If your library can only run one program for English language learners, start a conversation club.
As the name suggests, an English conversation club is a free, informal program where adult English learners practice speaking in a relaxed group setting, usually led by library staff or volunteers.
The goal is function over form: helping immigrants, refugees, and other ELLs build the confidence they need to speak English in their daily lives. More formal classes can fill in grammar gaps later on.
Sounds easy enough. But it takes some trial and error to get it right.
To dig into what running an English conversation groups looks like week to week, we brought together three experts:
You can watch the full recording below. Or read on for a synopsis of the major takeaways. (And get more advice like this from your library peers in our free ELL programs guide.)
Whiteboards, visual aids, gestures, and translation apps cover most of the gap. All three panelists said the language barrier is less of a problem than it sounds, even with lower proficiency learners.
That’s good news, because it’s the top worry we hear. We asked 318 library professionals about their biggest concerns about launching a conversation club, and the most common answer was the language barrier.
The panelists recommend having something to write and draw on, like white boards or pieces of paper. Visual aids can also be helpful if you pick a discussion topic beforehand, such as a world map if you’re talking about different cultures or pictures of celebrations if you’re talking about holidays.
Carmen noted that participants often bring their own tools to bridge the gap:
“Gestures, drawings, visuals, if you have any print resources to point at something. Google Translate does a half-decent job in the moment. I've seen our participants pull out their phone, looking up words, asking us how do you spell this so they could put it in their phone.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
Katelyn, who does speak fluent Spanish but deliberately does not use it in her conversation group, echoed that your personality matters more than your language skills:
“I think number one, sense of humor, willingness to be awkward and funny, and okay, we're gonna make this work. Hand gestures, facial expressions, motions. I'll get up and demonstrate something. And if they're laughing at me, I'm like, yes. Perfect. Let's go. We've broken the ice.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
The language barrier is intimidating to patrons, too. LaShaira makes sure to set the tone at the start of every session:
“One of the biggest things that I always mention within the first five minutes is do not be nervous. Do not think that you are forced to speak in this area, and don't think that you have to know everything at that moment. We're here to learn together, and this is how we take care of each other.”
— LaShaira Fullwood, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
No. None of the three panelists separate participants by level. Everyone comes together regardless of where they are in their English learning journey.
It’s a deliberate choice with benefits for the learners. Newer learners get to see what progress looks like, and more advanced learners become examples and resources for the rest of the group.
LaShaira described how she reframes what it means to be a beginner in the room:
“My big thing for them is this person [who is more advanced now] was you last year. This person was you three months ago. So why don't we all intermingle and see how their experience was, how long they thought it should take them to be fluent, and how do you think the language is going to evolve for everyone who is part of this group? And that's online as well as in person. And when you say things like that, they all of a sudden go, it's like that light bulb goes off.”
— LaShaira Fullwood, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
Katelyn described a recent moment that illustrated this dynamic on its own:
“I had a student who's been coming a long time, but who started out with a really basic level. And we've had a couple new people come in who were at a much higher level, and he immediately was like, what's your strategy? Like, what do you do to practice your English? What did you do to get to this point? He's always asking people who are higher level than him, okay, what should I try? I think that's really empowering to people, to see someone further along and know, okay, maybe I'll try this thing, or just even knowing that it's possible.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
Carmen added that different participation formats help make the group work for everyone, regardless of level:
“Beyond the introduction, nobody's required to talk. But if they want to do gestures, nodding, pointing at pictures, or literally give us the Google Translate from their phone, that is one way to participate. We also had a participant that was quite quiet for a number of weeks. And then we played a game of Clue, and she got really into it because she was able to use the translate feature, and she won the game. And her face just beamed. We realized she understands a lot more than she says.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
That last bit is important: often participants understand more than they may let on because they’re too shy to speak up. To address that, Katelyn checks in privately with quieter participants after the session ends, both to make sure they are comfortable and to reassure them that listening is a legitimate form of participation.
Around ten to fifteen people is enough to keep a single conversation going, but new groups often start with just one or two. Beyond size, the panelists made different choices about registration and scheduling that reflect both their library contexts and their personal styles.
Katelyn runs a drop-in group with no registration and no set limit, though she finds ten to fifteen people to be the sweet spot:
“When we've had a few times where we had more than twenty people, it gets hard to have one conversation. And my goal is always for all of us to be having one conversation. So I think around ten or fifteen is our sweet spot.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
Carmen's group at Schlow Centre Region Library is newer and smaller. They always have two facilitators, regardless of the group size. She noted that the group once had a productive session with just one participant and two volunteers, and encouraged anyone just starting out not to be discouraged by low early attendance:
“When we first started, it was one or two people. It does take time. If you're starting from scratch, it's okay. The first few, it's gonna be really awkward. But word spreads in the community. People tell their friends or their cousins or whatever. Don't be discouraged if you start out and you get one or two people.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
LaShaira on the other hand requires registration so she can follow up with participants by email before and after each session. Her emails include the Zoom link for virtual participants, a recap of the last session, and the topic of the upcoming session.
