Teaching Dialogical Speech at Different Levels of Language Acquisition

Are you alive or dead? ( live)

Are you English? (Yes)

Are you a writer? (no) etc.

-What’s my line?: One student chooses a job, and mines a typical activity which it involves. The others try to guess the job by asking questions either about the activity or the job, e.g.:

Were you mending something?

Were you digging?

Do you work outside? etc.

- What and where?: The teacher sends two students out of the room. The other students hide an object. The two students come back and guess what the object is and where it is hidden, by asking questions, e.g.:

Is it made of wood?

Is it a pencil?

Is it on this side of the room?

Is it high or low? etc. [17, 214].

Three or four line dialogues which express feelings as well as facts provide excellent information practice. They are fun to do and are short enough to be easily remembered. The dialogue can be played first of all on a tape-recorder or, even simpler, the teacher can real it himself, taking both parts. The teacher can indicate when a different person is speaking by changing his voice slightly, by stepping to the left or right, by pointing to two pictures of people up on the blackboard, by using two different hats which he switches round very quickly, or by using puppets. When the students have heard the dialogue once or twice, they might be asked to repeat one of the parts after the teacher, in chorus and individually, while the teacher listens carefully to their information patterns. The teacher can then take one part of the dialogue, and the students the other. Next they copy the second part and at this stage the class can be divided- one half taking A’s part, the other B’s [22, 70]. Finally they split into pairs to practice the dialogue, by this time incorporating substitution words or phrases that they or the teacher have suggested and which have been written on the board, while the teacher goes round and listens in. Needless to say, this is by no means the only way of handing a short dialogue. It is hoped that the teacher will experiment and try out the many other possibilities that exist, and so give his class the variety of approach that a class needs. It is suggested, however, that this type of dialogue be used for no longer than ten minutes with a class. They are designed to provide short intensive practice of certain structures and intonation patterns, and can easily become boring if left to run on too long. Here are some examples:

1. A   Have you heard?

    B   No, what?

    A  The Pope is dead!

    B  Really ? How incredible!

Substitute:

I passed my driving test.                              Kevin got the job.

Betty has broken her leg.                              Pamela is pregnant.

Manchester United won.                              Jack got the sack, etc

Substitute an appropriate exclamation:

How fantastic!                                              How awful!

How terrible!                                                How wonderful!

How amazing!                                              How surprising! Etc

2.   A    Have you bought the batteries yet?

      B    The batteries! I’ve been meaning to buy them, but I keep forgetting.

      A    Oh for Heaven’s sake!

Substitute:

Fed the cat                                                    Told your mother

Done the ironing                                           Written that letter

Talked to Fred                                               Watered the plants etc

3.  A    (looks at his watch) Oh! I’ve got to go.

     B     Have you? Can not you stay a bit longer?

     A     No, I have got to meet Janet.

Substitute:

Go to the chemist’s                                      Get some fish

Finish an essay                                             Ring Robert

Post a letter                                                   Catch a bus

4.   A    Is there any coffee left?

      B    Yes, there are lots. Would you like some more?

      A   Mmm. Yes, please.

Substitute:

Cake/Strawberries/Cream/Jelly/Peanuts/Chocolate, etc.

In this dialogue students must take care to use is/are in the appropriate places [22, 26].

Where names of people are used in the dialogues above, it is suggested that teachers use names of people who are actually in the class or else of people who are known to the whole class (other teachers, perhaps), and that they encourage the students to do this too. It is far more relevant and interesting to talk about the real Betty who has really broken her leg than all the hypothetical Johns and Mary’s who are forever doing very boring things! Short dialogues of this kind are very easy to write, but should the teacher want ready-made ones [19, 236]. 

 

2.1.2. Role cards and cue-cards

Half-dialogues give the students a little more leeway in that he must himself decide on one half of the conversation. Though the actual proposition is tightly controlled by what goes before and after, variety can be introduced by asking the student to be a certain sort of person, or to portray a particular attitude. Mr Bloggs, for example, could be pompous and aggressive, or oozing charm. The policeman could be grumpy and impatient, he could be very slow and painstaking and want everything repeated several times, or he could be extremely efficient and ‘on the ball’ and very helpful. The dialogues are intended to be used as an outline – students should be urged to enlarge upon them, and expand the written part too where they feel that this is appropriate.   

Dialogue I    Booking a room

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist       Good evening, sir.

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist        I am awfully sorry, sir, I am afraid we have not got any single rooms left.

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist        Yes, we have got a splendid double room. It overlooks the river.

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist        Yes, all the rooms have a bath.

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist        ₤13.50 a night, sir.

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist         No, I am afraid that breakfast is extra.

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Receptionist         From 7.30 to 9.30. I shall ask someone to take your cases up to your     room, shall I?

Mr. Blooggs ………?

