Asking open ended questions in English - Encouraging other people to speak

hello everyone uh well good morning good afternoon  good evening wherever you are uh thank you so much  

for joining our live stream today um so if you're  joining for the first time i'm teacher sarah and  

uh today we are going to have a great lesson  about encouraging others to speak so we'll talk  

about what that means and uh and then i'll answer  some of your questions so today um while you're  

coming in i see we already have some comments  on youtube so hello pedro waiting to meet the  

most charming teacher in the world oh my gosh  thank you pedro lolly lolly hello from france  

hello thank you so much for joining us again  pedro and lolly lolly both uh oh that's okay  

i know what you meant thank you though for uh for  correcting yourself you didn't have to do that  

um let's see here we have from facebook hi  hello good morning thank you uh and another  

good morning thank you i recognize your name  thank you so much for for joining today okay  

so in about 30 seconds we will begin today i  will be teaching you how to what what to do  

when you are talking to someone who maybe they are  a little shy or maybe you're talking to two people  

and you want another person to share maybe  they're being a little quiet right this happens  

in conversation so what are some  english phrases and what can you do  

to encourage another person to speak so i'm  going to give your give you the lesson today  

and while i am giving the lesson you'll see my ppt  over here uh while i give the lesson please leave  

your comments your questions about the topic or if  you have any english questions you can leave them  

uh in the comment section of the live stream  video okay and then after i will answer  

your questions okay all right here we go are you  guys ready and remember you can always watch the  

live stream again uh and we always post our ppts  as well so you can follow along with the lesson  

or download it and review it later so this is  really a great resource for you a great tool  

and i hope that you use it so let's begin guys so  i'm going to share my screen just a moment okay  

here we go okay so you guys  should be able to see my ppt  

now so welcome to this week's live stream  to everyone who is commenting right now  

thank you for joining thank you for commenting  and to everyone just watching hello to all of you  

too thank you so much so this week we are  going to talk about encouraging others to speak  

so let's first take a look at this word  encourage encourage um this word is a verb  

so usually if i want to encourage someone this  means uh i want to um maybe help them feel  

good or help them feel better about something  maybe my friend is having a bad day and i want  

to encourage her or maybe let's say she is going  to run a race tomorrow and she's feeling nervous  

i want to encourage her that she's going to do  great so i want to make her feel good now here  

when we say encouraging others to speak  it means kind of gently helping someone to  

be okay with speaking so there are many ways  that uh in times when we might want to do this so  

what can we do when we are talking to someone shy  or what if we just want to make someone feel more  

comfortable talking and sharing their opinions  or maybe we are talking to many people and maybe  

it's mostly me and my friend amy talking but  my friend uh my friend grace is here maybe  

she's very quiet i want to get her opinion too  so what can i say we're going to talk about a  

few different situations today so today let's  learn phrases to help people to start talking  

and phrases to help people continue talking maybe  you are talking to one person and they're telling  

a story or they say something interesting  and you want to know more how to keep the  

conversation going right very useful for speaking  english how can we keep the conversation going  

and that will lead us into talking about  the importance of follow-up questions  

if you have been watching this channel for a  while or watching my live streams for a while  

you know i love to talk about follow-up  questions they're so helpful and important so  

today we will review a little bit about that and  talk about uh how to use them in conversation  

so let's get started first let's talk about  phrases to encourage people to start or begin  

speaking so this might happen in a group or maybe  in a classroom at work there are many times we  

might want to encourage someone to start speaking  so let's look at four phrases we can use for that  

first what do you think and then the  person's name uh what do you think  

so and so what do you think lolli lolly what  do you think pedro right so we put in the name

next we see well and their name how about you

we see does anyone else have an idea so  this is kind of a general question that we  

ask to um a group maybe we've heard where's we're  with 10 people we have heard from two people  

we want to hear more people more people's  opinions does anyone else have an idea  

or we could ask someone directly do you have  an idea and their name do you have an idea  

okay so let's see these phrases are really good  for group conversations um one of them we might  

ask to just one person but these are usually more  commonly used in group conversations when we want  

more people in the group to start talking or to  share right so let's take a look at how we use  

these four phrases with an example let's say  i'm with a group of friends and we are talking  

