Tiny Talk 2a Teachers Book Pdf ((FULL))
Astri Gierut
Dr. Jack C Richards is an applied linguist, writer, and teacher trainer. He is the co-author of Speak Now, a four-level speaking course that helps students to communicate with confidence. In this article, he looks at small talk in conversational English.
Small talk refers to communication that primarily serves the purpose of social interaction. Small talk consists of short exchanges that usually begin with a greeting, move to back and forth exchanges on non-controversial topics such as the weekend, the weather, work, school, etc., and then often conclude with a fixed expression such as See you later. Such interactions are at times almost formulaic and often do not result in a real conversation. They serve to create a positive atmosphere and to create a comfort zone between people who might be total strangers. While seemingly a trivial aspect of speaking, small talk plays a very important role in social interaction.
Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) often have deficits in interpersonal skills due to limited social-communication opportunities. Knowing how to engage in "small talk" or simple social conversational exchanges can be beneficial in postsecondary schooling, employment sites, community environments, and social gatherings. Recently, covert audio coaching (CAC) showed a positive impact on increasing conversational exchanges. As the COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for remote delivery tools, we explored the effectiveness of remote audio coaching (RAC) to teach this skill to college students with IDD. We used a multiple baseline design across participants to examine whether RAC might increase on-topic, small talk conversational exchanges. Results demonstrated that RAC effectively increased small talk skills between participants and a confederate. Upon removal of RAC, all participants still performed above their baselines, with two participants maintaining near mastery levels 2 weeks after the intervention was removed. Limitations and future research are discussed.
This Tiny Talk was given at the first EmbraceRace Early Childhood Summit on December 3, 2022. Watch more of the Summit and find out more about the contributors here. The transcript of this talk follows.
Small talk is a fundamental social skill that helps individuals initiate conversations, build connections, and establish rapport with others. It is a brief, polite conversation that covers light topics such as recent events, shared interests, and personal experiences. For students, mastering the art of small talk can improve their social-emotional learning, enhance their communication skills, and foster a sense of belonging in various social settings. In this blog post, we will discuss a no-prep activity for educators to teach small talk effectively, as well as provide discussion questions, related skills, and next steps to support students in their social-emotional development.
In addition to small talk, there are several other relevant skills that can help students enhance their social-emotional learning and improve their communication abilities. Some of these skills include:
We now offer a 90-minute workshop/lunch that allows ITAs to explore the purposes of small talk and practise it in a low-stakes setting. The workshop combines background content, research and strategy instruction with engaged, active learning through experience, practice and reflection.
The workshop space is divided into settings (corners of the room, or even the hallway); workshop attendees will move from setting to setting for 15 minutes. Each setting has a written description of the context and instructions for the students. As students move from one side of the room to the other, they will choose a role card (A or B). Card A will open and close the small talk conversation. A third card describes the setting and context, and prompts students to use specific topics.
The workshop ends with a final video of blunders in small talk. Late-night talk show hosts often model poor small talk as part of their humour; now that the students know the rules, they can critique what the speakers do wrong. In one case, host David Letterman asks former US president Barak Obama how much he weighs.
The topic of small talk can be great for a first lesson, linking smoothly to the conversations that the teacher and students naturally have in the first class. It also ties in well with needs analysis questions on their use of English at work, in their free time, etc. Small talk can also be linked to:
Situations in which they might need to make small talk are almost infinite, including less obvious situations like at the beginning of teleconferences and at the end of phone calls. However, for other students who are less likely to use English outside class you might want to concentrate on questions, topics, etc which they will be able to use with their future teachers and classmates in class and/ or with fellow hotel guests, taxi drivers etc while on holiday.
This also helps give students the idea that English small talk conversations tend to consists of short turns, with who is speaking changing often (in contrast to the mini-presentations that small talk can sometimes be in other cultures).
The easiest way of smoothly starting the topic of small talk is simply asking students a few questions about their lives in the first class and at the beginning and/ or end of subsequent classes. Most teachers do this naturally, but it can be exploited further by:
The obvious next step is to get students to ask the same or similar questions to each other and/ or to the teacher. I tend to do this by giving them a list of good and bad small talk questions and/ or topics and asking them to carefully choose the most suitable to ask each other (given their real situation or imagining that they are in the roleplay situation that I have explained).
With larger classes, the smoothest start to this topic is probably giving out a blank form with spaces to fill in as they ask their partner about their jobs, studies, language learning experience, etc. I then give them a list of typical small talk questions that they could use to find out more about those topics. This activity can be combined with needs analysis questions and topics if you want to find out more about why they are studying English, their weak points etc during the same stage.
Students roleplay small talk conversations, e.g. meeting strangers on a train (as the name of this game suggests) or meeting an old uni friend after a long time. They choose or are given words, phrases, sentences or topics that they must use naturally during the conversation. When the conversation finishes, they all have to try to guess what things their partner(s) had to slip into the conversation. To make it more difficult to guess, they should make sure that the things are smoothly slipped into the conversation and that they use many other phrases, topics, etc to provide trick answers.
Putting the jigsaw back together is more challenging for students if you give them two dialogues mixed up. In this case they have to divide the cards up and then put each dialogue in order, something which is also useful for showing the differences between small talk in different situations. For example, if you have one dialogue between people who are meeting for the first time and another dialogue between people are good friends, students can split the phrases into the two kinds, and then put them in order. After checking that, they can then try to remember suitable phrases for each situation after they put them in order.
Small talk sounds easy enough, but it can be a challenge for those who struggle with social communication. A two-way conversation can quickly end in awkward silence, embarrassment or can become one-sided.
2. Topics for Small Talk: Help your child make a list of topics that most people like to talk about in shorter conversations (e.g., the weather, learning what the person is doing at school, work or in other activities, asking questions about what is going on in their life, a new pet or sport, etc.).
You might want to consider running a music group that isn't a franchise. I run Kindermusik classes in Surrey to about 100 families a week and my start up was low because I didnt have to pay out franchise fees. My job fits perfectly around my kids and I earn a reasonable amount for the hours I teach.
I paid for the training and a yearly licence fee. I also recruit new teachers for UK/Ireland - if you have any questions let me know
For many adults, teenagers and tweens, making small talk can feel nothing short of torture. Unsure of what questions to ask to keep a conversation going, when to chime in or what topics to talk about, their conversations are stilted.
Bonds are not created overnight. Small talk and light conversations help people connect and feel each other out to see if a deeper connection is possible or desired. Easy chats like this are the doorways to increased sharing and deeper intimacy between friends.
Anxious and introverted people are often unsure how to proceed with conversations. Often this sense of dis-ease is fueled by past experiences where small talk or conversations were awkward or not so easily created. Past experiences like this can leave a person who is already a bit unsure of the world feeling confused, nervous or worried about how to even get started. And this is especially when they are trying to avoid the same outcomes they experienced in the past.
The goal of small talk depends on the person you are talking to. If you are trying to bridge from small talk to a friendship, then finding out more about the person and adding to the conversation is key.
One easy suggestion is to respond based on what you have in common. The more you chat with someone and engage in shared experiences, the more you get to know them and the more you have to talk about. Practice staying on topic and note if the other speaker is veering to a new topic or staying with the original topic.
dd2b598166