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I'm looking for good conversation/speaking books and I'd like your recommendations. By this I mean books specially for conversation/Speaking.

I only know of one textbook specially dedicated to conversation/speaking - the Let's Talk series by Leo Jones. Has anyone used it? If so, what do you think about it?

I also know of other books (not really part of a series) like The Non-stop Discussion Book, React Interact, Touchy Situations. Again, any thoughts on these books?

I'm looking for other titles. I still haven't found a book I'm comfortable with. I'm going to try Let's Talk soon but I'm hoping to get other recommendations to try too.

Any information would be appreciated. Thanks,

What level and age of students, and what size class?

I'm thinking of say from intermediate to upper intermediate level - not lower than that - but probably more around intermediate level. Class size would be about 10 to 25 students.

Besides those I've mentioned [Let's Talk 1-3, React Interact, The Non-Stop Discussion Book (and the two preceding books n the series), Touchy Situations], I've also recently looked through The Conversation Book 1&2 and have used Conversation and Discussion Strategies (Kehe). I also have Compelling Conversations (Roth).

Any others to recommend. These are all good and some different from others. Regarding "texts", I think only the Let's Talk and The Conversation Book are really conversation texts. I'd be keen to know if anyone has used these.

While Compelling Conversations has had positive reviews, I haven't really used it that much and I'm not sure how to just use a list of questions and proverbs, etc. I'd like a book that has a bit more support/scaffolding, yet not too much as that will distract from the fluency speaking focus - e.g. Breaking News English is more integrated skills with too much time focused on other skills and areas.

Alex and others, I'm sure in places like Korea and Japan there would be "additional" conversation/speaking classes in private schools. What kind of materials would you use there? Do you know of any good text (other than the above) that would be assigned to such classes?

I've come across a few speaking/conversation texts from say Macmillan Japan or other Jap publishers which are not sold elsewhere. There seems to be a market for such books in Japan. Any good ones to recommend that would do well outside of Japan? I work mainly with Chinese and Southeast Asian students.