Contents

By Leila Tamini Lichaei, CASLS Fellow

Lesson Objectives: Learners will be able to

• Identify the characteristics of small talk and the occasions it’s used
• Subjectively compare small talk in the US with own cultures
• Engage more effectively in small talk

Modes: Interpersonal, Interpretive, Intercultural

Materials: Small Talk Worksheet, Agree/Disagree Worksheet, Small Talk Worksheet #2, and ability to play YouTube video (see below) for class

Procedure:

Warm up

To introduce the topic, ask students if they have any idea what small talk is. Then ask the following questions and write the students’ answers on the board. You can add other possible answers. This will help students review their previous knowledge regarding the topic of the lesson. Here is an example of how your board might look. 

Then, explain briefly that small talk is a way of conversation to make people feel better or to be friendly and polite. Give some examples to make it more clear.

Examples

• Are you having a great day? Yes very good thank you. How about you? (at a store)
• It's a lovely weather, isn't it? Yes, indeed. It's really beautiful! (in a park)
• Did you watch the football game last night? Oh yes it was a great game! (coworker)
• I like your jacket! It's very pretty.- Thank you very much! (at a party)

Observe

Next, play the first 20 seconds of the YouTube video about small talk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpA_o3G0hGM

Ask students:

• What is the occasion?
• What are those people doing?

In the video, Barry Petersen talks with experts in social cognition and chit-chat to find out the do's and don't’s of making small talk at your next festive gathering.

Watch the first 20 seconds again, and ask students to focus on what is being said.

• Cheers!
• What are you guys doing for the holidays? Anything spectacular?
• I’m Berry!
• I’m Tracy. I’m Joe’s wife.

Watch the video from 00:20 to 01:35 and ask learners to take notes on the Small Talk Worksheet.

Then, ask learners to compare their notes in groups/pairs and discuss if they agree or disagree with the comments that were made in the video.

Watch the last part of the video from 06:35 to 07:13 and ask learners to take notes. Then students will do the next agree/disagree activity in pairs/groups and discuss their reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.

Have students work in pairs/groups and answer the following questions. Ask them to share personal information and discuss how small talk works in real life situations.

Work in groups/pairs and write a possible small talk question and a preferred answer for each topic and then practice role playing it with partners.

By Stephanie Knight, CASLS Assistant Director

From https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.295

Conversation Analysis and Language Alternation: Capturing transitions in the classroom
Edited by Anna Filipi and Numa Markee
Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company

This volume brings together researchers in conversation analysis who examine the practice of alternating between English and German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Vietnamese in the classroom. The collection shows that language alternation is integral to being and learning to become a bilingual, and that being and learning to become a bilingual are accomplished through a remarkably common set of interactional objects and actions, whose sequential organizations are quite similar across languages and educational sectors. This volume therefore shows that having recourse to more than one shared language provides an important resource for getting the work of language learning and teaching done through an orderliness that can be described and evaluated. The findings and the suggested pedagogical applications described in the volume will be of significant interest to researchers and teachers in a range of fields including second and foreign language teaching and learning, conversation analysis, teacher education and bilingualism. 

Visit the publisher's website at https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.295

By Isabelle Sackville-West, CASLS Fellow

This activity is designed to promote learner creation of knowledge by connecting verb tenses to contexts that should be familiar to learners in other areas of their life, change and time. Specifically, it examines traditions against their modern counterparts. The lesson is designed to push beyond grammar instruction to involve exploration of salient social topics, critical thinking, and student autonomy. As written, this activity is most suitable for Intermediate learners, but novice learners could engage by making word lists and using chunks, while advanced learners could engage in more in-depth discussions.
 
Learning Objectives: Students will be able to

• Describe a change over time
• Compare and contrast traditional and modern practices 

Modes: Interpersonal, Presentational
Materials needed: Photos of traditional practices and their modern counterparts

Procedure:
1.     Have students complete the I see, I think, I wonder thinking routine. Show them an image or video of a traditional cultural practice (e.g., matchmaking in ancient China). Then, give students one minute to write down what they see—objective observations without subjective conjectures. Next, give students a minute to write down what they think about the image—what do they expect is going on? What is their impression? Finally, give students a minute to write down what they wonder about the image.
2.     Repeat Step 1 with an image of the traditional practice’s modern counterpart (e.g., Shanghai’s People’s Park marriage market).
3.     Discuss student’s responses in Steps 1 and 2 as a class.
4.     Next, ask students to use their observations and thoughts from Steps 1 and 2 to brainstorm how to discuss change over time. Help students generate a vocabulary list and targeted structures as a class.
5.     Next, provide grammatical scaffolding so that the students will be able to talk about change over time using the correct verb tenses. The type of scaffolding will depend on target language, but will most likely involve a lesson in verb tenses (e.g. past vs. present) or aspect.
6.     Next, open up a more robust discussion about the images used in Steps 1 and 2. Here are some example discussion questions:

a.     What are some similarities between the traditional and modern practices?
b.     In what ways are the two practices different?
c.     What type of social shift does the change in practices represent?
d.     What is the impact of the social shift?

