Teaching small talk for interaction. Theoretical models

Abstract

This paper looks into the mechanisms through which learners of English can explore the potential of Small talk as a tool for articulating and validating personal beliefs. It tries to identify universal content categories of small talk and then translate those into key topics to be explored by the learner and illustrated by a personal story or anecdote. Finally it reviews the 5 discourse scenarios and proposes a simplified user friendly model of a Small talk scenario.