How To Teach Conversation Lessons

Conversation lessons can seem like a dream come true. Being paid to have a fat chat with your students sounds like the best kind of lesson for a teacher. But in actual fact, there are more to conversation lessons than meets the eye. Think about it: would you pay good money to have a conversation you could just as well have in a pub or on a date? We don’t think so. So even though there are some really awesome perks to teaching conversation lessons, you need to also bear in mind that they are still English language lessons.

Not sure how to incorporate teaching elements into your conversation lessons? Here are a few of our favourite ideas:

Start your conversation lessons off right

No matter what EFL lesson you are teaching, you need to start the lesson off right. This ensures your students are engaged and interested and will participate in the lesson to follow. The first step in teaching a conversation class is to focus on the topic of the lesson. What are the students going to talk about?

Once this has been decided, it is up to you to find a way to introduce the topic in a motivating way. Some no-fail ways to do this are to watch a video clip, use powerful images or pose thought-provoking questions.

Be smart with your conversation choices

The topic that you choose to talk about is vital to the success of your lesson. Be sure to choose a topic which is relevant and appropriate to your students. Choose a topic that they have a certain amount of knowledge about and are able to comment on. If you choose a topic they know nothing about or which doesn’t appeal to them, you can’t expect much involvement from them.

Not sure what will interest your students? Talk to them. Get to know them and you will soon get to know their interests.

Set up a clear task

Even though this is a conversation lesson, your students still need to have a task. There needs to be something specific that they can accomplish. This will be the heart of the lesson. This can be a discussion, a debate or an interview.

Don’t forget to incorporate language

If there is one thing you must remember to include in  conversation lessons, it’s a language point. This is what will differentiate a conversation with a conversation lesson. Introduce the language point by modelling the language and the speaking task. Then, once you have focused on and discussed the language point, your students will be able to use that language in their own productions.

Make no mistake, conversation lessons can be great fun and a nice break from traditional EFL lessons. However, don’t forget that you are teaching English as a Foreign Language and not just having a conversation.