This is very useful.

Upon reading this, I immediately synthesized the following practical advice (with offline conversations in mind):

1) To be a better talker, you need to know off the top of your head what to do with a "what's new" or similar invitation. Being prepared for likely specific inquiries (e.g. "How was your weekend" on a Monday) is also wise, keeping in mind that a certain amount of redirection is acceptable ("Not too much--I was resting after [interesting intense thing] last weekend").

2) To be a better listener, you need to be able to ask specific questions. I, for one, would be highly interested in a list of conversation items to drill this on, since generating these on the spot has been my failure point more times than I can count. (I don't mean trying to prepare follow-ups to everything someone might say, but rather practicing to get better at generating.)