This is my homework (2025/10/31) which my English teacher gave me 2 days ago. She wants me to watch the video and write down the summary.
First, I tried to transcribe the whole video. I knew that my teacher didn’t ask me to make a script. Second, I am so forgetfull and absent-mindedless sometimes.
I just spent an hour approximately, trying to transcribe the full video “Small Talk” which attached with the email she sent to me few days ago. Some of the words I couldn’t recognize have been marked as “XXXXX”. Some words I spelled might not be correct because of the syllables I caught by my ears probably were wrong.
I didn’t slow down the speed, I didn’t use AIs or any other tools (i.e. turn on the subtitles…) to help me make it correct. So, following paragraph is my “work”.
Hi, I am Steve Dalton. I am Program Director for Daytime Career Services. And today’s topic is "Small Talk".
Small Talk is a critical and near universal element of American Business.
It’s common to have polite conversation before diving into business topics.
Small Talk is critical because it allows you to develop trust in your business partners before getting down the business. And it’s universal because everybody is expecting you to use it. It’s a chance for them to gauge your culture and intelligence.
There’re many of you, this is no XXXXX whatsoever it’s very XXXXX to you.
However, for others of you, such as myself, small talk may fill you with anxiety or XXXXX.
So, today we’re gonna talk about how to make small talk easier. I’m gonna give you my framework for small talk to help take away some of the anxiety I may experience when engaging in this practice. It's not into XXXXX to you.
Frameworks are very helpful. They take away anxiety and help give you a structure to help you perform at the moment before you develop true proficiency. Frameworks also make it easier for you to do what’s very important small talk which is “listen”. Success small talk is less about what you say, and it’s more about how you respond the answers that you’re given.
So here’s my 3 questions XXXXX for small talk.
First, "How is your day going so far?"
This is a temperature check question.If a person XXXXX business, they will say “Fine, and yours?” In which case your response should be “Fine!”, and you move on your next question.
However, if they are chattier, and they give you extraneous information that answers this question, "My morning has been crazy!", "My dog got sick!, and I had to XXXXX the work to get here on time."
Your proper response is to ask a follow question on that extraneous information. "Is your dog okay?" And let them know right away you’re listening to what they’re saying rather than just running through the question. It’s an easy, quick way to build likability during small talk.
Second question I recommend, “How did you join your organization?”
You wanna ask them about themselves before they get a chance to ask about yourself, because I want you to mirror their behavior. If they take 30 seconds all their business to answer this question, you should take 30 seconds and be XXXXXX. If they take 2 minutes in their chatty, you should take 2 minutes and be chatty. If they take 5 minutes in their chatty, you should still just take 2 minutes and be chatty. That’s the maximum amount of time I want you XXXXXX.
The third question is, “What are you working on right now?”
This gives you a chance to demonstrate sincere in your XXXXX and the work that person is doing, it also gives you XXXXXX a chance if they seem distracted to talk about what’s really on their mind, which is usually work.
So, in summary, small talk is a way to build relationships. It’s XXXXX some of you, but for those of you to whom is not XXXXXX, this framework will help you do it well.
Here are my summary to this video:
- Small talk is the best way to start a conversation with a stranger or a client you meet for the first time.
- In this video, the Host Steve Dalton teaches you how to improve or build relationships with people, how to start a topic, and what to do while the conversation is going.
- He emphasizes that listening is very important, and you should focus more on people’s questions. Even when people talk about other topics which are not yours, you still have to give them the proper answers.
- Starting with a simple and instant topic from the circumstances just next to you. This is the easiest way to begin with.
- So, you will learn to just grab any materials around you to have a conversation.
- The procedure of the content of a new conversation is: simple > normal > further > deeper. Step by step, then you will get your friendships.
Like I said in the beginning, I’m so easy-forgetful or absent-mindedness sometimes. Via doing listening and writing simultaneously can definitely help me to remember the contents, esp the details. I knew that she didn’t ask me to make a script. In fact, I don’t have to either, just in case the forgetfulness comes to me by tomorrow evening.
By the way, because of the speaking speed is not that slow, I listened to it over and over again, even replayed some specific paragraphs many times. I watched the host’s lips carefully, tried to read his mouth while I was not familiar to that sound. Sometimes I guessed … like “gauge” “gage” “engage”… in spite of the meaning, they sounds pretty much the same. Haha…🤣🤣🤣