about what should we do tonight so let's see four  examples so let's say i'm talking with my friends  

we're talking about what we should do tonight  i might say i'm not sure what to do tonight  

what do you think amy so here i am encouraging  amy to share what she thinks we should do tonight  

right what do you think amy oh um oh thank  you uh i think we should go see a movie

now we have well such and such how about you  

so here someone could share their opinion i think  we should go for a bike ride well jack how about  

you so here we're asking jack what do you think  what do you think we should do how about you

next we see does anyone else have an idea so this  is usually later in the conversation when maybe  

we've heard from many people but we want to hear  from a few more so or we're sharing many ideas and  

just asking does anyone anyone not just one person  right in examples one and two we are trying to get  

one person to talk here we're just seeing  does anyone have an idea so let's read  

sentence three we could go out to eat go see a  movie or stay in does anyone else have an idea  

so here maybe again many people right does  anyone else have an idea about what we could do  

and last we have one more example of asking  one person oh i can't think of anything  

do you have an idea grace so here we are again  asking one person so these are all great phrases  

to encourage people to start talking what  do you think well how about you does anyone  

else have an idea or do you have an idea these  are all great for getting people to share  

their opinions and start being a part of  the conversation and really any conversation  

so let's see an example let's say we have three  people talking a b and c so let's say person a  

and b are talking together mostly i think we  should go see a movie after dinner tonight  

yep that sounds great what movie should  we see i want to see the new movie tenet  

me too it looks so cool what do you think amy i'd  love to see it too thank you for asking so here  

if we look at this conversation this is  when two people are having a conversation  

let's say person a and b were doing most of the  talking but they want to make sure that person c  

is okay with what they're talking about she's  not really talking much so they want to make sure  

that she agrees or has a different opinion right  so person a asked what do you think amy and amy  

answered i'd love to see it too thank you for  asking right so this is a great way here we used  

what do you think but we also could have used well  amy how about you or do you have any another idea  

amy right we could have used our other phrases  too so here we see this is a great example of uh  

phrases and a conversation where we want another  person to start talking and share their opinion

now what if we are talking to someone  and we want them to continue talking  

here we're going to talk about some different  words and phrases we use when maybe someone  

is telling a story or they are just having a  conversation they say something interesting we  

want to know more so how do we encourage  people to continue talking or keep going  

we could say simply tell me more we could use  our open-ended follow-up questions with our five  

w's and h who what when where why how right  we can ask questions uh that are open-ended  

which we'll talk about what that means and we  can also use simple small reaction words like  

right little things like this show that we're  listening and can keep the person talking  

so these phrases are good for one-on-one  conversations and group conversations  

so these are phrases we can use any time  when we want someone to continue talking  

keep talking about whatever  topic they are talking about

so let's see an example here we're  gonna see an example between two people  

i'm so frustrated i have too much  homework so i don't have time to relax  

these days yeah it's been a difficult  semester i just don't know what to do

i found a way to make things easier can you tell  me more sure i've been keeping a schedule and  

doing a little work each day so i don't have to do  too much at once good idea how much work do you do  

each day about two or three hours a day so let's  look at this conversation a little closer so here  

two people are talking about uh about school  right so person a i don't have time to relax  

i don't know what to do person b says well i found  a way to make things easier now the conversation  

could have ended there oh good for you i'm really  stressed though but person a is interested really  

tell me more or can you tell me more and then  they share and again oh okay well i i still  

want to know more so here we have an open ended  follow-up question starting with how how much how  

much work do you do each day about two or three  hours a day so we can see that these questions  

like can you tell me more and how much work do  you do each day help keep the conversation going  

now the uh another way that we can um keep a  conversation going is using small reaction words  

so we often use small words like

or no way right to show that we are actively  listening and want the person to keep talking  

we often use these words when someone is telling  a long story so this is a way maybe someone's  

talking and we are listening closely here we see  actively listening so we're very interested in  

what they're saying and when they say something  we react right we don't just sit silently  

and wait till they're done we might use  some small words like oh no way really  

right like this to show that we're listening  uh we're keeping up with what they're saying  

and we want them to keep going so we use  small words because we often don't want to  

maybe inter interrupt or stop them talking  by sharing our own sentence or our own story  

