Teaching Students Conversations Skills
As language teachers, we often celebrate when our students produce accurate sentences, use correct grammar, or demonstrate a wide range of vocabulary. But there’s a persistent gap many of us recognise: students who can speak English still struggle to hold a conversation.
This is where conversation skills come in. Conversation is not just speaking. It’s a collaborative, spontaneous process, built turn by turn between participants. Teaching students to truly interact requires us to go beyond traditional language instruction and focus on the sub-skills that make conversations flow naturally.
Speaking vs Conversing: What’s the Difference?
In many classrooms, speaking activities are closer to performances than real conversations. Students produce rehearsed answers, deliver mini-monologues, and wait for their turn rather than actively listening. This is what Scott Thornbury (2002) calls “speaking as display”, language used to demonstrate knowledge rather than actually communicate meaning.
Real conversation, by contrast, is unpredictable. It involves reacting to others, adapting to new topics, and managing interaction in real time. This is why students who perform well in controlled speaking tasks may struggle in real-world situations, especially when speaking to unfamiliar or fluent interlocutors.
For teachers across Europe, where students often learn English in formal classroom settings, bridging this gap is essential.
Why Conversation Skills Need to Be Taught
Conversation skills are not intuitive, as even native speakers sometimes struggle with them. Cultural differences also play a role: what counts as polite interruption or appropriate turn-taking varies between languages.
Without explicit instruction, learners may:
- Interrupt too abruptly, or not at all
- Fail to change topics smoothly
- Avoid asking for clarification
- Produce short, closed responses
Teaching conversation skills helps learners move from classroom English to real-life communication, where success depends not just on what you say, but also on how you interact.
Six Essential Conversation Sub-Skills
1. Changing Topic
Many learners either stick rigidly to one topic or switch abruptly without signalling. This can make conversations feel disjointed.
Teach learners discourse markers such as:
- “Anyway, moving on…”
- “That reminds me…”
- “By the way…”
A useful classroom approach is a Task–Teach–Task cycle: let students attempt a discussion, highlight missing transitions, teach the language, then repeat the task.
2. Turn-Taking
Turn-taking is central to conversation. Some students dominate discussions, while others struggle to enter them.
Teach phrases for:
- Starting a turn: “Can I just add…?”
- Holding a turn: “Just to finish what I was saying…”
- Giving up a turn: “What do you think?”
Roleplays and structured tasks (e.g. negotiation activities) can help students practise managing turns more naturally.
3. Interrupting Politely
Interrupting is a particularly challenging skill, as it’s deeply cultural. In English-speaking contexts, interruptions are often softened with polite language.
Examples include:
- “Sorry to interrupt, but…”
- “Can I just ask…?”
- “If I could just come in there…”
Activities where students “break into” ongoing conversations can help build confidence and awareness.
4. Ensuring Mutual Understanding
Some learners avoid admitting they don’t understand, while others fail to check whether their listener is following. This can quickly lead to communication breakdown.
Teach strategies such as:
- “Sorry, did you say…?”
- “Do you mean…?”
- “Does that make sense?”
Pairing students of different levels can be particularly effective, as it forces both sides to negotiate meaning.
5. Playing for Time
Silence in conversation can feel uncomfortable, especially for learners. Teaching fillers and hesitation language helps students maintain fluency while thinking.
Useful phrases include:
- “Let me think for a second…”
- “That’s an interesting question…”
- “Well, how can I put it…”
Rather than discouraging fillers, teachers should present them as a natural part of spoken language.
6. Adjacency Pairs
These are predictable conversational exchanges, such as:
- “How are you?” → “Fine, thanks, and you?”
- “Thanks.” → “You’re welcome.”
Learners often give minimal or incomplete responses, which can make conversations feel flat. Encourage them to extend responses and add follow-up questions.
Integrating Conversation Skills into Lessons
One of the most important messages from the webinar is that conversation skills should not be taught in isolation. Instead, they should be embedded within communicative tasks.
A useful framework is:
Task → Model → Practise → Reflect → Repeat
For example:
- Students complete a speaking task.
- The teacher highlights interaction issues.
- Students analyse model dialogues.
- They practise specific sub-skills.
- They repeat the task with improved interaction.
Recording students and encouraging self-reflection can also be highly effective.
Practical Classroom Techniques
Here are some simple but powerful strategies teachers can use:
- Video analysis: Watch conversations and identify interaction patterns.
- Conversation grids: Track who speaks, how often, and for how long.
- Micro-skills focus: Dedicate each lesson to one sub-skill.
- Game-based speaking tasks: Use timed discussions or problem-solving activities to simulate real communication pressure.
- Peer feedback: Encourage students to observe and comment on each other’s interaction skills.
Additional Skills Worth Teaching
Beyond the six core areas mentioned above, teachers can also develop:
- Active listening: Using backchanneling (“uh-huh,” “right,” “exactly”)
- Opening and closing conversations: “Mind if I join you?” / “I’d better get going”
- Self-repair: “Sorry, let me say that again…”
- Non-verbal communication: Eye contact, gestures, and tone
These elements are often overlooked but play a crucial role in natural interaction.
Final Thoughts
If we want our students to use English confidently outside the classroom, we need to rethink how we teach speaking. Accuracy and vocabulary are important, but they are not enough.
Conversation is a shared, dynamic process, shaped by culture, context, and interaction. By explicitly teaching conversation sub-skills and embedding them into our lessons, we can help learners move from simply producing language to truly communicating.
Ultimately, the goal is not perfect grammar; it’s meaningful interaction. And when students can navigate real conversations with confidence, that’s when language learning becomes truly powerful.
Reference
Thornbury, S., (2002) How to Teach Speaking. London: Pearson.
