Chat Room for English Learners

When the chat room went down for a short time this week, some of you were very upset! It was interesting to see how important the chat room is to many of you. Thanks for your patience during the technical glitch. It was fun reading your thoughts about chat on Nadira's blog.
I'd also like to thank all of the members who were chatting in the MyEC chat room with me last night. Your thoughts and feedback about the chat room were very helpful. Here are my observations about the MyEC chat room, along with some tips and suggestions.

5 Types of Chatters
1) People who observe. They don't join in the discussion because they are shy, low-level, or feel they have nothing to say. (It's okay to start this way!)
2) People who say "hi" but can't keep a conversation going. (After you say hi, please ask a question or join a discussion. If no discussion is going on, start one!)
3) People who are childish and do not care about learning or teaching English (Please leave or go to a private room. MyEC is for learning English. There are plenty of other chat rooms online.)
4) People who want to help others learn English. (Thank you! You are doing an amazing service.)
5) People who want to discuss topics and practise English. (Thank you! Your English will improve quickly.)

Q. Which type of chatter are you? Leave a comment below.

5 Concerns of Chatters
1) There is no topic. (Make one up or choose one and try to keep it going. See below for more details.)
2) New people interrupt a chat about a certain topic. (Say hello. Share the topic and move on or start a new topic. Ignore anyone who is not involved in your discussion.)
3) Abuse in the mains. (Take a screenshot or copy and paste the text. Click on the member's name. Copy and paste the URL to their page. Report the Member!)
4) Abuse in private. (Use the same action as #3)
5) There's nobody to talk to. (Ask your friends when they will be online. Plan to meet regularly, such as once a week at a certain time. Write a blog post to introduce the topic.)

Q. Do you have any other concerns? Leave a comment below.

5 Steps for Chatting on a Topic
Did you know that teachers chat on twitter? Every Tuesday hundreds of teachers chat at the same time. How? We use a tag called #edchat. A tag is a keyword or subject identification. You can use tags in the chat room as well. It will help you start a real conversation. It will also help you keep the conversation going. Here are 5 steps to keep a conversation going in a chat room.

1) Choose a topic. Example: #pizza.
2) Suggest the topic. Let's talk about #pizza. (Always use the pizza tag when you add a new line.)
3) Anyone who wants to talk about pizza uses this tag. Continue until the conversation dies out. If a new member joins, say hello and tell them what you are talking about. Example: Hi Expector. We're talking about #pizza.
4) When nobody has anything more to say about #pizza, change the topic.
Example: Let's discuss #traditional holidays now.
5) Ignore anyone who is not talking about the #tag. They will get bored being childish or blabbing about nothing. They will either leave or they will start private chats with other people who are interested in blabbing about nothing.

Q: Are you willing to try this in the chat room? Leave a comment if you try it.

5 Places to find Topics for the Chat Room
1) Talking Point Discussion Forum
2) Monthly News Digest (Discussion Topics)
3) This Week in History
4. English Reference (Practise Idiom of the day, slang, quotes, etc)
5. ESL Magazine

Q. Do you know a source for finding topics? Leave your idea in the comments.

Related:
Why Should I Chat?
Chat abbreviations
Chat Faces
Chat Rules
Chat room Etiquette
Chat Rooms for Students and Teachers

Tags: chat, room, teacher-tip, topic

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Comment by Lifelong Learner on February 29, 2012 at 1:49: Hi Tara, reading my comments after I posted it, I realised that I've made two grammar mistakes.

I should use " English learner like me" and "totally" ( double l), shouldn't I?

Comment by Lifelong Learner on February 29, 2012 at 1:41: Thank Tara I think chat room is amazing tools for English learner as me. I totaly agreed with yang tingting comment on October 6, 2010 :)

Comment by Syubidupapap on April 8, 2011 at 15:39: Wow.. I read the first line and it said "last week", I didn't know that it is written in 2010 :D

Well anyway, what you have wrote here is still up to date. Good job Tara ;)

Too bad I can't joined this discussion since I was not a member of EC yet :)

Comment by yang tingting on October 6, 2010 at 15:33: Thank you, Tara. I'd like to be a member in the chatting room and I want to discuss topics and practise English.

Comment by Mr_Night on September 26, 2010 at 4:13: I have just seen your blog, for sure, Tara, I did a long search about chatting and chat rooms, I went to many, my main goal was to improve my poetry by using chatting rooms and try to find poets, and guess what?? the only place I have found was MyCE, It is the best chat room ever, I haven't seen such. That moving scrolling screen is like magic to me, I have found many poets here (non native English speakers), I had much fun with them, we usually play poetry games spending a lot of time and having fun, this result in advancing our poetry and English skills, all the thanks goes to MyEC. I did try native English Speakers chat rooms, but you know what? here is something else.

To Tara and all her friends,
all my love to them I send,
greetings my friends in this site,
I see all are happy and delight!
the world is small here and reachable
every part of it is touchable
nations, people from different skins
all are one family, united by this club
here is the place to find your lost laugh
and to wipe your tears
here is the hug,
here is the smile
here is our life.
To Tara & all her friends
Thanks and many thanks
for being a sun in my sky
that shines every words
I type, every smiley face I put
and every hope in me.
Because of you,
I'm H, A, P, P, & Y
letters connected to each others
forming a smile in my face
and light in my heart
my home.. is your home
Tara.. & your friends
I'm happy that we are all
one big friendly family.

Regards
Night

Mod Comment by Expector Smith on September 11, 2010 at 0:23: @Tara: Happy birthday! (Sep.10 or 12?) I hope it's not too late:))

Admin Comment by Tara Benwell on September 10, 2010 at 15:19: Yes, and if during chat you want to direct your response or question to a specific person in the mains (without going private) simply put @expector or @nadira before your question or response. You can use this system in the comments of a blog too! (I often do it on Facebook as well.)

Thanks Expector!

Mod Comment by Expector Smith on September 10, 2010 at 15:08: Sometimes, we do find a fun, decent topic, but it can be a challenge for learners to keep a conversation going. Learners may have thoughts or opinions for a topic, but they just can't express their views fluently in English, which can be frustrating.

And, it's useful to learn to ask a 'question' properly. When we chat, we usually ask some questions and expect others to answer and thus keep a conversation going:

'Hi Tara, what are you having for dinner tonight?'
'Fish.'
'Why do you always prefer fish?'
'I still remember my mother cooked delicious fish dishes when I was little.'

So you see that writing a conversation/dialogue can be fun and useful. For more about writing a conversation, see my blog: http://my.englishclub.com/profiles/blogs/learn-how-to-ask-a-question

Mod Comment by Expector Smith on September 10, 2010 at 13:50: Thank you Tara for the excellent suggestions and instructions.

Yes, some of the members here did ask me if I knew why the chat room was missing. Sorry I failed to answer them, but now we have the chat room again. And I do find it useful for learners to chat with someone in English. I'll try to chat with you all and I wonder if Tara is free tonight for a chat :))

To chat can be a good way to improve your spoken English. But we do need to find a suitable topic to talk about. Do you like to talk about food? Many people do.

Now the chat room is back, let's chat in the chat room. Have fun!