Some Ideas to Teach Dialogue
In this issue...
Over the years, I've come to realize that dialogues provide a great opportunity for students to see the target language in use. Everyone gets an example of how to use the grammar and vocabulary in real, relevant, and natural situations.
Compare the following activity. Although important for language acquisition, it can unfortunately also feel boring if repeated again and again and again
. Student A: What are you going to do this weekend?
Student B: I'm going to see a movie this weekend.
Student A: What are you going to do on Thursday?
Student B: I'm going to do my homework.
Student A: What are you going to do tonight?
Student B: I'm going to watch TV.
This may get students comfortable with the sentence structure, but it doesn't feel natural
!A dialogue shows what comes before and after each Q&A exchange. It moves your students from responding to questions to participating in conversations.
That's very, very important.
Most classrooms don't use dialogues to their full potential. You can easily introduce incidental yet natural language, such as conversation starters, responses to good/bad news, rejoinders, and conversation closers.
Here are a few ideas that will enrich most every dialogue activity and maximize their effectiveness:
IDEA #1:
Students practice the dialogue several times to reinforce language patterns as a class. As the teacher, you can make this more interesting through the following
* Ask student to play one role and the second student to play the other role.
* Ask the left side of the class to play one role and the right side the other role.
* Have each assigned role compete in terms of volume, pronunciation, or intonation.
IDEA #2:
Provide a setting for the dialogues. Based on the situation, students may add movement or adjust the volume of their speaking. A setting also makes the dialogue feel less like a reading exercise and more like a real-life situation. For example, the two characters in the dialogue are standing outside and it's noisy. Students need to adjust the volume of their speaking. Or students are inside a library, museum, or other place which requires them to speak softly.
IDEA #3:
With practice, repetition, and a model for the dialogue, students are more able to think about and try to mimic a native speaker's pronunciation and intonation. Over time, this leads to gradually improved pronunciation skills by the students. This also leads to better listening skills. So get them to practice with the dialogue several times, focusing on this aspect too.
IDEA #4:
Gestures, gestures, gestures. By incorporating facial expressions, gestures, and so on, students' speaking then uses this important communicative tool, and in a natural way. As the teacher, you will need to demonstrate natural gestures, as well as ask leading questions to promote qualitative thought. For example: "How would you react to this surprising news? What facial expression or reaction would fit the situation?"
IDEA #5:
Students practice the dialogue individually and in pairs. As a first step, students practice the entire dialogue alone, at least twice, in an effort to improve familiarity with the material and to check any unknown words or phrases. Next, students practice each role twice with a partner. As a final step, students switch partners and go through each role twice more. This helps students use the language more fluently in free(r) activities later in the lesson because the sentence patterns are locked in their short-term memories. It also improves confidence with the target language.
IDEA #6:
This last idea works well for students to use other patterns and grammar points studied in the past. Students work in pairs to continue the dialogue. For example, what happens next? If the dialogue were about a movie, students can continue the conversation about the movie after it has ended. Was it good? Bad? What was the best or worst part?
