Many of you are winding down the academic year, and some of you may already be off for summer break, but I wanted to drop by to give you an idea you can set to simmer until it's time to get back to serious planning.

This is actually an idea I "stole" (with permission of course) from my friend Heather Johnston, who teaches in a university intensive English program in Kentucky. After assigning her students the podcast episode where I was interviewed about my home state of Iowa (you can find that episode of the American English Podcast here), Heather asked me if I would be willing to do a Q&A session with her students via Zoom to answer their questions about Iowa.

I was thrilled with this idea and gave her an enthusiastic yes! Since there was nothing I needed to prepare, it made it easy for me to set aside an hour to chat with her class.

After listening to the podcast episode to get ideas, Heather gave her students instructions and guidance for writing their own follow-up questions that they would like to ask me. Heather also set up the tech and configured the room to make sure all the students in her class would be able to see and hear me, and vice versa.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Heather’s class, and it was fun to hear the questions they came up with! From food to farming to fairs, students’ questions reflected what they had already learned about Iowa and what they wanted to learn more about. The Q&A class went so well that we repeated the experience the next term with a different group of students.

This experience got me pondering how other teachers might be able to adapt this idea for their own classrooms. But before we look at the How, let’s start with the Why?

What does a guest expert add to your class? We all know it’s more work to invite someone and do all the planning and logistical preparation necessary, whether it’s someone coming to your class in person, or joining you by Zoom. It’s always easier to just do things yourself than to bring someone in!

But there are a few significant benefits that could make it well worth the effort.

After the first couple weeks of class, students are used to the way you talk, and they probably feel reasonably comfortable listening and speaking to you and their classmates. Bringing in someone new suddenly makes them sit up and listen more closely, repeat or rephrase their question if the guest doesn’t understand the first time (which happened several times in my case) and feel that extra edge of nervousness that is exactly how they feel outside the class when they are using their English with someone new. We want our learners to feel comfortable, but it’s also good for them to be pushed a bit outside that comfort zone while still having support and being set up for success.

A well-placed guest visit during the “blah” days when everyone (including you) is getting a bit tired of doing the same old thing can add an infusion of fun and interest to a tired class. A fresh face, new voice, and an interesting topic will all boost student engagement, not only on the day of the Q&A, but also in the time leading up to the visit as they are preparing their questions.

You can’t get much more authentic than coming up with questions that students will actually be asking a guest! Q&A time at the end of a lecture or presentation is a real world skill that students will need to be familiar with, and it allows them to practice the grammar of question formation and incorporate relevant new vocabulary in a meaningful way.

I love the idea of a guest Q&A session versus the traditional guest speaker model because it makes things so much easier for everyone. Easier for you as a teacher to find someone to come in, because you’re not asking them to prepare an entire presentation for your class. It’s a much easier “yes” to agree to come and answer a few questions about something you already know a lot about.

Easier for your students in terms of comprehensible input because they are able to control the direction of the conversation. I have had so many experiences where the expert (either on a field trip or a guest speaker in the class) talks over my students’ heads for an hour, with no idea that their politely smiling audience have no clue what they are talking about.

The Q&A format reverses the whole dynamic and puts students in charge of what is being discussed. It is much easier to follow the answer to a question you asked—even if you don’t understand all the language being used—because you already have an idea of the general topic.

Hopefully you’re now fully convinced of what a great idea this is and are ready to jump into the brainstorming stage! As I see it, there are a couple different starting points for incorporating a guest Q&A session into your lesson:

Ask yourself these questions:

Family members, friends, retired community leaders, or teachers at different institutions are all possibilities you might consider. Once you have identified a couple possible candidates, ask yourself:

These questions should give you a few possible things that your potential guests are an expert in and might be interested in answering questions about.

If you find it hard to generate ideas by starting with the person, you can try brainstorming a list of possible topics that might be interesting to your students. Here are just a few ideas:

Once you have a list of topics you think your students would find interesting, think about who you know who could answer questions about those things!

For example, the friend who is always trying out new restaurants would be a great person to talk to your students about restaurants in the area they may not have tried yet. It doesn’t have to be an “expert” in the formal definition of the word, just someone who has a bit more experience or knowledge on the topic than the average person.

Once you have an idea of who you can invite to talk about what topic, it’s time to schedule your Q&A! If possible, set a date towards the middle or end of the term when you know you and your students will be needing an extra boost of energy and fun. Alternately, you can plan for a time when the topic logically ties into your syllabus, or during a unit where you’re working on question formation.

I hope this has given you a jumping-off point to get your own ideas started! I would love to hear how you use and adapt this idea and I will be sure to pass your feedback along to Heather as well.

Wishing you a restful summer with many fully-present, fully-enjoyed moments,

Bethany