Story threads to weave the mind and enable learning!

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Be it words or pictures, there lies a story, waiting to be told. Communication skills sessions and learning plan at Conversation Club revolves around the intuitive art of visualizing scenarios and weaving them into interesting narrations. Each of these narrations is an experience that the learner undergoes to explore possibilities, to ask questions, to absorb new words, to imagine distinct scenarios and to allow escape, thereby fostering creativity & learning.

If lessons were weaved as stories, they would never be forgotten.

How do stories aid learning in kids?

  1. Knitting together boosts imagination – Working with a story mate, building upon those abstract phrases and pictures together, fosters creativity and learning in kids. Young, unrestricted minds, when given the opportunity to engage and converse freely, open up towards new intellectual avenues and together explore the widened creative horizons. Learning becomes a collaborative mission and it is on this path that the adolescent mind blossoms.
  2. From theoretical to practical visualizations – Education shouldn’t have to revolve around tedious facts and formulas. True learning only happens when the mind and heart are intertwined and receptive to information. Stories help engage young audiences and build the apt communication skills training grounds. The flow of thoughts, linked narratives and the ability to venture in multiple directions, opens up new thinking avenues.
  3. Exploring the indefinite possibilities – Exploring abstract avenues and learning in an environment that fosters the idea of freely venturing into all avenues, nurtures creative minds. A close interaction with the fictional scenarios and mysterious characters prompts experimentation, which is turn educates kids and helps with personality development & enrichment.   
  4. Stories boost memory and cultivate retention – The exercise opens up new worlds and conversations. It stimulates thinking and enables comprehension of details, which would otherwise be difficult to retain. Through colorful depictions and word play, stories leave an imprint, thereby boosting the memory. Asking relevant questions, explaining new concepts through stories and engaging in rich discussions together stimulate retention.
  5. Nurtures social skills and empathy – The colorful world of pictures and braided words are an interesting way to introduce new emotions and social scenarios. Outside world is complex and while we dream to preserve and shield the young ones forever, it is only a matter of time that they’ll have to deal with the unknown intricacies. Stories act as windows to such alien scenarios. They help visualize situations and arouse feelings for characters, thereby promoting empathy in readers.
  6. Word play enhances vocabulary – There is a direct correlation between the world of stories and vocabulary. Learning new words through various story activities ensures understanding and retention. Story creators are able to effectively grasp the meanings of new words. The understanding helps them apply the learned knowledge. Enriched vocabulary play an imminent role in both professional and personal domains and the world of stories helps attain the objective.

Stories have a reach, they sink in. Articulate sentences and pictures get embedded in the mind. These captivating narrations are an effective learning tool and can be suitably harnessed to improve communication skills, educate kids and ensure personality development and overall learning.

Learning enablers @ Conversation Club!

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Words and our ability to verbally communicate is one of the most crucial tool available to humankind. While on personal front, we yearn to express and connect with like-minded people; on professional front, ability to get across a message, holds significant value. Be it seamless work execution or conflict resolution or performance measurement parameters, communication skills are a pertinent measurement criterion. We humans deploy words to enable, to heal and to emote.

However, it is not just any random combination of words that leads to communication. Effective communication skills rely upon the basic rule of coherent composition of the message and absolute transmission to the desired receiver, in a desired format. This is where the need for communication skills training arises. Communication is a skill which needs to be regularly sharpened and one where there’s always room for improvement. Communication skills training enables clarity of expression, imparts the eloquent style and lends a hand with empathetic articulation, which are all together critical at any given instance in life.

The relevance of communication skills training is underlined, but how can the objectives be achieved? Platforms like Conversation Club provide the solution.

Conversation Club is a platform that enables the opportunity to practice and improve. Communication skills learning & growth happens here through the loop of practice – feedback – correction – practice! 

Student teacher rapport

Trainers at Conversation Club are skilled at the art of communication and teaching. Backed by years of practical experience in communication domains, mentors and curriculum designers categorically focus upon establishing a rapport. Effective learning in communication skills or any domain can only happen if the trainer is equipped to understand and modulate the program as per learner’s intake. While one ought to be slow enough to ensure assimilation of information & interest, the momentum portion of the classes too needs to be cautiously managed. Trainers at Conversation Club encourage thinking and application, provide regular feedbacks, correct and thus ensure improvement in communication skills.

Assessment of the gaps and steps towards fulfillment lead towards improvement of communication skills!!!

Effective curriculum

We all have our own ecosystems. A student’s life has its own variables and these are quite different from the parameters of a working professional’s life. Depending upon our age, profession and interests, we all have different communication needs. If the needs are different, how can the solution possibly be generic?

At Conversation Club, the curriculum is designed to meet the specific requirements and is further customized to meet individual targets. Thus, there are individual sessions, where the trainer works with the student to fill in specific communication related gaps and clubbed sessions with other conversation partners, which provide the needed exposure.

Information Exchange or Communication??

There is a tricky difference between sharing information and actual communication. The former relies upon sending out the message to an individual or a group of people. Latter is about actually reaching out and getting through to the desired audience by way of effective communication. Communication skills training @ Conversation Club helps bridge this gap from information relay to actual communication.

