So often, our beginner students just need enough language toget through day to day activities. Several of their English exchanges are quick 5-8 sentence conversations that fluent speakers take for granted. This activity allows for several one-on-one conversations on several day-to-day topics in a short amount of time.
Introduction:
Let students know that you will be reviewing several short conversations that you have been practicing over the course of their program, i.e. introductions, ordering food, etc. Give students a moment to think of some other short conversations they might have in their day-to-day lives. If they are having trouble, give some examples:
Making phone calls Visiting the doctor
Giving excuses for being late Greetings
Describing your family Telling personal information
……
Writing the topics on the board as they are mentioned might spur other conversation topics.
Once you get a good group of topics on the board, go through the ones you think might be challenging and ask for simple sentences or questions that might help the conversation move forward. For example, “giving excuses for being late”:
Questions: Why are you late? Where have you been? What happened?
Statements: I missed the bus. My watch stopped. The meeting ran long.
Information:
Students will be divided into two groups of equal number.Move all the desks and chairs out of the way and create a big open space in the middle of your classroom. Let half the students create a circle facing outward. Have the other half stand opposite a person in the circle. You now have an inner circle and an outer circle.
Let students know that you will be choosing a topic, at random, from the board to have pairs talk about. You will also have a timer. Depending on the topic, the conversation could last 60 seconds to 3 minutes.
Now it’s time for… Speed Networking!
Let the role-play begin! Make sure you give detailed instructions on what students should talk about. If you are asking them to talk about “visiting the post office”, let them know which person is the customer and which is the clerk. Let them know that the customer is going to mail a package to their home country.Give students time to think before they start talking. The instruction might go something like this:
(in a booming voice)VISITING THE POST OFFICE!
(regular voice) You are at the post office. The person in the inner circle is trying to mail a package to their home country. The person in the outer circle is the clerk. What questions will you ask? (wait 20 seconds). Then about the statements you might say (wait 20 seconds). Who will take the money (wait 20 seconds)? People in the outer circle, what are you doing? (Wait for the answer.)
People in the inner circle, what are you doing? (Wait for theanswer.)
Are you ready…? Quickly decide who’s going to talk first?
You have 2 minutes. (set the timer) Ready… set… go!
When the timer goes off, congratulate students on a job well done. But try not to linger. Once this conversation is over, have the outer circle move one person to the right, choose a new topic and repeat! We want to work on spontaneous speech… if we spend too much time thinking about what just happened, we might lose momentum for the next conversation.
Reflection:
Once you feel students have had their fill of conversations,reassemble the classroom and have students take their seat. Hand out a quick conversation chart about which conversations were easiest? Which were challenging?
Suggested adaptations:
If you would like to include reading and writing in the activity,have students write the speaking topics on small slips of paper and put them in an envelope. When students have a new partner, they pull a slip out of the envelope, read it, and role-play that topic. This could also save time at the end of class when students have toreflect of the conversations they just had. Collect envelopes.
