Announcing Conversations in Class, 3rd Edition

The first two editions of Conversations in Class, were published in 2006 and in 2009 respectively. Three original features helped promote its success:  

Grammar toolboxes that presented new language visually, enabling students to immediately use it for real conversation.

Scaffolded content revolving around daily conversations topics, giving low-level Japanese university students a chance to participate in simple yet coherent conversations from the first day of class.

The three “Golden Rules”: Cultural tips on how to conduct more natural, interactive, and friendlier conversations by avoiding long silences, giving longer answers, varying conversation patterns.

CiC 2nd Edition (2009)

So, why make a new edition?

In short, we wanted to make an already good textbook an even more effective tool for learning how to speak natural English. Building upon extensive user feedback and classroom-based research, we have come up with a number of new features we hope make the book even easier to use for teachers and students alike. Here is a quick overview of a few of the new features:

New easy-to-teach 3-part structure

Each unit explores various sub-themes of a personalizable topic in three parts, with each part consisting of approximately 1 hour’s worth of lesson material. In a typical 90-minute university class, one part can be covered at a comfortable pace with room left over for review and expansion activities.

Lesson Previews
Short manga-style preview dialogs make it easier to introduce what will be covered in each class as well as review previously taught conversation strategies and Golden Rules.

Improved Grammar Toolboxes

The classic CiC-style grammar toolboxes (now called Model Sentences) have been expanded to include Japanese translations and more substitution vocabulary. This added scaffolding makes new language even easier for students to learn and helps teachers get through the presentation of new content more smoothly. In addition, to provide more support for lower-level learners and non-Japanese speaking teachers, the audio tracks of each toolbox also contain more embedded grammar explanations in Japanese. English translations of these notes are available in the Teachers’ Manual.

Additional scaffolding activities

In particular, the new Guided Speaking Practice section provides students with an additional step between the presentation of new language and free conversation. These visual manga-style dialogs present additional language chunks in context of conversations students are learning and provide vital repetitive practice in an engaging way.  

Improved Sounding Natural Notes

The Sounding Natural Notes have been expanded to include more bi-lingual information on various conversation strategies and the Three Golden Rules. This important pragmatic information has now been interwoven within each unit, thus enabling students to review and incorporate these basic principles.

Enhanced listening practice

The listening practice dialogs have been re-written to serve as more effective models of language taught in each unit. In addition, they have been recorded in American, British, and Australian accents to raise awareness of subtle differences in how English is spoken in these three countries.

We need your help!

This 3rd edition of Conversations in Class is now in its final production phase. Printing is scheduled for February 2015, and the book will be ready for the start of the new school year in April.

Since now is our last chance to improve the book, we could really use your help. We’re on the look-out for constructive feedback of any sort, on any aspect of the book- its design, layout, content, or activities. We would love it if you could try out a sample unit in one of your classes this fall, or just look it over and provide any comments you can.

You can download an entire unit here. This includes a pdf of Unit 4 (Travel), a Teachers Manual, and access to all the audio tracks and interactive Quizlet-based vocabulary lists.

Finally, if you decide to adopt the textbook for the next university year, please let us know ! We’ll send you the Teacher’s Kit (Teachers’ manual + set of CDs) free of charge.

Thanks a lot in advance for all your support!

</ pan>Jerry Talandis Jr.

Bruno Vannieu

Stephen Richmond

Conversations in Class, 3rd Edition Table of Contents