Small Talk

It's been a whole month since I posted!  

Did I mention earlier that I was taking the 2nd half of the Color Vowel Level I course in January and February?  Well, I finished it up in spite of coming down with a nasty chest cold and cough which hung on forever.  I got a lot out of the course but feel sorry for the teacher who had to listen to my croaking demonstrations.

Just this week I finally got back to Jazzercise.

As always, my days have been cheered by my ESL classes and I've even added a couple of dialogs to the ongoing Inter-Galactic Agricultural and Mechanical Corp. (IGAMC) saga.

The latest addition is a theme that many teachers/courses present as the very first class, rather than as a subject for the middle of the year -- Small Talk. 

Since all my students are adult professionals, our lessons have focused around more serious matters.  However I realized that everybody needs the ability to hold their own in an informal conversation with strangers or bare acquaintances.  In addition, the who-what-where-when question/answers and coulda-woulda-shoulda gossip provide practice on the speech reductions that give students problems in all levels of conversation.

Therefore it was time for IGAMC to sponsor a convention at which people would meet informally and enjoy themselves with small talk.