but we want to show we're listening and we want  them to continue so we use small words like this  

we can also use other reaction words or  sounds too like ah or a sigh or a gasp like  

right just to show we're interested we're  listening we are reacting to what they're saying  

so this really can encourage people to continue  talking just showing that we are interested and  

showing some small reactions uh that show we're  really into their story we want them to continue

so the last way that we can encourage  others to continue to speak is to use  

follow-up questions so today let's expand  upon that skill what are follow-up questions  

how can we use them and what are some examples  

so a follow-up question is a question that we  ask to get more information in a conversation  

follow-up questions usually start with our five  w's and h right who what when where why how  

for example let's say i'm talking to a classmate  i might ask why do you like your major follow-up  

questions can start with the be verb is  mr was were are you happy you chose it  

and uh can commonly start with do do  does or did do you want to be a teacher  

so these are all different types of questions we  can ask in a conversation to keep the conversation  

going follow-up questions are important to every  conversation and they're something you really want  

to know how to be able to use in english they keep  the conversation going and again show the person  

you're talking to that you are interested in what  they're saying just like those reaction words

no way really tell me more just like things like  that show that we want to keep the conversation  

going so do follow-up questions they can  also help you understand the other person  

if you are learning another language follow-up  questions are great because they can help you  

to clarify which means to make  clear or to uh to understand  

better what the other person is talking about  and we can do this with follow-up questions  

so let's look at some examples of the different  follow-up questions so here we have our  

five ws and h who what when where why  and how so let's see some examples  

this is to show you that we can really ask  questions about anything there are so many  

so let's see some who questions who are  you going to dinner with who's your friend  

what what kind of movies did you  like what did you do last weekend

when when did you do that when are you going  to go where where are you from where are you  

going on vacation why why is a great follow-up  question why is that your favorite song why do  

you like playing board games and then how  so here we're gonna look at some different  

questions with how how often how many how long  how well how good how often do you exercise  

how many classes are you taking how good are  you at playing soccer how long have you been a  

student so here alone we see what 14 questions  uh so there and this is just just thinking of  

any question that starts with these words  so when you're in a conversation keep those  

question words in your mind and you can ask them  to follow up and keep the conversation going

it's very important in a conversation to ask  open-ended questions these are questions that  

cannot just be answered with yes or no so these  are the best questions now questions like that  

start with do or did did you have fun yes i did no  i didn't are you happy today yes i am no i'm not  

those questions are okay and they're fine to use  but open-ended questions are the best because  

they really uh help the other person to talk  more they can't just answer with yes or no  

they have to share more information so let's take  a look at some closed questions some yes or no  

questions and see how we can change them  into better questions open-ended questions  

so let's say someone is talking to me about  something they did over the weekend i could ask  

was it fun and they could say yes or no so how can  i change that to an open question what was it like  

so instead of assuming or thinking that  it was fun i could ask what was it like  

this is really tell me more about it what was it  like instead of did you enjoy it how did you feel  

instead of did you have a good weekend what did  you do over the weekend so here we see a great  

example did you have a good weekend yeah i did or  no i didn't what did you do over the weekend well  

this will be a much longer response i went  here i did that i saw this person and so on  

do you like listening to music we could change  to who's your favorite singer or what's your  

favorite band or maybe we see someone drawing  so you like drawing yeah i do well a better  

question could be how did you become interested  in drawing or why do you like drawing and these  

will make for better conversations that  really help keep the conversation going  

because they help us get more information  from the other person so let's take a look  

at a conversation with closed questions so here we  go person a and b hey did you have a good weekend  

yeah it was great did you play any computer games  no i just watched movies are you tired today  

i hate mondays yeah i'm pretty tired  do you have a lot of homework to do yes  

okay so these are okay questions but we see each  time it's just yes or no questions that start with  

did or do and be yeah i'm tired yeah yes no so  let's try to make this conversation better with  

open-ended questions so instead of did you have  a good weekend hey what did you do this weekend  

not much i stayed home and watched movies so we  still get that same information i watched movies  

but now we're gonna ask another open-ended  question oh what movies did you watch  

we want more information right i  watched the lord of the rings movies  

i love those movies who's your favorite character  oh i think it'd have to be samwise oh really  

