This semester I am a teacher’s assistant in a “Conversational Speaking” class. Today was the second day of class, and I have discovered an enormous fly in the ointment. Conversational speaking apparently means small-talk, replete with rejoinders (surprise: Oh, really?, sadness: I’m sorry to hear that, interest: that’s nice) and follow-up questions (what, when, where). The problem hit me between the eyes when the main teacher turned on me without warning and tried to carry on an example conversation with me.
Him: Ask me what I did last night.
Me: What did you do last night?
Him: I played computer games. [This was the response a student gave.]
Me: [Oh God, Oh God, Oh God—nothing I can think of is on the vocabulary list.] Awkward silence.
Him: So you see class, that follow-up questions are a way that you can continue a conversation. If you want to kill the conversation, you don’t ask one.
Thinking about it afterwards, I realized that the problem here is that in general conversation I’m good for about one follow-up question (at best), after which it’s time to go. I can see that small-talk is a worthwhile skill, because it allows one to express a charitable interest in others. But the conversation is not rooted in anything very significant, so I forget everything and then find myself hot-footing it for the opposite side of the room right at the time that I should have been following-up “So how do you like Texas?” with “That’s nice. Have you been to one of the rodeos, where stout-hearted men are cheered by beautiful women as they (the men) try to ride bucking cockroaches?”
But the opposite side of the room is full of people I’ve just talked to.
Me: So what do you do for a living?
Them: Well, I’m still an accountant.
Me: [Pause while I grapple with the information and extract the necessary point.]
Still? Are you planning a career change?
Them: Not since five minutes ago.
Me: [Pause, then shock.] Oh, did I just ask you that?
Them: Well, yes, you did.
Me: Oh. That’s nice.
