Tips on setting up a conversation group?

[Foreignlanguageconvo]

I'm thinking of starting up a language conversation group in the local community. I'm interested in German, French and Italian, but I'd want to go for whichever of those is most likely to appeal, which at a guess may be French. I know that these things tend to start up, and then almost no-one turns up and then they die. So does anyone have any recommendations for how to go about doing this successfully? Any suggestions and warnings are welcome! For instance, should I print out something to read and discuss each session, or is that overkill? Should I specify a level, for instance intermediate and above, or is that too restrictive? I'm thinking monthly meetings? I don't want it to be seen as a language lesson, as I'm not fluent in any of those languages. I'm aware that conversation groups are not the best way to improve ones languages, but it would be good do encourage an interest in languages and to socialise and there are no evening classes locally.

Do you need to pick one now?

Maybe start with a meeting for MFL fans in general, and see what languages will get traction.

You can discuss learning, sources, popular linguistics, solve linguistics problems, and see whether there would be potential for a breakout group focusing on a specific one.

@FourSevenTwo An interesting idea, thank you. But do you think it might frighten away the elderly hobby linguists who are likely to be the main audience for a conversation group? We don't live in a city and these types of groups, such as they are, tend to be dominated by retired people.

Why would it? Won't they enjoy talking about how they learned languages and sharing their worse misunderstandings?
I would hope that talking about languages might make people less afraid - and than can come a a question, would it make sense to actually meet to talk in F/G/I.

I don't have any experience with this age group though - at some events I run a language corner for high school & uni students who love puzzles, so we discussed weird languages and solved shorter problems from the linguistics Olympics.
With younger kids we played Chinese whispers - sat the kids in the circle based on the languages they know, and every child translated the message to another language (most did native-english or back, but we got a few other languages with two or more speakers, so it got interesting).

I appreciate this might not work for your target group, but it's still a bump :)

I live in France, and am part of an organisation that includes conversation groups as part of the local activities. I do a group one day a week. It runs for 2 hours; we do 1hr in English and 1hr in French (starting with the language of the host). We rotate between each other's houses; host provides coffee and cake or pudding.

The French ladies are retirees. The groups run in the weekday; the anglophones (anyone who speaks English to a decent level) tend to be SAHMs, for obvious reasons. I treat it as a pleasant coffee morning. We have several groups running now; each group is autonomous and sorts their own meetings etc.

Obviously for working folk, it would need to be evening, in which case maybe a more neutral venue like a table in a quiet section of a pub might work.

Some groups take it more seriously, taking notes, correcting people's language or grammar. Because it's a conversation group, and not a language class, we insist on an absolute minimum of A2 as a starting point; no beginners. We also like the group to have a minimum of 6 people, in the hope that at least 4 people can make any particular session.

@Oriunda So you have an hour in French although most participants are presumably French? So you are really valuing the conversation, not just the chance to speak a foreign language. Do you do choose a topic of conversation in advance, read a newspaper article together, or anything like that? Or do you just chat and let the conversation develop? In our case it would probably just be once a month.

No. We try to have equal numbers of franco and anglophones in a group (we’re in a very expat area). We do an hour in one language, then switch to the other. That way both groups of speakers benefit.

Our group just chats; the French ladies all know each other socially so are friends. Conversation flows easily. We talk about expos, films, anything really.

Other groups do their own thing. One group (mostly men) choose a topic each week and designate people in turn to elucidate on that topic in their mother tongue. I trialled that group and hated it, but clearly it works for them.

Others take notebooks and write down words. Me, I just tap the occasional word into google translate.

May I ask why the topic-based group didn't work for you? I was thinking of everyone reading a news article or short story and then discussing it, if that isn't too boring.
I've had a look at stage 1 papers from the UK languages olympiad, and I think people would struggle!

But I think it might be worth trying a multilingual 1st meeting, as you've suggested, to include a couple of activities, perhaps separating into language groups to do a fun task, and then presenting it to everyone. But it's quite possible that very few people would turn up - we're not a big community, and I don't think there's much interest in languages among younger people here.

I’m reserved by nature, so the thought of having effectively to give a presentation to people I don’t know, on a topic, appalled me. Plus, tbh, I didn’t like the others in the group; they were much older than me, but also politically more conservative. This ordinarily wouldn’t be an issue, because that sort of stuff shouldn’t come up, but the group leader made several statements setting out his stall so to speak. Dynamics are important in smaller group settings.

Our groups are slightly different from what you’re suggesting; the anglophones in our groups are actively seeking to improve their French, and many augment the groups with additional classes.

We also have French-Italian and French-German groups running, too.