why is he your favorite he's the bravest character  and a loyal friend they wouldn't have been  

successful without him and so the conversation  continues so these open-ended questions who  

what another what why they help us get a lot more  information from the person we're talking to other  

than just yes or no so remember to use open-ended  questions to keep the conversation going  

all right guys so today we talked about phrases to  help people start talking like what do you think  

we learned phrases to help people continue talking  like can you tell me more and we talked a little  

bit about follow-up questions and the importance  of open-ended follow-up questions so these are  

all really useful conversation tools that you can  use anytime you're having an english conversation  

all right guys so do you have any questions  i'm going to close the powerpoint here  

all right and let's see if we  have any questions or comments

um so i'm scrolling through can i see  this live stream again tomorrow well this  

this exact live stream you can watch any time  it's posted you can rewind watch again uh you can  

watch it on youtube or facebook anytime but  will there be another live stream tomorrow  

no my live streams are every thursday so at  this time so you can join again next week  

for a new live stream okay let's see any other  questions simple questions to keep conversation  

and dig step-by-step other subjects related to  the main topic definitely you bring up a great  

point which is conversate questions related to  the topic so when we're having a conversation  

we sought that example of closed questions and  open questions another difference between those  

was the closed questions um what did you do are  you tired today do you have homework they're very  

random questions right but for the open questions  they are all about the same topic so great point  

and here well you commented again we should avoid  do does did ask about action repeated actions  

and ones habits yes so and questions that  start with do so do does did or that start with  

b is mr was were these are closed questions we  do really want to use our wh and h who what when  

where why and how to get more information and  to learn more about the person so what they did  

why they did it who they did it with and this is  just talking about activities of course we can ask  

about their hobbies their interests their friends  their work their family right so many possible  

conversation topics all right thank you oh well  thank you very much noreen for your comment i'm so  

glad that you enjoyed it i hope you tune in again  next week uh so let's see i'm scrolling through

okay

ah so thank you sahar i get stressed  when i start any conversation  

this is bothering me how can i improve well um  you should definitely watch our live stream from  

last week and the oh and the week before actually  because they i i talked all about how to be more  

confident using english so that stress  that you feel is totally normal and i think  

many people who are commenting probably feel  the same way when they start speaking english  

or when they start having any any  kind of conversation like that so  

how can you improve well this is all about  our confidence right so if it is english  

conversations that you're feeling stressed  about then i encourage you to keep practicing  

so of course studying keep going but another  way that i talked about last week so really  

definitely watch last week's video last  thursday so august 12th video you can try to

manage your anxiety this means that or your your  nervousness right so if you notice that it makes  

your heart rate go up or you start um you know  shrinking feeling uh not so great well you can do  

something called fake it till you make it so you  can make your body language a bit more confident  

just act confident until you feel confident and  also the more conversations you have the easier it  

will get so i know it doesn't feel very good but  the more you practice the better you will feel and  

the less nervous you will be so really check out  uh last week's video thank you for your question  

oh thank you for a great lesson well i'm  so glad that you enjoyed it and another  

comment i like the way you teach thank you  i appreciate that uh to have conversation  

written when you are talking well i would  say that um something that you can do  

if you feel concerned nervous worried writing can  be a great way to um feel more confident in your  

speaking so i also i've also talked about this  before that if you practice have a journal or you  

can actually if you know you're going to have a  conversation about you know anything you're going  

to meet someone and speak in english then you can  maybe write or pre-plan some topics or some things  

you might want to talk about so you feel prepared  you can prepare for a conversation uh in it if and  

that's some a great way that you can feel a little  more comfortable and confident okay let's see

hello from cambodia wow that's amazing thank  you so much for your comment and for joining  

okay um so i'm looking could you have two lessons  in a week um some weeks we do have two lessons so  

i do one live stream every week this time on  thursday and another teacher on our channel  

dr dawn he does his on sundays not every  sunday but one sunday yes one sunday no so  

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okay i think that that's about it for today  so thank you everyone for your comments  

make sure to tune in next week and you  can always check out our powerpoints  

make sure to look at previous live streams  we've talked about many topics so make sure  

to check those out okay so i'll see you guys next  week and thank you for joining okay bye everyone