Such statements open the minds of young people where many times direct questions close them. Questions and regular contributions to the conversation flow readily from members of the class when the right opening has been made. Do not let the class feel that your purpose is to get language from them. Mere talk does not educate. Animated expression alone is valuable.
Have plenty of material to use if the class seem slow to respond, and have patience when they have more to offer than the time will admit. Bear in mind that a conversation lesson on some nature subject is not a nature lesson, but is given to induce correct thinking, which shall come out in good language. It may incidentally be such a nature lesson as to satisfy the requirements of your course of study in that line, but if you give it as a conversation lesson, let conversation be the exercise.
Where a few in the class tend to monopolize the time you may frequently bring a diffident one into the exercise by casually looking at him as if you felt his right to be heard. It is better not to ask him to talk, but to make it easy for him to come into the conversation by referring to something he has previously done or said, or by going near him while others talk. A hand on his shoulder while you are conversing with others, will sometimes open him to expression. Sometimes you need to refer to what Willie's father said, or what you saw at his house, or to something that Willie owns and is pleased with. Many expedients should be tried and some time consumed in endeavoring to get such a pupil into the conversation instead of saying point blank, "Now, Willie, what do you think?"
The matter of spoken language is words largely. The thinking of children is always done in words, as far as school matters go. The thoughts of the average child are correct enough from his standpoint, and when the teacher represses him on his first attempt to carry his part in the exercise, he is hurt to such an extent that he may never recover from it, and he may always believe himself peculiarly unfortunate in that he is incapable of speaking as others do.
The truth is that all children are eloquent. They talk easily, very easily, in comparison with adults who have been frightened out of their natural tongues, and are forever trying to say what they think in terms that they do not think it in.
All children are sensitive concerning their speech. Some of the keenest hurts children experience are inflicted by those who notice patronizingly or critically the language they use. Mothers are in a hurry to have them learn English at once, and so correct them instantly when such mistakes as "runned," "mouses," and "me wants" occur. The child allowed to think in his own terms overcomes his verbal difficulties in a short time if associated at home with those who speak correctly, and he is perfectly excusable for using what we call incorrect forms until he has acquired the so-called correct ones.
There are times when the child's mind is open to acquisition of formal expertness in language. He will find these times for himself and exercise himself in forms without being driven to it at the very times when his mind is most active with other things which he tries to express to us in his moments of overflowing enthusiasm. In these moments he should not be bothered and confused by formal quibbling. In his most active states intellectually he ought not to be repressed. This applies to the child who hears good English at home. It also applies, with slight modifications, to the child who hears imperfect language at home. The child who will eventually prove capable of correct speech will learn to speak the best language he hears without direct instruction if encouraged in it and given the respect a growing child is entitled to receive.
Children learn to speak while at play. They are active and much interested when they are acquiring a natural vocabulary. Much of the vocabulary is wrong from the standpoint of the grammar and dictionary, and they have to unlearn it. They have to unlearn it at school and from the lips of pains-taking parents. One reason it is so hard for them to learn the correct forms is this unintelligent way of teaching. Another is that the incorrect conversation is heard under circumstances favorable to retention and reproduction; that is, when the child is much interested and happy; while the correct forms are given him when he is but half aroused, or when he is somewhat intense over another matter, and many times the intended instruction goes in at one ear and out at the other. When the skill of the teacher and the things of the school room become so powerfully attractive to the pupil that once hearing a new word will fix it, once seeing a word will make him master of it in all its forms, then the language lesson will not need to be given; for language, which is as natural to man as breathing, will flow in correct forms trippingly from the tongue, being so fixed in the pupil's mind from the first that he will have nothing to unlearn.
Conversation lessons are intended to take care of some of the crudest errors in speech before the child has committed the indiscretion of putting them in writing. It can be done with so much less severity in conversation than in a written lesson. Notice silently the peculiarly bad expressions and forms of statements of the whole class, then plan your talking lesson in which those who are not guilty of those errors are allowed to lead. Then let the child whom you consider most likely to profit by hearing correct expression from his mates give you the necessary statement. If he use correct forms, let another try.
For instance, suppose you have a number of pupils who are inclined to say "The robin isn't so purty as the bluejay." The reason for this is that the parents of nearly all these pupils will make the same error. If early in their experience with you you are shocked by their speech and let them know it, you either lose their respect or make them feel that they and their parents are inferior beings with no right to speak.