Issues regarding the development of student's speaking skills and English as a second language (ESL) techniques designed to improve the teaching of conversation are described. Ten true and false assumptions about the teaching of conversation are considered: (1) everyone enjoys talking and participating in class discussion; (2) discussion topics in conversation classes are usually of great interest to students; (3) students will volunteer to participate in planned activities; (4) students who do well in structured situations will do well in class discussions; (5) in order to communicate, students need to use perfectly correct sentences; (6) memorizing dialogues and sentence patterns enhances communication; (7) error correction should be done immediately; (8) conversation classes are fun and easy to teach; (9) rigorous discipline is appropriate in a conversation class; and (10) foreign students will develop speaking skills naturally since they can practice outside of the classroom. Techniques for developing speaking skills and communicative competence are explored. It is emphasized that successful conversation classes require careful planning to keep motivation high and to challenge the students. (RW)