Blog Post #3

I would say that the biggest difference in planning a conversation rather than facilitating one is the consequential notion of a teacher-student dynamic being built. By planning a conversation, you are essentially dictating the direction of the conversation, pre-determining what will be talked about just as a teacher would. Naturally, you would want to avoid this dynamic in a chat cafe session; it somewhat defeats the purpose of promoting the practice of conversational English. However, this can prove to be somewhat difficult to avoid, as the organic conversations that happen may run dry in material. If this happens frequently enough, it will certainly be an endeavor to promote conversation when certain topics have already been covered. It eventually limits the amount of natural dialogue; while it may be plentiful in the beginning, it can become barren after multiple short talks about a multitude of things.

Now that I have gotten to know my participants better, I now know whom I should try to encourage to speak more frequently. This has somewhat changed my approach to facilitating chat cafe sessions; if I feel like someone should speak more, I ask them to elaborate on a point he or she has made. Conversely, if someone speaks in a more frequent matter than the other participants have, I don't ask them to elaborate on their position/answer; more often than not, they have already done that, thus making the chance at speaking equal for everyone. Overall, getting to know my participants better has allowed me to adapt my approach to facilitating, where I promote a speaking environment filled with equal amounts of talking time for everyone.