examples of persuasive language that corresponded to the sample situations and discussed what made each phrase persuasive. The phrases included:

Don’t you think that it would really help you find a better job?
Can’t you see that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity?
I’m telling you it’s a great investment.
You won’t be sorry if you try!

Class was ended with a couple of additional sample situations. We used:

Your friend thinks she should ask for a raise but isn’t sure if the time is right.
Your friend isn’t sure if she should apply for a scholarship abroad.

Giving Advice/The Love Clinic

We really wanted to do a class that utilized the Love Clinic Activity so decided to combine the Love Clinic with a general topic that focused on giving advice. We started the class by reading several articles from a relationship advice column. We tried a couple of columns and especially liked the articles on LoveLetters. We recommend opting for articles that are on the shorter side to keep the class flowing. Here are three articles which we used in a past class:

Once we finished reading through an article, we went back to the advice-giver’s response and had students offer their input on some good techniques and phrases the advice-giver used.

After the articles, we followed-up with a general discussion about giving advice, utilizing the following questions:

Do you give advice often?
Who gives you advice?
How do you give advice?
What are some phrases that you can use to give advice?
How do you answer a person’s concerns? (i.e. utilize your own experience, give an educated guess...?)

Then, it was time for the Love Clinic Activity. In this activity, one student poses as the “love doctor” and the others act as “patients”. Students took turns being patients and love doctors. After going through a few advice-giving rounds, we ended the class with just a couple of reflection questions for the activity:

What were some of the most effective techniques for giving advice?
If you had a chance to re-do the way you gave advice, what would you do differently?

Small Talk

We started off the small talk discussion with the following YouTube video:

We then had a discussion about small talk, what it is, when you do it, and ways in which to go about it. Questions included:

What is “small talk”?
When do you use small talk?
What are some examples of ways in which you can start a conversation with someone?
What are some examples of good conversation topics for small talk?
What are some examples of topics to avoid when making small talk?
How can you keep a conversation going?
How can you end a conversation?

We then ended with an activity called “Cocktail Party”, which we found on ESL Speaking, in which everyone had to act as if they were at a cocktail party for work/university which they went to with a friend who then abandoned them with all of these strangers. Consequently, they had to small talk.

This activity was followed up with reflection: what went well, what did the students feel they could improve, and so forth.

What are some of your favorite conversation class topics? Let us know in the comments below!