Turn and talk
Sharon Ahlquist, Sweden
This cooperative learning activity suits all ages. First, you need a conversation topic. For younger learners, it might be their dream holiday or what they did at the weekend. Older learners can review what they remember from the previous lesson. You can also use it with story work. Possible topics can be predicting what happens next, and about the actions of a particular character. I recently used this with student teachers in connection to group oral presentations of the classroom tasks they had created. They were told on the day of the presentations that I would ask them about this in our next seminar, but I did not say how.
It works like this:
Tell the learners they are going to talk to two partners about the stated topic, one at a time. Each person should think about what they and their partners have in common.
First, they talk to one partner, for perhaps a minute. Then they turn and talk to someone else for another minute. After this, they prepare to say what the three of them had in common, if anything. Ask everybody to say something.
Having the same conversation at least twice (there could be more partners if time allows but then there is also more to remember) promotes: active listening; fluency; use of more words; and more confidence. It’s also fun!