During this week’s social skills/speech group we focused on conversation skills. Many special-education students have the ability to make their needs known. However they struggle to master the “fine-art” of conversation and all of it’s nuances.
I found this worksheet on a website called SocialSkillsCentral. It requires a membership fee for premium materials and downloads but I accessed the freebies and found what I needed. This is the worksheet that I used Wksht: Listening during a Conversation. There are 6 scenes involving 2 characters talking to one another. I drew lines around each scene and numbered it from 1-6.
TASK #1: GOOD/BAD conversation
I told my students, some of these conversations are good and some of these conversations are bad. (This use of good/bad is over-simplistic but it enables them to grasp the concept). If we see a good conversation we should draw a check over it and we see a bad conversation we should draw an x over it.
I then role-played each conversation with one of the para-professionals. Students shouted out good/bad and we then all made the appropriate symbol on the paper.
This task was pretty simple for most students, and I utilized it as a warm-up for the next 2 tasks.
TASK #2: Fill in the bubble
I took the same worksheet and used white out on each of the right hand bubbles. The students broke into groups with one teacher/para to assist with brainstorming and writing. They had to fill in the empty speech bubble using the picture and words of the other character as clues.
TASK #3: Fill in the other-bubble
By now students and teachers were groaning but I plowed on. I gave each group the same worksheet but the bubbles on the left side were blank. Once again they filled in the empty bubbles.
Students learned that language is flexible, topic maintenance is critical, and listening required. Mission accomplished:)!