Dialogue 2      Lost!

High Holborn        Police Station

Mr. Hubble            Good morning. My name is Julian Hubble.

Policeman ………..?

Mr. Hubble            Julian Hubble.

Policeman  ……….?

Mr. Hubble            H-U-B-B-L-E

Policeman             Thank you……….?

Mr. Hubble             I have lost my wallet.

Policeman             I see……. ……….?

Mr. Hubble            Just this morning.

Policeman  ……… ?

Mr. Hubble            I think I must have left it on the tube.

Policeman  ……… ?

Mr. Hubble            Well…it is quite small, and black.

Policeman  ……….?

Mr. Hubble             Leather.

Policeman  ……………………….?

Mr. Hubble             Yes. About ₤7.

Policeman  ………  .?

Mr. Hubble             A few photos and some stamps.

Policeman  …… ….?

Mr. Hubble             No, I am afraid it has not.

Policeman  ……… .?

For the sake of simplicity there should be made a distinction between role card and cue-card. A role-card tells the student who he is, something of his background, what his opinions about a given subject are, and possibly suggests a course of action that he should try and carry out. A cue-card makes more explicit reference to the actual things that person will say. It may give the holder ‘snatches’ of what he is to say, and leave him to fill it out. It may give him a choice of things to say, and leave him to choose. Or it may give him a visual or a ‘functional’ cue, and leave him to translate this into words. The fundamental difference between a cue-card and a script or dialogue is that a person with a cue-card has only his part of the conversation on that card. And this is an important difference, for he is forced to listen very carefully to what the other person says in order to be able to make an appropriate response. With a script he has no need to do this as he can see in advance what the other person is going to say [22, 42].   

Here there are some samples of different types of cue card, followed by suggestions as to how they might be used with a class.

                                               A

Choose the best reply in response to B

A   What do you think the weather will be like tomorrow?

B     ……………….

A     I hope so.                          We are going camping.

Oh I hope not.                           We are going sailing.

Is it really? That is good.           We are going ski-ing.

B     ……………….

A     I haven not. We are going with friends.

Well there is now.

With lots of warm clothes, it is O.K.

Why do not you join us?

B    ………………..

A    Great!

Sure!

That is a shame!

                                                B

Choose the best reply in response to A.

A    ………………..

B     Oh it will probably rain again.

Well the weather forecast is good.

It could be quite nice again.

A    ………………

B    Really? There was not much snow last weekend.

Really? Is not it a bit cold at night this time of year?

Really? I did not know you had a boat.

A    ………………

B   I would love top but I  am a bit busy this weekend.

I would love to. Could Jane come along too?

Oh! That would be nice.

   Often in a ‘conversation’ class or discussion, students who are not yet very advanced in English will stop listening to what is being said, in order to start formulating their own contributions [25, 17]. The above cue-card enable students to focus on listening: they do not have to formulate what to say themselves, they only have to choose one of three possibilities. But to do this they need to catch the key words in what their partners says. The fact that it is not necessary to understand every single word in order to react in the right way should be made clear to students – not just for this exercise, but as a general policy – and they should be given plenty of opportunities to practice ‘gist’ listening [33, 69]. Because of all this, the cards are probably more suitable for students whose active knowledge of English is not quite up to the level of the dialogue. They should find it both challenging and satisfying to hold a conversation which would normally be a bit beyond them. With these cue-cards, and indeed all other activities involving the use of cue-cards, it is suggested that the students work in pairs. Each member of a pair has one card, A or B, which only he sees. The teacher should have at least three or four different pairs of cards prepared so that the students can swap around once they have finished with one set [25, 54]. 

                                                               A

(answers phone)

A    Mr. Appleby’s surgery. Good afternoon.

B    ……………..

A    I am afraid we were booked up until next month. The earliest would be February 2^nd.

B    ……………..

A    I am afraid that is just impossible.

B    …………….

A    I am very sorry about that, but there is really not much I can do, is there? Perhaps some aspirin would help.

B

A   (answers phone)    ………………

B    Good afternoon. I want to see the dentist.

Good afternoon. I would like to see the dentist.

Good afternoon. I wonder if I could make an appointment?

A   …………………..

B    That is no good. I have got to see him now.

Can not you fit me in before then?

Could not you possibly squeeze me in sometime today?

A   …………………..

B   Look here! This bloody toothache is killing me!

But I have got the most terrible toothache!

I know how busy Mr. Appleby is, but this tooth is agony…

A   …………………..

B    You are joking! Listen… if you do not give me an appointment, I shall come round there and just force my way into the surgery!

Aspirin! You obviously can not imagine how awful the pain is.

Couldn’t the dentist see me for just five minutes?

I have tried aspirin, but it did not seem to help at all. Please could not you make an exception for me? I would be so grateful. 

