Facilitating a Conversational Class

In November, I attended the annual American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) conference in San Diego. The conference was invaluable, and I am grateful to CMC for the opportunity. I could write for days to process all that I learned and saw, but for you I will sum it up! I teach Conversational Spanish in Carbondale, but the following tips could be used in any class where dynamic discussion is a goal.


Strategies for Facilitating Discussion (from a workshop with Dr. B. Rifkin from The College of New Jersey)

Activity Frameworks:

• Discussion contribution coupons: each student has 3 (or any number) of coupons or tickets for the discussion. Each person must use one ticket to make one comment in the discussion. No one may make more comments than the tickets they have until all tickets have been used. This engages the students in the discussion (they are plotting when to speak) and forces the more vocal students to wait and the quieter ones know they must contribute.
• Image without sound: Show a video- a film, a clip from Youtube, etc., but turn off the sound. The possibilities are endless: write the script, make a vocab list, write the ending, guess the country. When the sound is removed, the students really focus on the visual clues.
• Provocative image or statement: Show a photo or a quote, something that engages the students. Allow conversation. It's that easy!

When facilitating a conversational class, certain things are important for the instructor to remember, including:

• Create a safe environment with ground rules for respect
• Use open-ended questions
• Don't look students in the eye when they are speaking (this forces them to address the class instead of just to the instructor)
• Ask students to respond to each other, each comment doesn't need a teacher validation
• Paraphrase what the students say, write it on the board, attach their name to their idea

Please contact me if you would like any further information about facilitating discussions or ACTFL! ldeare@coloradomtn.edu