What your kid watches & reads matters!

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We all crave to be part of society and to belong to social groups that adhere to certain standards. Like us, kids too have the impulse to attach themselves to various social groups and thus belong to a space that they feel is safe. But how do they do this?

Psychologists have conducted various studies over the years and research have led to the findings that point towards a child’s tendency to imitate. To feed the essential need of belonging to a system or in other words to coexist, children tend to copy. To this end, while parents play a critical role, peers, role models and quite importantly media acts as a major influencer.

The role of environment

Our brains tend to replicate behavior from an early age. As we grow, we mimic the people we interact with or are exposed to and thus from early childhood years, our personality tends to depend upon the factors that frame our environment.

It is thus of imperative value that from the very beginning we present a nurturing & learning environment. Our young ones rely upon us for their growth and as parents, it is our duty to ensure that the learning progresses in a holistic manner.

Expose them to the environment that harnesses growth

At Conversation Club, an important objective of the communication curriculum is working around a model that inculcates positive reinforcement by way of discussions. The discussions are based on topics that require research and reading. Furthermore, children are encouraged to watch and discuss. The discussions are targeted towards enhanced learning. Moreover, these activities boost creativity and impart them with an expanded vision about various relevant subjects.

Enriched knowledge gained during these sessions also helps them with the academic curriculum. Each session is circled around topics of interest. The involvement of conversation partners, coming from similar age backgrounds, acts as a positive encouragement. Kids when exposed to this healthy environment of learning & discussing, tend to positively imitate their peers and connect over subjects that illuminate.

The communication platform further inculcates the various aspects of learning English and thus acts as a strong education tool. Language experts guide them through the nitty-gritty of the language. Vocabulary, grammar, presentation techniques, sentence structuring and more are paid adequate attention. Alongside reading, watching & narrating, listening to these educated discussions further strengthens the progress. These positive cues encourage participation, which in turn yields the desired results.

Imitation is invariable! Irrespective of the positive or negative nature of influencers, kids will invariably imitate. Studies have proven that it is a human urge to be part of a group and in the case of kids, the groups they chose have a very strong impact on their personalities & thus growth. While you cannot possibly control or supervise your kid at every hour of the day, exposing the child to a positive influence through Conversation Club is certainly a start. Here the discussions are aimed at learning the language and participating in a rich scholarly environment.  

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A bridge to the Art of Reading

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Unlock your child’s imagination with reading based discussions

Reading stimulates learning, reduces stress, increases vocabulary and expands thinking and yet it is an art that seems to be getting extinct. Despite the well-known and extensively researched positives of reading, these days we hardly get to see anyone devoting enough time to imbibe the valuable treasures hidden in a book. Gone are the days when people spent their commuting time reading books and magazines. Smart phones have led to an era when reading more than 5-7 lines seems a cumbersome task and people simply move on to the next post. Scrolling through reels, digesting the quote of the day, skimming the headlines and perhaps listening to a podcast pretty much summarizes the content intake routine of any typical human being these days. While the trend is spreading like a virus, younger generations are the most severely impacted.

The purpose of reading

The goal of reading is to comprehend and assimilate the content. Be it for entertainment or educational purposes, unless the reader is able to take in the desired information, reading is a futile task. It is a psychological event, which is critical for a learner of any age and from any background.

When it comes to sharpening communication skills and thus the ability to interact and present oneself in a language of choice, reading text greatly promotes the objective. In fact, reading skills are critical for academic endeavors.

  • Reading can stimulate thinking abilities & mental functioning.
  • Mental stress can be largely relieved by indulging in this activity.
  • Vocabulary and grammar applications of the language can be well assimilated by reading.
  • Books enhance memory and promote insights into varied subjects. The overall knowledge pool expands by reading.
  • Concentration levels too are positively affected by reading.
  • Regular readers are better writers.
  • Books are windows to so many worlds; reading expands horizons.

Discussions @ Conversation Club

The above mentioned benefits of reading work best when the collated information is discussed in a stimulating environment. This is a learning platform where reading based discussions are an integral part of the curriculum. Learning the English language critically motivates learners to spend time with books and magazines. Interesting subject matter is identified and the learners are motivated to invest time and read relevant material. These materials form the basis of discussions in subsequent sessions. The exchange of knowledge, based upon the reading tasks, greatly enhances a learner’s capability to grasp the nuances of the English language and at the same time, enriches the knowledge pool.  

The benefits of these reading based discussions are universal to all age groups and profiles. Young kids develop a habit of spending time with books, which greatly helps their concentration levels and prepares them for academic pursuits. In addition to the stated, knowledge bank helps improve thinking skills and further creates a favorable mindset to gel in social settings.

Amongst adults, reading offers a self-managed pace of learning. The option of viewing and reviewing the information as many times allows a flexible intake pace.  Once the grasping skills are enhanced, reading helps retain and improve concentration skills.

Thus the learning English sessions and communication skill classes at Conversation Club strongly advocate the art of reading. In fact, mentors pick enthralling subjects and thus motivate English language enthusiasts to communicate effectively.

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