Week 7 Lab: Small Talk and Silence

A Lab drilling follow-up questions so a stalled conversation has somewhere to go

Before the Lab#

Bring the transcript from this week’s lecture reflection, or one of your own if you have not started it yet.

In the Lab#

Introduction. Last week’s Lab was about noticing a device-free stretch happening on its own and figuring out how to reproduce it. This week is the same noticing skill turned on a conversation: catching the moment it runs dry, and knowing what to say next instead of letting it sit there.

Activity 1 (rotating pairs, 15 min): Small talk stations. Two-minute rounds, a new partner each round. Before each round, thirty seconds of sitting in silence together — deliberately, no talking — then the prompt: ask their name, one hobby, and their most recent trip somewhere. Rotate three times.

Discussion: Which felt harder — the silence, or the talking?

Activity 2 (groups of 4): Reading the room. The tutor quietly taps one student per group beforehand, without telling the rest, then either assigns or lets that student pick one social cue to perform once the round starts: one-word answers, repeated glances at the door, or checking a wristwatch mid-sentence. Nobody else in the group knows who it is going in. The rest have sixty seconds to name what’s actually happening and suggest a graceful line for ending the conversation.

Wrap-up: Best exit lines from each group go on the board. Then take three exchanges that stall the same way this week’s lecture’s transcript did — technically a reply, but with nothing attached for the other person to pick up on: “How was your weekend?” / “Yeah, good.” “What are you up to today?” / “Not much.” “How’s everything?” / “Same as usual.” For each, write one extra sentence to tack onto the stalled answer — a detail specific enough that the other person now has something to actually ask about. Test one in a real conversation before next Lab.

Afterwards#

Report back next Lab on whether your follow-up line got a real answer, or just moved the “yeah, good” one exchange further down the conversation.