This article addresses the questions: why is the development of conversational competence important within higher education? And how might this goal be pursued? We offer answers that may aid a broad range of stakeholders (language learners, course designers, lecturers, language development managers, and policy makers) in thinking through these…

For the past ten years, I have been using a basic framework to help my students grasp question and answer structures. I find that this enables them to develop their language skills quickly and increases their confidence in their conversational ability. Without mastering questions, learners can't even get to first base in terms of making a…