Some Ideas to Teach Dialogue

موضوع: Some Ideas to Teach Dialogue 2011-11-06, 06:18

In this issue... [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]

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. [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]

Compare
the following activity. Although important for language acquisition, it
can unfortunately also feel boring if repeated again and again and
again [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة] .

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 [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة] !

A
dialogue shows what comes before and after each Q&A exchange. It
moves your students from responding to questions to participating in
conversations. [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]

That's very, very important. [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]

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?