Throughout each lesson, students are given a variety of scaffolded language models. Language “toolboxes”, developed over three editions of our best-selling Conversations in Class textbook, provide a springboard for students to express themselves.

For intermediate-level EFL students with basic conversational ability, the next challenge is to learn to speak with nuance and express their opinions rationally:

• qualifying what they say, for example by saying

“Many elderly Japanese people like to … ” instead of

“Japanese people like to …”

• expressing their personal habits and points of view in relation to their society’s values:

“Most university students in Japan … but personally …”

• reacting respectfully to differences by explaining what they find to be and why:

“I found this to be surprising because …”