Over the Wall of Silence

Getting the Class Moving 37

Chapter 2

start popping up. Even if they are given basic biographical infor mation such as age and marital status, they have no idea what a New York lawyer would say in a given situation. Even if they can imagine or guess, they usually aren’t 100% sure. And when two Japanese stu dents aren’t sure at the same time, the likely result is paralysis. We are not saying that role plays have no place in the classroom. They can be very beneficial once students have become comfortable with having real-time conversations. But this takes a lot of time. Role play activities can relieve a certain monotony that comes about from continually speaking about one’s own life. However, it is advisable to avoid role plays at the beginning of a course. And when you do use them, we’d recommend first using real identities to practice the conversation topic that will be the focus of the role play. If you decide to focus your whole class on conversations about daily life, there are a few things you should be careful of. Ÿ Keep in mind that some topics, for example family members, are sensitive. As we all know, family situations can be compli cated or tragic. Instead of “Describe the members of your fam ily,” you can ask students to, for example, “Describe a member of your family”. Ÿ Some students may be uncomfortable talking about their per sonal lives, for various reasons. Of course, they should not be forced to. It’s OK to “lie”. But you’ll find that 98% of students are in fact quite happy to talk about their daily lives. Ÿ It is also important to research the topics thoroughly in advance and make sure everyone will have something meaningful to say. Most students won’t make the jump from talking about one topic to another, tangential subject. So if you choose, for exam ple, the topic of part-time work or arubaito (a topic which is very