Introduction

In a conversation, it’s crucial to maintain a balance between speaking and listening. This balance, known as the Conversation Share, ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings. For middle school students, learning to manage their Conversation Share is an essential skill that fosters healthy communication and relationship-building. This blog post will introduce a no-prep activity to help students understand the concept of Conversation Share, provide discussion questions to stimulate further conversation, and suggest related skills for students to explore.

No-Prep Activity: The Talk Time Pie Chart

This activity requires no materials or preparation from the educator. The objective is to help students visualize the Conversation Share concept using a pie chart to represent the talk time in a conversation. The pie chart should be divided into equal parts, representing each participant’s share of the conversation.

1. Begin by having students pair up in the classroom.
2. Ask each pair to engage in a brief conversation about a topic of their choice.
3. After the conversation, instruct students to imagine a pie chart representing the conversation and divide it into equal parts based on the amount of talk time each person had.
4. Have students discuss with their partner whether they feel the Conversation Share was balanced, and if not, what adjustments could be made for a more equitable discussion.

This activity helps students visualize the importance of balancing talk time in conversations and encourages them to reflect on their own communication habits.

Discussion Questions

• Why is it important to maintain a balanced Conversation Share in a discussion?
• How can talking too much or too little affect the quality of a conversation?
• What strategies can you use to ensure that you are sharing talk time equitably with others?
• How can being aware of Conversation Share help you build better relationships with your peers?
• Can you think of a time when you felt the Conversation Share was unbalanced? How did it make you feel, and what could have been done differently?

Related Skills

In addition to learning about Conversation Share, students can benefit from developing other related communication skills, such as:

• Active listening: Fully focusing, understanding, and responding to the speaker, fostering better communication and understanding.
• Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of others, promoting connection and support in conversations.
• Nonverbal communication: Recognizing the importance of body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice in conveying messages and emotions.
• Conflict resolution: Developing problem-solving skills to resolve disagreements and maintain healthy relationships.

Next Steps

Teaching Conversation Share and other communication skills can greatly benefit middle school students in their social and emotional development. To explore more resources and activities to help students improve their communication skills, sign up for free samples of Everyday Speech materials. These resources offer a variety of engaging activities and lessons to help educators support students in their social-emotional learning journey.