KOTESOL International Conference 2016
(Concurrent Session)
Benjamin McBride, Dongguk University, Gyeongju
Prioritizing Interest over Accuracy in the Conversation Classroom
Abstract
Sustaining a conversation in any language requires a combination of social and linguistic skills. Recently, I have been working with a curriculum that prioritizes the social aspects of communication rather than the linguistic ones. In essence, the curriculum aims to train students how to have an interesting conversation regardless of who you are talking to. In this workshop, I will demonstrate several activities that I use in class to help students with each aspect of making a conversation interesting, as well as the rubric that I use for the students' midterm and final assessments. Participants in this workshop will come away with new activities to use in class as well as a fresh approach to the teaching of English conversation.
Biographicals
Benjamin McBride is an Assistant Professor at Dongguk University in Gyeongju, South Korea, where he conducts classes on conversation, presentation, and essay writing. He received an MEd in TESOL from the University of Missouri in 2015. He has been teaching in Korea for 6
years and has been heavily involved in the Seoul chapter of KOTESOL, where he is currently acting as Secretary. His research interests include writing voice, contrastive analysis, sociolinguistics, and error correction.
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