29th June 2009
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Over the last couple of weeks we've been looking at using picture stories, building narratives & building dialogues - http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips144.htm
Here are some more ways of working with dialogues in class:
Dialogues are clearly a very important focus in the classroom & we use them for many purposes in class, from focusing on language to providing a structure for speaking. Here's a round up of a few ideas in no particular order:
1. Dialogue building - this is where you elicit dialogue prompts onto the board, drilling each line as you go along so that the students then have the dialogue in pairs. They repeat the dialogues, taking it in turns to take a role, & then they substitute different ideas into the dialogue but still keeping the structure of the dialogue. See the past Tip 'Dialoguing' for more:
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips144.htm
2. Dialogue completion - students fill in the missing parts to check that they understand the target language of the lesson, & then the dialogue is read aloud to each other. If the dialogue is open-ended, the students continue it with their own ideas, hence incorporating a degree of fluency practice at the same time.
3. Dialogue drama >> give out a 6-8 line dialogues, assign roles & students practice the dialogue 4 or 5 times, enough so that they memorise the dialogue. Then they discuss the situation, what came before the dialogue & what came after. Then they act out the whole scene & finally act it out for the class.
4. Mutual dictation - choose a dialogue that contains language you want to review. Give out one side of the short dialogue to student A & the other half to student B. They read aloud their parts & write in what the other says until they both have complete dialogues. Then focus on the language in the context of the dialogue.
5. Unjumbling dialogues - copy & cut up, jumble up & the students put the dialogue in order. It's a good way of contrasting formal & informal language if you jumble up two dialogues.
6. Chain dialogue - students take it in turns in providing the next line to a two-person dialogue.
7. Pronunciation focus - any dialogue can be exploited for pronunciation awareness. After a listening, give out the tapescript & students mark certain features such as the tone units & prominence, weak forms, intrusion & elision etc.. After marking the students listen to verify their versions.
8. Flow charts - very underused dialogues with choices - see the Tip 'Going with the flow':
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips14.htm
9. Simple written dialogue - if you are at a loss for a practice activity, simply ask the students to write a dialogue containing the target language items.
10. Transcribing dialogues - while the students are doing a speaking task, tape them & type up a section & then use the transcript to focus on a language area. You might even get the students transcribing dialogues to bring into class for use.
11. Shadow reading - hand out a dialogue, the students listen to it & read silently. They then read along to the dialogue in exactly the same manner as it is being played on the tape. Assign roles & they read these aloud at the same time as the tape & gradually turn down the volume as they become better at the dialogue so that it is the students sounding exactly like the original on the tape. See the Tip 'Shadow Reading':
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips11.htm
12. Presentation dialogues - check out the two past Tips 'Lifting it off' & 'Using the script' for ideas on presenting language from dialogues.
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips26.htm
http://www.developingteachers.com/tips/pasttips53.htm
Sometimes the problem with using teacher & coursebook -produced dialogues is that they tend to sound unnatural & fail to contain features of natural speech. A tape of you & your friends can be very revealing when used in class. Students can see all the hesitations & false starts & see that native speakers make mistakes & that conversation is not the neat dialogue that they see in coursebooks. Focusing on these features help them to become more effective communicators.
For more ideas on the above, please post for all to use at:
http://forum.developingteachers.com/index.php?topic=1858.0
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The Weekly Teaching Tip is written by Alistair Dickinson at Developing Teachers.com.
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