Active listening techniques include:

• Being fully present in the conversation

• Showing interest by practicing good eye contact

• Noticing (and using) non-verbal cues

• Asking open-ended questions to encourage further responses

• Paraphrasing and reflecting back what has been said

• Listening to understand rather than to respond

• Withholding judgment and advice

In the simplest form of classroom survey practice, the teacher hands out ready-made questions—maybe 3 for each student—around a topic that is being studied.

For example, let’s say the topic is food. Each student could be given the same questions, or there could be several different sets of questions such as questions about favorite foods, fast foods, breakfasts, restaurants, home-style cooking, etc.

Then each student partners with several others (however many is required), and asks them the questions on the paper. In each interaction, the student asking the questions will note down the responses from their peers.

Informal Chat

Discussion, group formats

Discussion, systems

Formal Debate

Stimulus-to-interaction (prompt, Q, discuss)

Role-played interactions

Prepared Interactions (panel discussion/of experts)

Equally as important are the topics given to students to discuss; sometimes I will show a video clip in class and have students discuss what they watched. With this, I'll give them guiding questions to help facilitate dialogue between them.

Attached is one clip that I've used before.

This is a fairly complex discussion of morals and ethics. Some guiding questions: Why did the artist decide to use hamburgers? What is the significance of the children in part 7? Why does the man look away in part 2? How do these clips tie in with current social standards? The theme is fast food; do you like fast food? Why or why not? Does this video change how you feel about fast food?

I feel that this kind of activity works best with students that have an overall high level of ability as it lends itself to deeper discussions and searching for meaning, along with considering global contexts at the same time. It is rule-light and should be prepared in some way. You need to make sure groups are balanced, that the questions are appropriate for your audience, and that students are able to discuss the contents without feeling overwhelmed or confused.

Years ago, as an ALT, my JTE would do this as part of a chapter in our prescribed book. It was on traveling through the airport. He would have me be the immigration inspector and the students be the travelers. We would practice different dialogue such as "do you have anything dangerous on you" and "what is the purpose of your stay". As a bit of fun, he would give students a backpack that had a fake plastic gun, as many students would reply "yes" to yes and no questions, even if they did not understand the meaning. This was always especially evident with the "do you have anything dangerous on you". We would then proceed to "arrest" the student.

I have not done this personally in class, but I think it would be fun to have students role play as people that are more common in their daily lives in their L1. Obvious choices are going to McDonalds or other well known restaurants in Japan, or maybe traveling by train and needing to ask questions to a station attendant. By setting up situations that they are more familiar with in their language and also have experience with, I think that students will be able to make better connections between the language and the reality around them. Conversely, a lack of experience might be a good opportunity to teach life lessons that often get overlooked at home and in school.

A setting demonstrating that might be that the students are customers at a cellphone store and they want to buy a new cellphone and make an account/contract. This would shift the spontaneous aspect of the activity to more of a prepared one, as the teacher would have to make some proper dialogue for the attendant, and maybe some rules could be put into place as far as how you should interact in this situation.