The importance of teaching small talk
Jonathon Ryan
Most English language curriculums emphasize the language for expressing things about the world (‘There is a table’) and putting ideas into words (‘Let’s go to the beach’). So far, so good. But the part that is nearly always undervalued and underemphasized is the social, interpersonal side. This can include anything from knowing how to chatter or respond to chatter, how to tell an anecdote, or how to engage in small talk after a chance encounter. In other words, the talk required to move an acquaintanceship to friendship or to strengthen other relationships, such as with work colleagues or a host family.
There's a perception that this comes later in language acquisition, but that is not a given. On the one hand, some people with quite limited English are nevertheless able to use it very effectively in social contexts. And on the other hand, many quite proficient speakers describe really struggling with this aspect of language. For instance, a decade ago, an Australian-based researcher, Xia Cui, did some fascinating work on communication problems experienced by L1 Chinese speakers in Australian workplaces, revealing how these otherwise effective communicators really struggled with ordinary chit chat, even after many years in Australia. While the troubles they described can appear trivial at first glance, in some cases they found them personally devastating and a major barrier to participating in the social life and culture of their adopted home.
To take one example, Cui (2014, 2015) recounts the case of Jian, a 29-year-old working in an Australian accounting firm. One day her colleague Don arrives in the kitchen area and announces, “I'm making chocolate cake tonight.” Unsure how to reply, Jian responds with “Really? That's great.” An awkward silence follows. So she follows up with “What kind of flour do you need?” The conversation quickly dies, and Don moves away. Jian sensed that Don had been trying to initiate a conversation, but she didn't know how to follow up. She found the experience deeply troubling and recognised an opportunity had been lost. She also recognized that Don would likely be discouraged from trying again. In similar incidents, Cui’s informants expressed regret and in one case “intensely negative feeling about herself” (2014, p. 204). Such incidents had the “power to rankle and disturb months and even years after the incident occurred” (2014, p. 198).
But here's the thing. The language of small talk is not particularly difficult and it’s very teachable. The trouble is that almost no one does teach it. One reason is that when it comes to content, second language teachers and the field of teacher education draw almost exclusively from the fields of linguistics and education. What's actually needed here is insight from sociology, and in particular the field of conversation analysis (CA).
Let's revisit Jian’s issue. Don arrives in the kitchen and says something like “I'm making a chocolate cake tonight.” From a CA perspective, where the focus is on social action, Don is performing an announcement. He's making chocolate cake. On hearing this, Jian’s job is simply to respond to this as an announcement. She basically has three valid options, a newsmark (e.g. Oh, are you?), a news receipt (e.g. Oh really) or ‘oh’ with an assessment (Oh, yum!). What no one has thought to teach Jian, or practiced with her, are recognizing announcements and acknowledging them. If she simply says ‘Oh yeah?’, then he will keep talking and follow up with the point of the story (e.g. ‘Yeah, it’s my partner’s birthday’ or ‘I’ve got this great new recipe’). One thing will lead to another, Don will have done all the work, and they will have had a great conversation. What Jian actually produced (‘Really. That’s great.’) is subtly different. To Don’s ears it will sound like an assessment, which without the oh-preface, often comes at the end of a story, signaling that there's nothing more to be said about the topic. It stops him in his tracks.
All of this is reasonably straightforward. None of it rests on acquiring complex grammatical structures and other high-level skills. But if, like Jian, your first language is very distant from English, then you're not going to know this unless someone teaches it to you or you gradually pick it up through extensive exposure.
As an English teacher, we really underserve our students if we don’t provide them with these crucial skills for relationship building in English. I’m often reminded of a quote from Marginson et al. (2010) who describe loneliness as “one of the defining features of the international student experience” (p. 365) and as being for many students “acute in the first few months” (p. 366). As a resource, in previous posts I've mentioned the book ‘Conversation Analysis and Second Language Pedagogy’, by Jean Wong and Hansun Zhang Waring (2021, 2nd ed.). Indispensable!
References
Cui, X. (2014). Getting to the source: An instrument for examining the dynamics of problematic interactions. RELC Journal, 45(2), 197-210. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688214535053
Cui, X. (2015). Small talk: A missing skill in the Chinese communicative repertoire. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 38(1), 3-23.
Marginson, S., Nyland, C., Sawir, E., & Forbes-Mewett, H. (2010). International student security. Cambridge University Press.
Wong, J., & Waring, H. Z. (2021). Conversation analysis and second language pedagogy: A guide for ESL/EFL teachers (2nd ed.). Routledge.