Starting and Joining a Conversation!

updated 3/2023

How do you teach your students to succeed in joining a conversation during your speech therapy sessions? An important social competency, it can be a difficult social communication skill for many of us to acquire, especially when we are joining a conversation with unfamiliar people. I like to start by discussing with my students that there are two main reasons we engage in social conversations:

1. To work towards establishing a relationship with people we do not know well, and
2. The enhancement of an existing relationship among two (or more) communication partners.

When we are establishing relationships, it often involves chit-chat and small talk. It’s like waving a flag that says, “hey, I’m here” and “I’m a good person to know.” This can lay the groundwork for positive future interactions. When talking with people we know (where we have an existing relationship), our communication exchanges serve to enhance our relationships. We strive to get to know eachother in a more meaningful way. For more information on communication responses that help develop meaningful relationships, check out this prior blog post on the conversation point scale.

For both communication scenarios (establish/enhance) people show their attitudes and emotions using verbal and nonverbal communication (often at the same time). So, whether establishing or enhancing a relationship, we focus not only on the words the other person is saying, but also on their nonverbal cues-their tone of voice, facial expression, body language. We also consider the context of the situation. What other people are present? What is happening? Are we in a formal or an informal situation? Essentially, we scan our surroundings to see what is going on around us that might influence what we say and how we say it. If our students are having unsuccessful social interactions, it may be because they are focusing on only the words being said to them, not the surrounding context or nonverbal communication.

Teach Four Ways to Initiate Conversations:

Start out by viewing this clip from the Ellen show on small talk. It is 3:40 long and it’s a monologue about the awkwardness of making small talk at events. Then, review and discuss the following ways people make small talk. See if your students can find any examples of these four ways of initiating conversations in Ellen’s monologue!

You can also use my video to teach the four ways to start conversations.

Small Talk

• Small talk is great for when you want to have a quick interaction with another person. You might not have time to have a lengthy conversation, or perhaps you are unfamiliar with eachother, so you make a quick, positive comment about the weather, sports or a shared interest.  For small talk, don’t discuss politics or religion.

Joining a Conversation: Sincere Compliments

•  Sincere Compliments are a great way to make an impression on someone you don’t know…but perhaps would like to know better.  Compliments work best when they are authentic and not always about a person’s looks.  They don’t sound sincere if they are exaggerated or if sarcasm is used. It can be helpful to contrast a sincere compliment with your students and an insincere one where sarcasm is used.

Joining a Conversation: Asking Relevant Questions

• Asking a relevant question is a nice way to find out more information about other people and get to know them better.  When establishing a relationship, questions should not be overly personal and are received best when stated positively.

Make Comments about Situation or Setting

• Comment about setting: Another way to start a conversation is to make comments or observations about the environment or situation. This can include what another person is doing, how nice the party decorations look etc.

Practice with Initiating Conversations

View this video “appropriate topics for small talk” by Extra English Practice (6:25). Then, pause the video when the words “appropriate or inappropriate?” flash on the screen. Have your student(s) answer during the pause. Then, hit play to see the answer. Consider: when a speaker asks an inappropriate question, how does the other speaker react verbally and nonverbally?

After the video, use my free set of BOOM cards, “Initiate the conversation.” If you are not familiar with BOOM cards, this blog post might be helpful. This set of BOOM cards provides a photograph and background information for a social scenario to provide necessary context to students. Students choose what they would say to start a conversation. Then, it scaffolds into having students generate what they would say in situations. This set of BOOM cards focuses on the language and context of starting a conversation.

After the BOOM cards, have students practice starting conversations using one of the four ways discussed above! Use this customized spinner from Super Teacher Tools so they can spin and choose the conversation starter! Then, once they choose the starter you can tell the student who they would be talking to (boss, co-worker, parent of a friend, person on subway, clerk in a store). Practice opportunities are so important so you can intervene and support while they are performing the skill.

Joining a conversation that is established:

Tips and Nonverbal Communication

Since joining an existing conversation already implies that a conversation is already happening between 2 or more people, it’s helpful for students to consider the differences between 1:1 and group conversations so they can manage their expectations.

