Running conversation classes might seem easy - just turn up and talk for an hour. You could do that. Or you could do a little bit more and make your conversation classes a lot more effective and easier to plan. Just remember about this:

#1 Lesson objective

Every lesson should have an objective. Before you start, think about what you want your students to accomplish. For a conversation lesson the main goal is to improve speaking and communication, of course. But there should always be an extra goal. For example, do you want your students to learn some new vocabulary or maybe practise a new grammar structure in speaking? A goal could also be just working on a particular mistake that a student keeps making. Having a goal for a lesson makes it easier for you to plan and it makes the student feel like they've really achieved something.

#2 Vary the activities

It is easy to base your conversation lesson on ... a conversation. But it's not always the best approach. A full hour of asking and answering discussion questions will be tiring for you and boring for your student. The solution to that is to vary the activities. The simplest way is to divide your lesson into three or four parts and base each part around a different communication or speaking activity. For example, a debate, a role-play scenario, an activity based on an article or a video, vocabulary practice.

#3 Fluency vs accuracy

Make sure you do a bit of fluency and accuracy practice in your conversation classes. What's the difference? In fluency practice you focus on the communication - your goal is to improve your student's fluency and confidence in speaking English. Accuracy practice focuses more on error correction. There should be balance between both. If you have too much fluency practice, your students might end up making a lot of errors that will be difficult to get rid of later on. And on the other hand, if you do too much accuracy practice, your student will never feel confident about their English.

Need more tips and guidance on teaching conversation classes?

The online training How to Teach Conversation Classes is your comprehensive guide.

Learn:

• how to structure your lessons,
• when (not) to correct errors and how to do it, 
• what speaking activities to use
• how to practise fluency and accuracy
• how to make your students talk
• how to adapt materials for speaking practice
• and a lot more.

Find out more HERE.