Using these cue-cards, student B has the opportunity to choose between any one of three different registers [31, 24]: he can be aggressive and rude; he can be just normally polite; or he can be super polite and rather ingratiating [19, 40]. Once he has decided on the register, the student should stick to the same one throughout the dialogue. (For clarity, the choices are given in the same order every time). Although student A has no choice in what to say, he should be asked to vary the intonation of the words on his card according to the type of person he is dealing with. The same words can be said in many different ways: he should be able to sound rude, brusque, sarcastic, sympathetic, indifferent, etc, as appropriate. The dialogue is unfinished as it stands, and students can be asked to work out their own ending. The ending will of course depend very much on the sort of characters that A and B have decided on [15, 27].  

The learner is given a dialogue with only one part written in. He has a few minutes in which to read it through and prepare the missing lines. The interviewer reads through her part of the dialogue, with the learner filling in the blanks aloud. The aim is to give the learner a clear idea of functional meaning of the missing parts, without putting the actual words into his mouth.

A well prepared blank dialogue is more than a series of questions: it constrains the learner’s choice of words for that gap:

A:  Can you tell me how to get to the station?

B   ………………….

A:  And where does the bus stop?

B   ………………….

A   Oh yes, I can see it.

The choice of words to fill the gaps can be quite open-ended:

A:   What did you do at the weekend?

B   ………………… (but requires use of past tense)

A:    What was the weather like?

B   …………………. (requires some reference to weather)

Or, it can be constrained completely:

A:  …………………?

B:  I am thirty one. (requires question about age)

This technique is useful for getting the learner to ask questions.

As in the example above, the stimulus he is given is an answer for which he must supply a suitable question, rather than the usual pattern of ‘interviewer asks, learner answers’.

At a higher level, blank dialogues can be constructed that require the use of more complex functions, such as suasion, excuse, polite disagreement, warning and so on. The length of preparation time to be given depends on the difficulty of the task. If the general meaning of the missing sentences is easy to identify, there is an argument for keeping the preparation time short: the assessor wants to know not only whether the learner can work out something suitable to say from the surrounding context, but also, authentically, how quickly he can do it.

More difficult dialogues need more time, as they have to be read carefully for the meaning of the blanks to be understood:

A:    How would you like to meet for a drink on Saturday?

B:     …………………….

A:    No, that suits me fine. Let us make it Sunday lunchtime.

B:     …………………….

A:   Yes, of course, I would like to meet him.

B:   ………………………

A:   Well, if he does not, by all means bring him with you.

B:   ………………………

A:   Do not worry, I shall make sure it does not happen again.

A blank dialogue like this needs an experienced assessor or a sophisticated marking scheme. Responses must obviously be appropriate as well as correct, but should not need to exercise great powers of imagination; there is a danger of penalizing the learner who understands what is called for but has difficulty inventing a plausible context, and therefore cannot fill the gaps adequately [17, 22].

 

2.1.3. Pictures as a visual stimuli of dialogical speech: advantages and disadvantages

Before the test starts, the learner is given a picture or sequence of pictures to look at. Then the interviewer asks the learner to describe the picture or story and allows him to speak freely. When the learner has finished speaking, or if he falters, the interviewer may ask questions designed to elicit particular information, perhaps about a point the learner has missed or not made clear [38, 9].

As soon as an interviewer begins to ask questions, the learner will tend to assume that he is now only expected to answer questions and is no longer expected to continue his commentary [32, 25]. Usually, the interviewer asks general questions intended to elicit the learner’s attitudes or opinions on a topic related to the subject of the picture, but not directly about it. This is a common way of leading into a discussion. Unless the test is intended to check vocabulary, any items that may prove difficult can be supplied (for example, in a small word list under the picture).

A picture or cartoon story usually consists of from four to twelve drawings telling a story which is simple but allows the learner to add his own interpretation about the people or events involved. The pictures are specially drawn for this purpose, to exclude objects or actions which are difficult to describe or are very culture-specific. A single picture is often a photograph not taken specifically for the test, but selected for the same reasons. In both cases, the pictures can be exploited at two levels: description of the people, objects and events, leading into an interpretation and discussion of the more general issues raised [22, 52].

  Visual stimuli are an economic and effective way of providing a topic of conversation without giving the learner words and phrases to manipulate and give back. It is an excellent way of beginning a sequence of test techniques, and can be used just as a warm-up, lasting perhaps one or two minutes, without any formal marks being awarded. Although there is some freedom of expression, the topic of conversation is fixed by the picture or story, and the learner chooses his own words.

 

Advantages

a) A well-chosen picture makes a point, and a good cartoon has a story to tell: these can be easily understood as the stimuli are visual rather than written. Sophisticated topics can be quickly introduced. The learner’s ability to speak about what he sees will not be limited by his poor reading comprehension.