Discussion posts will enable you to have interesting, structured lessons ready when someone says, "I want a free conversation lesson." You can also offer discussion topics when students want to take a break from their course.
These are not a course in themselves. Students who have done a few in a row may need to consider how to structure their learning more effectively. Relying on discussion posts could also be a symptom of an ill-fitting textbook. Talk to the student or staff to get them on track.
Discussions should be fun, low-stress, zero-prep and interesting for the teacher and the student.
Language aims
If the student has prepared in advance, a topic discussion should take roughly 10 minutes. It should even be possible to compress a discussion into a warm-up (around 3-5 minutes). The discussion topic can also be used as a full lesson without prior preparation by the student.
The topic should be interesting and something that pretty much any teacher can discuss with any student. Avoid topics that could be considered controversial or offensive (basically, follow Basil Faulty's advice.) Any doubt? Ask staff. There is the option of adding information to help teachers discuss the topic, even if they don't know much about it.
Aim for roughly 200 words +/- 20%, which is generally 3-4 paragraphs of reasonable length.
Aim for a few new vocabulary words or new phrases. Make sure the language is neither too simple nor too complicated. For examples, see recent posts. (You don't need to mark and define new language—for discussions, the teacher will take care of that.)
Types: news or personal
We write all posts in-house. (Why? See note at the bottom of the page.)
Type 1—news topics
Find an interesting story and put it into your own words. This should be a topic you'd share with a colleague over coffee.
You can use articles, TED talks, podcasts, short video clips, short audio clips, ideas in blog posts, Reddit links and more.
It's recommended to follow this workflow:
- Read the story to get the gist.
- Read it again, noting important points (perhaps copy & paste sentence fragments).
- Choose the order of interest—most interesting topics first.
- Imagine a family member or acquaintance sitting across from you. Write as if you are explaining it to them.
- One useful tool is voice-to-text. Most phones have this function now; it's typically in a notes app.
Type 2—personal topics
Pick a topic you would discuss with a student. This should be an interesting story or question you might talk about over drinks or dessert.
Write about your hobbies, experiences or opinions. Use this site of conversation topics. Or, if you recently told a story in a lesson that went over well, use that.
If you like, you can use a similar workflow as above.
- Make a few notes of key points.
- Choose the order—most interesting first (or punchline last).
- Imagine an acquaintance sitting across from you. Write out the post or use a speech-to-text app.
Discussion questions
Finally, write a few questions (at least 3) of ascending difficulty.
- In general, start with a closed, concrete question, e.g., "Have you...?" Another good option for the first question is to ask for a brief summary of the article: "Please summarize the article in 2–3 sentences."
- The last question should be very challenging and abstract. You can ask about solutions, ideals, potential problems or any imaginary situation.
Discussion questions can also be set as homework. The student can either prepare for a discussion as their next lessons' warm-up or use the homework service to write about some/all of the questions. There is a "Do homework” button on every discussion question.
Note:
TEF used to post snippets of news articles as discussions. However, in-house allows for better copy and keeps us on the right side of the law: in June 2019, the EU passed a series of laws about copyright on the internet. Basically, they disallow websites from posting snippets. As of this writing, the EU is giving member countries until 2021 to pass their version of the legislation.
Images & tags
Please submit the discussion post without an image or tags. The Content Team will take care of this.