Small Talk : A Qualitative Analysis of University English Teacher Practices

When one hears the words "small talk," they might think of overly polite chitchat about everyday topics like the weather or the weekend.A common view of small talk is that it is merely a warmup before speakers move on to the real purpose of the conversation; however, it also serves numerous other functions in conversation.Despite the ubiquity of small talk, it has received little attention from both teachers and researchers.This qualitative study was undertaken to answer to what extent university teachers in Japan teach their students small talk.The five interviews indicated that most teachers did not have an organized approach to teaching small talk, teaching it on an as-needed basis during their courses.As small talk can be challenging for EFL students in Japan who rarely converse with native speakers, instruction in this area could help to increase their communicative competence.