Small Talk vs. Meaningful Conversation

This speaking activity is based on an article from The Elephant Journal entitled "Small Talk: I can't do it anymore" by Morgan L. Callison. We ask ss to say what they understand by "small talk" and then, after reading some selected paragraphs from the article,  ss are asked to write down some questions for a meaningful conversation. Teachers may check mistakes ss make when writing their own questions (auxiliary verbs, tenses, prepositions, etc).