On timing, all three panelists said evenings work best for their groups. Carmen noted that surveying potential participants directly during an ESL open house helped surface what times would work, though she acknowledged that any given time is unlikely to work for everyone.
As much or as little as suits you and your group. The three panelists range from no agenda at all to planned topics with follow-up between sessions, and all three approaches work. Two of the three started with more structure and loosened it as participants began to steer the conversation.
Katelyn runs a 90-minute drop-in session with almost no structure at all. The only consistent element is an opening round of introductions using a large laminated world map:
“I ask everybody, the one time I insist that they talk, is to say their name and where they're from. I do have a big laminated map of the world. So especially if it's a country people aren't familiar with, we'll point to where that is. Sometimes that'll start some conversation. But I do not bring a discussion subject. I do not bring anything. We just wing it from then on out.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
When she first started, she brought a few discussion questions. Over time, she stopped, and the group has found its own momentum. She noted that regulars who come consistently help set the tone for newer participants, and that certain reliable attendees give her confidence the conversation will flow even when she arrives with nothing prepared.
Carmen's group meets for 60 minutes. The sessions started with formal role-play scenarios and PowerPoint slides with visuals, then shifted toward open discussion, games, and current events as the group found its footing. One insight from that evolution:
“Initially, we did start with a lot of structure, even PowerPoint slides with lots of visuals. And then we realized it takes a lot of time to prep those. So why not use the visuals from the library? We had the librarians pull lots of books with pictures. Sometimes they'd go to the children's department and grab those. And we love taking turns reading from them and talking about them. And then sometimes people would bring up childhood stories. So it organically changed over time.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
Carmen now ends most sessions by asking participants what they want to talk about next time, which both surfaces topics people care about and gives the group a sense of ownership over the program.
LaShaira runs the most structured of the three groups. At 45 minutes per session, it's also the shortest, so the structure helps them make the most of that time.
She emails registered participants before each session with a recap of what was covered the previous week and a prompt to bring their own topics if they have something they want to discuss. She also maintains a Facebook Messenger group where participants can ask questions and continue conversations between sessions:
“I have a program that I set up for them in Facebook Messenger that they can talk to each other every day, every week, and they can contact me. And we can decipher, well, what was this? I heard this word. How do I say this? And that's really cool because they've taken a big handle on doing that.”
— LaShaira Fullwood, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
Her group is currently reading a young adult book as part of the library's community read initiative, which has given participants a shared text to work from while also connecting them to a broader library program.
The short answer from all three panelists: no.
Carmen, who is trained as a science teacher and professor, put it plainly:
“I don't think you need to have training as long as you have an open mind and the assumption that everybody can learn. Because you're always learning through these interactions. You're noticing what people are resonating with and making small changes. That's responsive teaching. And I don't think you necessarily have to have those formal learning goals and the standards. People will tell you what they want to practice.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
Katelyn agreed, noting that her most useful background has been her own experience learning languages, not any formal credential:
“I don't have any formal teacher training. I have experience learning languages myself and living abroad and being in language classes. And I think that is a helpful experience to have had. But especially for a conversation group, you just have to be really open-minded and friendly.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
The qualities that matter most, across all three panelists: patience, flexibility, a sense of humor, and genuine interest in the people in the room.
Mostly not, at least not in the moment. All three panelists lean toward letting conversation flow over stopping to correct grammar. Each has developed their own approach for when correction does come up, especially around pronunciation.
Katelyn keeps a small handheld marker board for exactly these moments, writing out words when pronunciation or spelling is the issue. But her default is to let things go:
“Oftentimes, if it's something really minor, unless it's a person who has asked me, please correct me, then I won't interrupt just to do that. I want to let the conversation flow. It's exciting when people are understanding each other.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
LaShaira focuses on word stress and phonetics when corrections are needed. She lets participants take the lead on sounding out unfamiliar words together rather than being corrected by the facilitator directly. She also uses the Zoom chat as a real-time space to write out words phonetically for participants who need to see the pronunciation spelled out.
Carmen described a situation that captures how miscommunication can become a teaching moment on its own:
“We were having a conversation about hobbies and things going on in your life, and somebody said, oh, I wish I could work. I said, oh, well, maybe you could find volunteer work. She meant to say, I wish I could walk. It was bitter cold outside and she was saying she couldn't go outdoors. But I interpreted it differently because of her pronunciation, and we had a little chuckle out of it. And we said, oh, okay, and then these words do sound very similar.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
Reassure them often, and keep the focus on communicating rather than getting everything right. Underneath all the tactical questions about structure and error correction is a more fundamental goal: giving participants a space where they feel capable and understood.