These differences include:

1. The amount of listening (versus talking) can be higher in group conversations. Why? It’s math. In one on one conversations, each person roughly talks around 50% of the time, or at least that’s the goal.  In a group conversation of three people, each person will only be able to talk 33% of the time.  As the groups gets larger, the group members have less talking time.  In a large group, we have more opportunities to focus on active listening, than speaking.  Have your students do the math (by taking 100 and dividing by the number of people). How many opportunities would we get to talk in a group of five or ten? 

2. Nonverbal Communication and Active Listening: In group conversations, students should be aware that their contributions (and the contributions of other group members) could be more nonverbal (head nodding in agreement, tilting head or furrowing eyebrows in disagreement, smiling, switching eye gaze to the speaker etc.). Therefore, it makes sense for us to be teaching our students how to identify and use nonverbal communication. You might find this prior post on nonverbal communication helpful. This set of BOOM cards on identifying emotion from facial expressions can be a good teaching tool too.

Have your students view this video from Extra English Practice, (9:03) on Active listening. There is a good contrast of “good” active listening and “bad” active listening and a nice summary of the skills used in the conversation.

3. My students often complain about not getting noticed in group conversations. At these times, I let them know that they may need to “up” their energy to get noticed.  That means using a louder voice (but not shouting) and using a few body gestures.  If they are trying to talk, using a subtle open-hand or arm gesture is one way to signal that they have something to say.   They are not raising their hands, as in a classroom but just slowly moving the palm of their hand up and away from their bodies.

4. Look for “join us” body language. Unfortunately, there is no flashing “join us” sign. So we teach students to look for body language that shows the people are open to having another person join the conversation. Joining a conversation involves a certain amount of risk that the group may not welcome the “joiner.” Help your students identify “green light” or “join us” body language that looks friendly and open compared to “red light” body language that looks unfriendly or indicates it’s not the best time to join in this group. Have students look for smiles and relaxed body postures. Interpreting folding of arms is a tricky one. One might think folded arms isn’t “join us” language, but it can be in the person is smiling as in the image below. Encourage students to look at other clues, such as facial expressions, when they see closed arms.

Joining a Conversation: Green and Red Light Body Language

Activity Idea for Identifying green and red light body language: Here’s a social skills game for practicing this skill! Play a charades game where you write out the nonverbal communication signs below. When other students guess the action or emotion, they must also tell what this type of communication can mean or indicate in a conversation. Teletherapist? Display these on a whiteboard and have student(s) guess which one is being modeled by you or another student.

• Looking bored,
• Nodding in agreement,
• Tilting head (uncertainty)
• Smiling
• Slightly raising arm or hand (to indicate they want to talk)
• Switching eye gaze from one speaker to another
• Furrowed eyebrows (confusion, disagreement)
• Looking away from speaker (disinterest)
• Looking at watch
• Brief noises (hmm, oh, ya) indicating interest
• Laugh
• Folded arms

Practice Joining or Initiating Conversations!

You can start out using this youtube clip from Social Pragmatics: do and don’t of joining a conversation (1:44). Point out how the “joiner” makes eye contact with one of the girls just as she’s starting to talk to them!

Then, use the set of BOOM cards on “joining a conversation,” (pictured above) to explore the following five steps to joining existing conversations. Practice social scenarios are included in this deck of BOOM cards. Here’s the five steps to joining a conversation that are taught in this set of BOOM cards.

Steps to Joining Conversations

1. Check out the group. Consider their body language and the setting.  Is this a group that seems friendly and open to others joining it?
2. Consider your contribution to the conversation. Have a general idea of what you want to say.
3. Make eye contact with someone in the group and move close (but not too close) to the group…. just close enough that you don’t have to shout when you talk.
4. Ask to join and make a general greeting.  Acknowledge that you are interrupting and introduce yourself if this is a group of unfamiliar people.
5. Don’t hog the conversation, especially if you are new to the group.  You are a guest in the conversation.

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