Using Conversation Analysis To Underpin Communication Training & Coaching

Conversation analysis has the potential to transform voice coaching. We have invited along Professor Liz Stokoe to share her insights as to how.

Conversation Analytic Research aims to understand how real-life talk works. This is a dynamic form of research examining talk in and as action. In this session, Liz will describe her research in conversation analysis and how she has used her findings about (in)effective communicative practices to underpin a different kind of communication training: the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM). Throughout the session, she will explore the way conversation analytic research challenges popular communication myths and raises questions about the integrity of some forms of communication guidance and assessment.

Liz will describe how her public lectures – including at TED and on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific – engaged non-academic audiences, leading to impact-generating partnerships. She’ll give examples of how conversation analytic research has shaped communication training across settings from – for example – mediation to sales calls and from crisis communication to conversational technologies. From teachers to students, coaches to coachees, choir leaders to SLT’s, the lecture will be of value to all those interested in understanding how talk is co-created and working to increase the effectiveness of their communication. It will provide insight into a rigorous method for critically evaluating talk as it occurs, the everyday mundane and critical spontaneous conversations we all live by, suggesting a way of adding depth to qualitative research.