Some people are natural conversationalists. In almost any situation, they have no problem making small talk of keeping a conversation going smoothly. But for others, this is one of the toughest things in the world. Some of my students are this type, including me sometimes. It might help if we think of a conversation as something like a ball game. It's like two people passing a ball back and forth and trying to keep it from falling to the ground. The idea of the game is to find some common ground so that we can keep the conversation going, without any long pauses. As with any game, there are certain rules and skills that are important to learn. These consist mainly of finding appropriate for starting a conversation and using proper expressions for changing topics, interrupting someone, asking for clarification, and closing a conversation.