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Water cooler talk

Most people shy away from Water Cooler Talk because it is unpredictable, fast-paced and may sometimes feel awkward.


To get better at SmallTalk in English you need to:

Make set phrases and grammar structures automatic

How?

By repeating them out loud until you can use them spontaneously.

While repeating, focus on the sounds and not on every single word.


Keep the conversation going

How?

1.Ask questions

🔹 What have you been up to lately?

🔹 What's been keeping you busy?

🔹 What have you been working on?


2. React spontaneously

🔹 How lovely!

🔹 No way! = I can't believe this!

🔹 Definitely! = Absolutely!

🔹 That must be challenging! (supposition in the present)

      That must've been challenging! (supposition in the past)


3. Show interest

🔹 How come? ("come mai" in Italian)

🔹 Tell me more.


4. Change topic

🔹 How about your new colleague? What's he like?

🔹 By the way, how's it going with your new manager?


5. End the conversation

🔹 I need to get on with my work now.

🔹 It's been great talking to you.

🔹 See you around.



🔴 Practice suggestion:

📍 watch the comedy sketch below

📍 print off the transcript and act it out until you make the key phrases automatic



  • How was your weekend?

  • Yeah, it was good. Could've been one day longer though.

  • Mmm, they're never long enough.

  • Yeah yeah yeah, I know.

  • You leave work on Friday and then, before you know it, it's just tick-tick-tick of 60 minutes and you're back the next day. It's over.

  • Yeah yeah, like I mean I enjoy Sunday, love it, love a Sunday..

  • Yes yes..

  • But kind of work's always in the back of your mind..

  • Yeah, ...

  • It's always yeah yeah ...

  • You know, I mean, who invented the five-day working week? I just, I find it weird, you know..

  • I think about this all the time. Who would create such a crazy thing?

  • Yeah, three days off, four days working, I think you could just really get some life admin done. It's always hard to get up on a Monday too isn't it? Because you're just in that Why-is-it-Sunday sort of place, you know?

  • Yeah yeah yeah, your alarm is going off ...

  • Oh!

  • And sometimes you don't want to wake up, you know.

  • No! Definitely not on Monday! Well, you're really going to that one!




Hello! I'm Cerasela, English Fluency Teacher, dedicated to taking you from stuck to fluent, from knowing to speaking English spontaneously.

And enjoying it!

I do not have a magic formula.

What I have is a system that works.


PS: I work with people who are committed to putting in the work to get unstuck and feel free when interacting in English.




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