Name: GROUP CONVERSATION IN ENGLISH - How to Participate
Uploaded: 2020-03-09T03:18:02.000Z
Duration: 10 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The imperative

Let yourself imagine this: You’re in a  group at work or at school,

and everyone else is a native English speaker.

Gerund

These are the kinds of moments you’ve been studying and preparing for!

But how do you participate in that conversation?

Everyone is speaking so quickly and the conversation is taking twists and turns.

People are talking over one another and it feels impossible to keep up,

let alone figure out how to say something!

Today we’re going to go over my top 5 tips and strategies for participating in group

I’ve had lots of students explain this scenario and ask for advice.

When you’re speaking with all native speakers, the pace of conversation can be fast.

And when you’ve said something and it doesn’t really get acknowledged, it’s hard to know what to do.

Sometimes the pace of the conversation  is fast, the ideas continue,

and the conversation moves on without you having expressed yourself clearly.

Here, a student of mine is explaining a scenario that you probably know well if you live in North America.

He’s talking about when he’s in a group of native speakers.

But recently I have a program, the group project.

I get to discuss at a time, they are heating up, and

if I speak English not fluently  they ignore me 'cause they're serious to talk so I think it's problem,

But may be because I translate from Japanese to English and then it is weird for English people.

That's why. I am fine to break into the conversations when that happen in Japan.

So you feel that once you've said something, you know it's kind of complex, may be you haven't articulated it

very clearly, perfectly and then do they  just sort of move on?

They kind of ignore it without getting clarification?

I felt like they don't understand what I mean--

>> And they don't ask you?  >> They ignore.

Sometimes they ask me, but they are working on some thing they don't want...

So let's talk a little bit about some strategies for that.

And then we can also talk about a couple things like I am hearing you say woking,

and so that means you're not saying working.

I am putting an R sound in there, and when you're saying it, I'm not hearing the R sound.

So that's something we can talk about in a second.

I think this is something that's really useful for everybody.

Because I've had a lot of people tell me  that you know when I'm in a group,

it's really hard for me to speak my mind

because the conversation's moving more quickly than when it's one on one.

You've figured out how to just say what  you want to say but

you know that sometimes it is not totally clear.

And the people who are hearing you, the  conversation is moving on.

They're not taking the time to stop and understand.

It's important for you to take that role then.

If they're not going to do that, then when you've articulated something, and when you know

that it might not have been that clear, you can say,

I am not  sure I said that right, do you  understand what I mean.

I think it's probably important for you to take the initiative before they move on.

or you know You can usually see it on somebody's face if they don't

And so that, as soon as you start seeing that look,

flip it to them and don't let them move on.

but because you're gonna ask them a specific question about, you're gonna continue to engage them.

So Tip #1 there is to take the initiative and make sure you’re being understood.

You’ve said something, and you’re not sure people understood you.

Or you can even say, I don't think I said  that right. Do you know what I mean?

You can even acknowledge that you may  not have been clear,

that opens the door for someone to ask  for clarification.

“I don’t think I said that right,  do you know what I mean?”

By doing this, you will definitely get your point acknowledged, and likely it will be further discussed.

But I would say phrase a question to them.

To stop, you know, that will, unless they're extremely rude people, which they are probably not,

that will stop them from moving on, to actually you know seek clarification.

Some people will not ask for clarifications because they feel bad that they didn't understand,

so this is just a way of acknowledging, hey, I am not a native speaker here.

I might not say something the way I should. So, you know

You're going to go ahead and stop the momentum a little bit to make sure that they understand

and then that's the kind of thing that can lead to

them asking you a question and making sure everybody's on the same page,

making sure you're still able to contribute.

In this kind of situation, if you can, if you have a smart phone, if you can record it,

then you can go back and you can, 'cause they might be helping you out.

When you say, do you understand what I mean, and they say no, and then you explain a little more,

when they understand what you mean, they're going to say it the right way.

If at all possible, record group conversations like this with your smart phone if you have one.

If you’re going into a group conversation, maybe with a group of students about a project,

or a group of colleagues, pull out your phone and start a voice memo before you begin.

You can even say, “I’m going to record this  to work on my English.”

That will remind everyone that you’re not  a native speaker,

and these kinds of conversations aren’t as easy for you as they might be for others.

They're going to say, oh, blah blah blah blah blah  and then you're like, yes.

And so they're giving you the right phrase.

Unless you write it down in the moment you're going to forget it maybe

and you don't want to stop the momentum more by writing it down.

recorded it, then you can go through and you can listen to that and write down those phrases and

this is also a way that you're going to start building not just specific vocabulary but sentence construction,