Open Campus 15th September 2018
2018/09/26
Taron Plaza
The Komazawa Women’s University English Communication course held their ninth open campus event of the 2018 academic year on Saturday 15th September. Ten students took part, accompanied by their family members. After an explanation of the different classes and opportunities on offer in our course, we moved onto the demonstration class.
The title of the demonstration class was ‘Conversation Tactics.’ It was designed to give the students an opportunity to use the English they had learned in high school and develop their conversation skills. The teacher, Taron Plaza, introduced three conversation tactics, with the first being the “AAA” (answer, add, ask) conversation strategy. The students then tried it with questions they wrote themselves. First they answered the questions, then they added some extra information, and then they asked a follow up question. The next tactic was the use of confirmations. Students learned various ways to confirm information and ask for clarification if they did not understand something. The final tactic was shadowing. With this strategy, students practiced repeating key words and important information during a conversation to both check understanding and to make the conversation flow smoothly.
By the end of the class, students combined all three tactics together and produced smoother and more natural conversations with each other. This was a very active class, and all the students did a great job taking part. We hope to see them all again at a future open campus event.