7.     To practice talking about change over time, have students pretend they are talking with grandparents or other elders about how things have changed over their lives. They should offer the small shifts in family practices they have experienced themselves growing up. For example, students might say that when they were little and playing outside, their moms would blow a whistle to indicate when it was time to come in while now, their moms text them to come home.
8.     Lastly, students should think about a larger cultural practice that has shifted over time. This practice can be relevant either to their native culture or the target culture. Students will research and present on a traditional practice and its modern counterpart. For the presentation students should:

a.     Determine the genre (formal speech, video, etc.) in which they are going to present
b.     Briefly describe both the traditional practice and modern practice
c.     Compare and contrast the two practices
d.     Discuss why the practice has shifted and how that has affected the society
                        i. Has it benefited the society by creating more social equality?
                        ii. Has it resulted in a loss of valuable traditions?

Notes:
To facilitate learners’ choice of genre in Step 8, either limit their choices to the genres you have already discussed in class or offer to discuss genre-specific conventions with learners individually when they select their presentation format.

From https://cambridgescholars.com/towards-a-pedagogical-model-for-teaching-english-in-an-indian-context/

Towards a Pedagogical Model for Teaching English in an Indian Context
By Mriganka Choudhury
Published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing

This book encapsulates the various discourses that try to theorize the evolution of English as a global language from the perspectives of history, geography and individual proficiency. It discusses the status of English in post-colonial India, where it has coexisted with native languages in a multilingual scenario for almost three hundred years and has developed into a form with its own distinct lexical, phonological, morpho-syntactical and discourse features. This indigenized form of English has come to be recognized as Indian English. While many linguists argue that Indian English is a distinct variety with its own standardized form, others do not quite agree. While the advocates of Standard Indian English have argued in favor of recognition of Standard Indian English in Indian pedagogy, others regard Indian English as suitable only for informal usage. 

Through a survey conducted among those who are closely related to the English language in India, this book examines the acceptability of Standard Indian English usage, and, using an attitudinal survey, gauges their opinion vis-à-vis the idea of forming a pedagogical model for teaching English in the Indian context.

Visit the publisher's website at https://cambridgescholars.com/towards-a-pedagogical-model-for-teaching-english-in-an-indian-context/

From http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781788922197

Identity Trajectories of Adult Second Language Learners: Learning Italian in Australia
By Cristiana Palmieri
Published by Multilingual Matters

This book explores the motivations of adult second language (L2) learners to learn Italian in continuing education settings in Australia. It focuses on their motivational drives, learning trajectories and related dynamics of identity development triggered by the learning process. Central to the study are adult L2 learners, who are still a largely under-researched and growing group of learners, and readers will gain a better understanding of the learning process of this specific group of learners and ideas for sustaining L2 adult learning motivation in continuing education settings. Furthermore, the book discusses the role played by the Italian migrant community in Australia in making Italian a sought-after language to learn. It explores how a migrant community may influence motivation, and highlights and expands on the notion of L2 learning contexts, showing the existence of sociocultural environments where second language learning trajectories are affected by the presence of migrant groups.

Visit the publisher's website at http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781788922197

From https://nameorg.org/name_cfp.php

NAME 29th Annual International Conference
Tucson, Arizona — November 6-10, 2019
Presentations Dates: November 7-9, 2019

NAME and 2019 NAME Conference Chair, Lisa Zagumny invite change agents, working to decolonize minds, bodies, and space while striving for equity, to the 2019 annual conference where members come together and re-charge their dedication to multicultural education. NAME encourages its members – students, educators, and activists – to submit proposals for posters, presentations, interactive workshops, and roundtables.

Proposals are due February 28, 2019.

View the full call for proposals at https://nameorg.org/name_cfp.php

From https://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-416.html

The Language Learning Journal will be publishing a special issue on pedagogical approaches to minority and endangered languages in spring 2020. The issue will focus primarily on endangered and minority languages from a critical pedagogical angle, which will include discussion of a broad variety of educational contexts and methods, ranging from support to revitalisation efforts, teaching in school settings, community-based learning, and academic courses. 

Papers are invited on the following areas: 

- established language teaching methods (e.g. communicative method, grammar and translation method, audio-lingual method, multimodal and co-operative learning, discovery methods, total physical response, etc.) and their applicability in the field of teaching minority and endangered languages; 
- methods encouraging intergenerational collaboration, such as language nests, taiga and tundra schools, as well as collaboration across various social sectors (e.g. co-funded language programmes); 
- translanguaging pedagogy to teach minority and endangered languages; 
- workshops and courses aimed at endangered-language community members to document their own language, including grammars and dictionaries designed for the purposes of revitalisation; 
- courses and training programmes using translation and/or digital (e.g. Wikipedia) methods to teach minority and endangered languages; 
- the use of Second Life and other e-learning platforms to teach minority and endangered languages; 
- survey courses in secondary and higher education addressing the theme of linguistic diversity, endangerment, and minority languages for non-specialist students; 
- specialised courses for students of linguistics focusing on field methods, language documentation and revitalisation, language loss and identity, individual linguistic repertoires, anthropological and sociolinguistic approaches. 

Papers should be submitted to the guest editors by 30 June 2019. 

View the full call for papers at https://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-416.html

From http://caneweb.org/new/?page_id=8

The 113th Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of New England will be held at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts on 8-9 March 2019.

Visit CANE's website for more details: http://caneweb.org/new/?page_id=8

From https://camws.org/camws2019lincoln

The 115th annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South will take place April 3-6, 2019 in Lincoln, Nebraska at The Cornhusker at the invitation of the University of Nebraska. 

For full details about the annual meeting, go to https://camws.org/camws2019lincoln