There are various techniques that are used to make input more comprehensible, to control the quality of the input. Perhaps the most obvious is simply asking the native speaker for help, "getting the native speaker to explain parts of the conversation... by using discourse devices" (Scarcella, p. 5). These devices range from focussing on a single problem word by repeating it, as in

     NS:       Salvador Dali also put out a cookbook because he is a
               great expert on cuisine.
     Miguel:   (looking confused): Cookbook?
     NS:       (picking up a cookbook): Recipes from Maxime's, places
               like that.
                                                    (Scarcella, p. 5)

to utterances such as "What?", or "I don't understand."

Scarcella also notes that the quality of input can be improved by the use of "back channel cues", cues that provide the native speaker with evidence that the conversational partner is indeed following the conversation. These include verbal cues such as "Uhuh", "Yeah", and non-verbal cues such as head nodding at appropriate time and eye gaze behavior.

Finally, there are conversational strategies that avoid incomprehensible input, including ways of changing the subject to something easier to understand or more familiar to the acquirer. Scarcella's subject Miguel is quite good at this, as the following demonstrates:

     NS:       ... I like classical music too--Beethoven, Schubert--you
               know that kinda stuff.
     Miguel:   You play the piano?
     Joe:      Yeah.
     Miguel:   Me too.

F. "Teaching" Conversational Competence

Knowledge of the components of conversational competence is one thing. Developing conversational competence in students is another. The question that needs to be asked here is whether conversational competence is learned or acquired.

There are good arguments, I think, against the hypothesis that all of conversational competence is learnable (see also discussion in Scarcella,

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