Teaching Interpersonal Speaking

Comfortable conversation in the target language is our students’ main goal. Effective instruction in interpersonal speaking can help them achieve it.

“Across all grades, course levels, and languages, my students’ main reason for taking a language is a desire to speak and connect with others in the target language.”

At the beginning of each school year, I ask my students to share their goals for taking a world language class. Their answers are amazingly consistent. Nobody ever mentions verb conjugation, grammar, or other isolated skills. Sometimes kids mention specific topics they would like to learn about, and sometimes their answers are related to academic requirements (“I want to pass” or “I need it for college”). But far and away, the number one answer is the same - across grades, course levels, and languages. My students’ main reason for taking French or Spanish is a desire to speak and connect with others in the target language. In professional terms, they want to develop interpersonal speaking proficiency.

For example, my beginning French students wrote:

• I hope in this class we can speak French pretty well and be able to understand at least some of the things that the teacher and other people are saying in the class.

• My goal is to learn to casually speak French.

• I want to learn how to speak french in a cool and fun way

• I hope we are able to speak a decent amount of French by the end of the semester 

• I want to learn the basic things I would need to have a conversation with someone.

By level 4, students have essentially the same goal.

• In this class I hope we put an emphasis on working on speaking 

• My goal is to have more complex conversations in French.

• I hope we learn how to converse with one another. 

• I want to learn better ways to speak and produce more personal questions, to be able to speak the language better

• I hope we will be comfortable speaking with each other and making mistakes.

And from time to time students in every level will ask questions like, “How long until I can really say whatever I want?”  How long until I can understand native speakers?

These comments may betray some naivete about the language learning process.  But as a teacher, it’s important to recognize my students’ felt needs and motivations for taking my class.  For many, interpersonal conversation is their primary goal.

Research supports my classroom observations.

In a 2018 study, researcher Yasmin Darancik surveyed 200 world language learners.  Significant majorities of participants agreed that speaking is the hardest skill, but also the skill that is most enjoyable and the skill they most value.  71% of participants felt their own speaking was inadequate, and there was a strong desire for more interpersonal speaking practice and instruction in language classes.  Darancik concludes world language ”instruction should focus on speaking more intensely” to better align with student motivation and needs.

It seems students, teachers, and researchers all agree - interpersonal speaking is critically important and deserves concentrated focus in our classrooms!

So, what does well-designed interpersonal speaking instruction look like?    

According to ACTFL, effective interpersonal tasks:   

• “rely on natural language functions, such as requesting information or expressing preferences

• emphasize meaning-making and focus less on accuracy

• are rooted in the intended proficiency outcomes of the learners

• align with learners’ desires to communicate in social and professional contexts

• address gestures and other nonverbal nuances of language that combine with oral communication to convey meaning

• occur throughout as well as at the end of any thematic unit

• are used for more open-ended assessment that is evaluated holistically through the lens of proficiency based on comprehension (what the learner understands) and comprehensibility (how well the learner is understood).”

All of this looks great!  Love it!

So, how do I make this happen in my classroom?

The truth is, interpersonal speaking is quite difficult to practice…

…especially for learners at lower proficiency levels.  Interpersonal speaking is - by definition -  spontaneous, but novice learners can only - by definition - produce words and phrases they have memorized.  It took me a long time to figure out how to balance these two realities to support genuine interpersonal speaking practice in my level 1 or 2 classroom.

I tried one extreme: asking students to memorize a fill-in-the-blank conversation.  But this destroyed the spontaneity intrinsic to interpersonal speaking.  Plus it was boring.  Plus the kids figured out shortcuts.  No real communication took place.

“Interpersonal speaking is - by definition - spontaneous, but novice learners can only - by definition - produce words and phrases they have memorized.”

I also tried the other extreme: giving students an open-ended task like “talk about your family and ask your partner about their family”.  This never worked well.  Most students mumbled a few halfhearted sentences before the conversation petered out.

I spent years wrestling with this paradox, wanting to give even my beginners experience with true communicative exchange.  A principle I abide by is that when my students do not perform as desired, the answer is always “more structure”.  But how to provide structure in a skill that requires spontaneity?

The answer turned out to be Conversation Templates! 

A Conversation Template assigns each student a role to play and provides broad direction to the conversation, while allowing students flexibility in their choice of details and wording. 

Here’s an example:  

This Conversation Template scaffolds interpersonal speaking for novice world language students.

Conversation Templates have been critical to effective interpersonal speaking practice in my classroom.  

Click to access this free sample Conversation Template

Here’s how I use them:

Step 1:  Hand out the Conversation Templates and give students about 10 minutes to try the conversation with their partner.  If students get stuck, they can use notes but they shouldn’t write out a script.  If students finish, they should switch roles and try again.

While students speak (struggle?) I circulate and take notes about what is hard.  Are kids struggling to formulate a specific question?  Missing vocabulary?  Unable to politely decline, or disagree, or ask for more information? Lacking interjections or connecting words?  Need slang?  Jot it all down.

Step 2:  Direct teach on what you observed.  Practice pronunciation, structures, and usage.  This is a great time to pull in grammar that students have learned, but not really internalized.   Kids will be more attentive to this lesson because they see the usefulness of the grammar and are anxious to try it.  Vocabulary instruction is equally effective during this step, particularly for those abstract but necessary words that are so difficult to integrate into expressive language.

“Kids will be more attentive to this grammar instruction because they see the usefulness of the grammar and are anxious to try it.”

Before ending this part of the lesson, I always give students time to ask for vocabulary they need.  Their questions can be surprising, and often inform my future instruction.  We’ll easily spend 15 or more minutes on step 2.

Step 3:  Try again.  Using all their newfound knowledge, students try the conversation template a second time. Give kids time to delve in here - try with their original partner, with a new partner, switch roles… I let this activity continue for at least 10 minutes, but often longer.  Communicating is still a struggle, but it's a manageable struggle!  Students start to see how the vocabulary they’ve learned can fit into a conversation.  They begin to circumlocute.  They listen to their partner and respond.  They start to communicate strong emotion and humor!  I find students are enthusiastic and want to try the conversation multiple times, because they can see the progress they have made from their first attempt.  

“Students are enthusiastic and want to try the Conversation Template multiple times, because they can see the progress they made from their first attempt.”

Step 4:  Demonstrate.  Whenever we practice interpersonal speaking, my students know they might be called on to demonstrate for their peers.  It’s important to create a warm classroom community, otherwise this is too scary for some kids!  (Read my blog post on developing a supportive classroom community here.)  Sometimes I call on students randomly, sometimes I give them warning during step 3.  Sometimes they demonstrate with their original partner, sometimes with a random partner, and sometimes with me.  Speaking in front of the class can be intimidating, but with encouragement, practice, and the shared experience of working through the Conversation Template under their belt, I find students are usually willing to give it a try.

The demonstration step is a great place for students to shine!  If I hear students doing a great job as they practice, I compliment them and ask if they’d be willing to share with the class.  If I have a student who is reluctant to speak or who struggles with French, I’ll practice with them individually during step 3 to prepare for sharing with the class.  

Conversation Templates have been a game changer in my classroom! 

In my next blog post, I’ll share some tips for writing them, and I’ll explain why I always provide the Templates in English - even in my upper levels.  

In the meantime, please try out the free sample from this blog in your classroom, and let me know how it went in the comments!

You can access my entire collection of Conversation Templates, organized for a variety of topics and proficiency levels, on my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Happy Conversing!