What makes a good EC's topic?

What should the ingredients be? Is there a formula?
I believe these questions are worthwhile to explore, otherwise the way to make a topic would be left exposed to repeating mistakes from the middle age time of EC activities (10-15 years ago), duh..

1. The topic must be controversial

Generally it means to inspire the talkative person inside everyone, "Man, I have so much to talk about this". Laziest way to ensure controversial-quality is to throw a tabloid's headline, example: "We should encourage local girls to marry foreign guys". Tabloid's headline, however may cause a flock of members with "inspired" hostility.

2. The topic must be relevant

Example, X-mas is near, so X-mas topic is a sure-win. Another sure way is to match the topic with how much the members can relate to themelves, to their own situation (like job interview or pre-marital XXX), ya da ya da.

3. The topic must be informative

Make sure the topic will have some piece of info that they do not know of yet. It can be trivial (12.500 Heineken bottles are consumed globally each minute), can be weird (it is proved that the a Nokia phone can be dropped from as 3 meters high without major damage), but unheard. Another way is to cosolidate everything universally known or agreed about the topic, in oder to present a nice, 360 degree summary about it. This is also appreciated as rich and informative

4. The topic must be entertaining

Nothing is more pathetic than a group of brilliant people engaging in a dull, grey and liveless conversation. Try to ensure a sense of X-itement, of humour. MC should be confidently locking eyes with members and shout like Russel Crowe "Are you entertained?"

Hey, enough of me blabling, what do you think? what excite you? what make it stick to you?

good topic

who cares

I love listening to people who have good accents. Their voices make every topic X-celent

..but the problem is how to make a topic informative, controversial, relevant and entertaining enough for everyone ...

Glad to have ur contributions here..

Yes, some voice is sound from heaven
No, then to listen to radio or tune in TV is enough.
-----------------------------Tự động gộp Reply ---------------------------

Good question.

Knowing where to go is already half way. To implement, you can design a topic as a best example (which has those 4 attributes). Use the example as illustration to instruct others, to evaluate their work against it. Since there's a will, there's a way; you'll pretty much figure out by yourself

If I am a member trying to practise my English speaking skill, then the topic doesn't matter much. As long as I can have something to speak, & someone listening to me, that's exciting enough to voice up myself. ^^

Yes, if you are good enough and sitting with good enough people then topic's facilitation would even seem like interruption.
No, the topic is always essential in a way that it helps you to better focus and really stretch your ability (critical reasoning, vocabulary building) to some extent

I don't deny that an interesting topic can help you generate better ideas. But blaming on the topic for not encouraging someone to participate is a way to demotivate themselves.

Good point, and we don’t want to demotivate anyone, who we are anyway

However, let me bring the topic to the spotlight that it well deserve: an advertising piece, reaching to English learners

English learners regularly come to this box (me, daily – so pathetic) to get update like what’s cool this week. Can’t deny that ECs have to compete for their attendance (aka free time), “either I be here with you or be there with them”, simple like that

Take me as normal club goer. When I come across your ad (topic notification), if the title can not explain itself and interest me, I don’t bother to read on, instead swich to another ad. Even armed with a great title, your ad still may fail its mission miserably if generally poorly written, agenda loosely composed with silly questions. Otherwise, I would start imagine what a lovely session at your place and commit to come, even bring over a friend or two

You guys may jump and shout out “Dude, you are not a normal club goer, but a weird one.” Busted! (guilty as charged)

Before ending embarassingly, let me drop a bomb here:

EC are about learning & entertainment purspose. With that purpose, you guys are in a real industry, like a business, with bills to pay and membership to collect. You also dedicate your precious amount of time to build it not to be laughed at but to be awesome and impressive. That requires a certain level of being professional. Start with your ad. Make it jump out from the screen and grab people. As long as you do that, I am in all the way

Good point, and we don’t want to demotivate anyone, who we are anyway

However, let me bring the topic to the spotlight that it well deserve: an advertising piece, reaching to English learners

English learners regularly come to this box (me, daily – so pathetic) to get update like what’s cool this week. Can’t deny that ECs have to compete for their attendance (aka free time), “either I be here with you or be there with them”, simple like that

Take me as normal club goer. When I come across your ad (topic notification), if the title can not explain itself and interest me, I don’t bother to read on, instead swich to another ad. Even armed with a great title, your ad still may fail its mission miserably if generally poorly written, agenda loosely composed with silly questions. Otherwise, I would start imagine what a lovely session at your place and commit to come, even bring over a friend or two

You guys may jump and shout out “Dude, you are not a normal club goer, but a weird one.” Busted! (guilty as charged)

Before ending embarassingly, let me drop a bomb here:

EC are about learning & entertainment purspose. With that purpose, you guys are in a real industry, like a business, with bills to pay and membership to collect. You also dedicate your precious amount of time to build it not to be laughed at but to be awesome and impressive. That requires a certain level of being professional. Start with your ad. Make it jump out from the screen and grab people. As long as you do that, I am in all the way