Carmen, an immigrant whose family relied on the local library for English learning, shared an observation from her own family's experience learning English that captures why this matters:
“My dad took a grammar class at a local college while my mom went to the library and had a conversation partner, just somebody who she could talk to. At some point, I noticed that my dad turned into a perfectionist, focusing so much on his grammar and what he couldn't do that it stopped him from talking altogether sometimes. He would say, I speak English with difficulty. While my mom's fluency built up through confidence and talking to just one person. We just kept validating her. Oh no, you're doing great.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
Katelyn added that the validation a conversation group offers is not just encouraging, it is often corrective for experiences participants are having everywhere else:
“I've had multiple people say, when you talk, I can understand you, but I can't understand other Americans who talk to me. Being able to say to somebody, I understand you, when maybe out in the broader world they're encountering people who are not being patient with them. Just having that one person who validates you, I think, is really powerful.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
LaShaira described her approach to participants who are hard on themselves:
“You want them to feel comfortable. You don't want them to think that their confidence when they walked in will be even worse when they leave. You think you said that wrong, but you know what, at some point we all have probably said this incorrectly, and that's why we're here. Remember, this is your group too, and we will all succeed. We'll fix it.”
— LaShaira Fullwood, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
Board games, picture books, hands-on props, and short videos all work well. All three panelists use physical materials to support conversation, and several have found that games in particular create a different kind of engagement than discussion topics alone.
Carmen's group has tried board games including Apples to Apples, Scrabble, and Clue. The Clue session became one of their most memorable:
“It took us a minute to finish. We almost didn't finish in time, but we stayed ten minutes after to conclude that game. And it created a level of excitement and little side conversations that we didn't think could be possible with just our regular scenarios. We've come full circle with the types of things we've tried, and I absolutely love being able to play games.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
She also described using print resources borrowed from the library's own collection, including children's books for their visual density and low text load:
“I asked for poetry, and they gave me lots of Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. And I said, we need lower text density and lots of pictures. So they went and got books from the children's department. And we love taking turns reading from them and talking about them.”
— Carmen Vanderhoof, volunteer facilitator, Schlow Centre Region Library
Another prop Carmen's group found especially useful came from a volunteer who brought play food during a session on grocery store vocabulary. Touching and naming physical objects created a kind of engagement that scenario-based roleplay had not.
Katelyn keeps a computer in the room to look things up as they come up in conversation. When students want to see a photo of something being discussed, or when a current event comes up unexpectedly, having the ability to pull up images and information in the moment keeps the conversation moving:
“After the Will Smith slap, that was all students wanted to talk about. And I was having to look up stuff because I hadn't really paid attention, and I was like, oh gosh. But yes, I do have a computer with me in class so I can look up stuff like that.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
LaShaira uses short videos, including content from YouTube and resources like Woodpecker (a free tool and app for slowing down audio to focus on pronunciation), and gives participants exercises where they watch a short clip without captions, write down what they heard, and then rewatch with captions to compare. She also provides folders with printed materials that participants can take home.
Food, weather, current events, and celebrities reliably get people talking. Here are the panelists’ go-to topics:
Carmen's group also found that asking participants at the end of a session what they want to talk about next time is one of the most reliable ways to surface topics that will actually resonate.
Partner with the organizations already serving English learners in your community. ESL class providers, newcomer organizations, and school district ESL coordinators all helped the panelists find their first participants.
Katelyn's approach is to position the conversation club as a complement to, not a competitor of, more structured ESL programs in the community:
“All of the places that are doing more structured classes, so many of those students want more practice. They want a little extra. So reaching out to a lot of the places that offer classes, especially if they have wait lists, which a lot of folks in our area do, this is something they can do in the meantime. We're not competing with you. We're trying to offer an additional service that your students can take advantage of.”
— Katelyn Duncan, Worcester Public Library
LaShaira described the value of her library's partnership with a local organization called the International House, which serves as a primary connection point for newcomers and feeds participants into the library's programs.
Likewise, Carmen's group connected with the local school district's ESL coordinator, who shared flyers with families.
Both Katelyn and Carmen noted that word of mouth within immigrant communities is ultimately the most reliable growth engine once a group is established. Participants tell family members and neighbors, and the group grows from there.
Across every topic, one idea kept coming up: the goal of a conversation club is not to teach English. It’s to give people a place where they feel safe enough to practice it.
That principle shapes nearly every choice the panelists described. They let most mistakes go so the conversation keeps moving. They mix proficiency levels so newer learners can see what progress looks like. They treat gestures, drawings, and translation apps as real participation. And they make a point of letting participants know they are understood, something many don’t hear often outside the group.
None of this requires a teaching credential, a curriculum, or a budget. It takes a room, a regular time slot, and a facilitator who is patient and willing to be a little awkward. Start small, expect a few quiet weeks at first, and let the group help decide where it goes.
That focus on comfort over correctness is what separates a conversation club from a class. According to the panelists, it’s also why participants keep coming back.
Hear how your library peers are supporting English language learners in our free guide. No AI fluff. Just real advice from a dozen real library professionals on:
And learn more about our 300-hour ESOL course collection for speakers of 40+ languages here.
