David's conversation class

The conversation class I have once a week with teenagers (16-18 years old) continues to be a rich forum for observations about how a group evolves. It also keeps confirming what I'm seeing that each group has a quite different character and what one group will respond to and go with will be quite different from another. We've all seen this in a more 'coursebooky' frame too, when we try to use the same material on a second group at the same level and it bombs.

I'd like to recap what the initial premises of it were if you haven't heard about this class.

I was given a class which I was told was a conversation class. (You know, extra lessons with a real native speaker, and paradoxical as I try to talk as little as possible) This was great for me because it meant I had the mandate not to use any other materials apart from us and our ideas. It's an extra lesson for them and they chose to have it (maybe their parents in some cases). There are no marks. about 9 to 12 students come.

It has a simple but clearly defined format or structure which leaves a lot of space for...

Phase 1

When the youth come they divide into pairs and talk on a subject of their choice for about 5 minutes in English. Last week I asked them if they wanted us to go around the group asking for feedback of their conversations but they pretty unanimously agreed that their conversations were not for repeating in the group format. That is an unusual thing for a language class. I suspect that the fact that I, as teacher, respect their right not to report on their private conversations has a strong psychological (I would say psychic) effect on the teenagers in the sense of showing them that I trust and respect them as people.

Also I did a thing where I drew a vertical line on the board with 100% at the top 50% in the middle and 0% at the bottom. I asked each pair to tell me how much of the time they were speaking in English. I moved the chalk up the board and they told me stop at their percentage, if you get me. The average was about 70-75% and one pair's was about 80 plus.

During this part I am available to supply unknown words.

Phase 2

We move the desks and chairs to form a circle. One person is the chair (not me) and they ask each person in turn to say something about their week or plans. The chair asks if there are any questions and then moves on to the next person.

Phase 3

A game and or a discussion

We decide on what will be done in the rest of the lesson. It's often a wordgame of some kind. One person maybe the quizmaster or organiser and if it's a discussion the chair. We decide on the game or the topic by voting.

We came up with a list of guidelines for discussion which the chair holds eg. the chair can ask someone to speak who hasn't said anything recently.

As far as our dogme discussion goes;

We can be ourselves as people and talk about real things, we don't play roles.

The content of the lesson is unpredictable but the structure of the lesson is predictable.

We always find something to talk about, although they may be problems finding topics.

Time is a crucial factor. The group, because of the atmosphere of mutual trust, has evolved. Some people who were shyer at the beginning now say more than they said before.

Individuals are learning skills which can be applied to other situations.

Learning to use one's linguistic resources to the full, making use of conversational partners to cover over the gaps. Learning what it's like to be part of a group, make group decisions. Practice taking the role of facilitator in a group.

Recently a learner from another group used a great expression to describe what she sees as my approach to the learning situation and what she's starting to do. You have to 'polepiæ' the language together. That means you have a certain amount of language with gaps between one bit and the next. The skill is to stick (polepiæ) those bits together, in order to find meaning or get across something to someone else.

And the important things is that the learner has to do the sticking.