SLC: Your Turn!

Turn-Taking

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Turn-taking is when someone participating in a conversation speaks to someone who is listening.

 

As the conversation continues, these roles switch:

i.e. the speaker becomes the listener and vice versa

 

Turn-taking is vital for the progression of a discussion – a speaker must take the turn, maintain the turn and involve others!

 

If turn-taking is not respected in a conversation, everyone taking part will be talking over each other!

 

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Take, Maintain, Involve

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Taking the turn:

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• Speaking/Interrupting at appropriate times
• Starting the discussion/conversation
• Speaking when invited to

 

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Keeping the turn:

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• Stopping anyone trying to interrupt
• Making signals to show that you haven’t finished speaking yet

 

Appropriate Turn-Taking Symbols

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Successful and appropriate turn-taking can be accomplished using:

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a) Gestures

e.g., a wave of the hand to signal that you haven’t quite finished speaking yet

 

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b) Sounds

e.g., ‘I uhhh believe in the Bible’

 

 The ‘uhhh’ is used by the speaker to allow them to gather their thoughts. This would indicate to the other leaners that the speaker’s turn is not over yet.

 

Note: Your contribution still has to be constructive – too many ‘uhhh’s and this could be put into doubt!

 

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c) Intonation

Using intonation as a speaker can help to show whether you are going to continue or finish your turn.

 

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Penny Pastor and Pete Zuur are having a conversation about their ideal houses.

 

 

This is a good example of turn taking – both the speaker and listener are respecting their turns and allowing the conversation to flow.

 

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Even though, Pete makes some valid and constructive points, his contribution can be considered to be too long.

In the context of the discussion, the previous contributions are much smaller in comparison.

Because of this, there lacks opportunities for Penny to make her contributions.

 

 

Remember it is a discussion and not a monologue!

 

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Another example of poor turn-taking – Pete interrupts Penny while she is making her point.

 

Don’t interrupt someone when they are halfway through a sentence – wait until they have finished before inputting – remember always be polite!

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