More difficult than answering questions or speaking a sustained number of sentences is participating in the normal interchange of a conversation. Each participant must be a listener as well as a speaker. In most conversations, people are forced to wait until the speaker stops before generating their own replies. It is this necessity of prompt replies that is most difficult for second- language learners.
For this reason, teachers should be alert and take advantage of all those situations during question-and-answer practice in which they can turn the students' answers into mini-conversations. If a student answers that he has a car, ask him what kind it is, if he drives it to school, and who buys the gas. In the discussions of selected topics, the students also have the opportunity to interact with each other as they exchange ideas and opinions.
Two ways of inducing the students to interact, which are quite popular at the present time, are role-playing and gaming. Zelson (1974, p. 34) gives an example of a role-playing situation that might be used in class to stimulate students to interact and create appropriate language responses. The following is a selected example.
Ask your brother or sister to let you borrow some article of new clothing. He or she is somewhat reluctant to lend it to you, but you really feel that you need it today. He (she) brings up some of your past sins in that area, and you defend yourself, describing the circumstances, and making excuses, etc., and try to persuade him to change his mind.
A tendency in more recently published texts is to include games to promote student interest and interaction. One example is "Mais vous etes ma femme!" ("But you are my wife!") from Voix et Visages de la France, Level 1 (Rand McNally, 1974). In this game each student is given a card containing information about two people, himself and his wife. The object is to circulate through the class asking questions in the second language in order to find the person corresponding to the information given on the card.
356 Part Two: Practice