Семенко І.В.
Буковинський державний медичний
університет, Україна
How can we
teach dialogues most effective?
Why use a dialogue?
A dialogue is a social context in which to
practice the new language. This makes the language "come alive",
hence is the importance of dialogues.
Vocabulary.
The dialogue is an excellent vehicle for
mastering vocabulary. A word or idiom in any language is best learned in
context since the parts of a sentence that occur just before and after a
vocabulary item determine its exact meaning.
Memorization.
Still another outstanding feature of the
dialogue is that it is more easily memorized than most other types of language
material.
Cultural insights.
Another important feature of the dialogue is
its cultural impact. Every language is a reflection of the culture that
produces it, so any form of speech has some kind of cultural implication. But a
dialogue is particularly well suited to revealing aspects of culture, because
it presents the normal interaction of speakers as they adhere to prescribed
cultural behaviour.
Applicability (the main functions of a dialogue).
A
dialogue, then, fulfills a whole range of functions in the language classroom.
It presents cultural insights, makes the language come alive, models
pronunciation and grammar, clarifies meanings, and encloses all this in a
readily memorized package. But one point should be kept in mind: the dialogue
has its greatest potential in teen-age and adult classes.
We have seen that dialogues can be an
important aid to language learning. A good dialogue is short, balanced, and
compact.
Brevity (length).
Many of the dialogues given in the different
books are too long to be real pedagogic dialogues. They sometimes fill an
entire page, or stretch into two or three pages, forming playlets much too lengthy for a teacher to handle conveniently
or for students to memorize readily. Ideally, a dialogue consists of two or
three exchanges (a statement by speaker A
and a response by speaker B constitute one exchange).
Final line.
Another important feature is the ending. Good
dialogue writers try to close each dialogue with a strong final line that
signals a realistic stopping point in the conversation. It is often difficult
to create such a line because dialogues are so short. Nevertheless, it is essential
to do so in order to ''wrap up'' the dialogue and make it a compact unit.
Naturalness.
Dialogues may fulfil the three criteria we
have considered brevity, balance, and a strong final line-
and yet they fail the learner because they do not reflect natural English
speech. How does it happen?
One of the commonest problems of
''unnatural'' dialogues is that they do not contain any contractions – even
though educated native speakers of English constantly use such contractions as:
I'm, can't, she'll, they'll…
Another problem –not as common but far more
serious-occurs when dialogue writers mix style levels (formal and informal
speech) to such an extent that the conversations become parodies of speech
(which should be avoided by all means).
How can we teach dialogues
most effective?
1. Choose dialogues that are appropriate to your
teaching situation.
To do this, you must consider the age of your
students, the proficiency level of the students, their learning goals, and the
interests.
2. Decide how much classroom time you can devote
to dialogues you intend to use.
To do this, you should think of the dialogue as occurring in three
phases:
Phase 1: The students hear, learn and perform
the dialogue.
Phase 2: The students do exercises based on
the dialogue.
Phase 3: The students use the dialogue as a
departure point for free expression.
Phases 1 and 2 will require a total of at least 30 minutes, because you
will want to allow a minimum of 5 minutes for introducing the dialogue, 10
minutes for memorization, 10 minutes for checking students' performance, 5
minutes for assorted drills based on the dialogue. Most likely you will spend
even more time then this for maximum benefit. While this may seem like a lot of
time, it breaks down to approximately 15 to 20 minute per day, if you divide it
over a two-day period:
day 1 - phases 1, 2; day 2 - phase 3.
3. Re-read the dialogue carefully before you
present it to your class.
Underline words and
structures that may be new to your students.
4. If the dialogue you selected is not
accompanied by pattern drills, prepare some short drills of your own.
5. Before the class begins, write the dialogue
on the blackboard and cover it with a large piece of paper or cloth.
This enables to introduce the dialogue orally for listening practice
before your students see it in written form. Later in the class hour you can
simply remove the cloth or paper to expose the dialogue, without having to take
valuable class time to write it out. Still better it would be to have the
dialogue on a sheet of paper or an individual copy for every student.
6. When you first present the dialogue, read it
to your students and have them listen carefully.
(with their books shut)
7. Conduct a choral repetition drill in which
the students repeat the dialogue after you, line by line (special attention here is paid to phonetics).
8. After the first repetition drill you can
explain any new words or structures in the dialogue.
9. Devote the next several minutes to helping
the students memorize the dialogue.
The following procedures seem to be useful aids
to memorization:
a) Repetition drill:
•
Choral repetition
•
Individual repetition
•
Mixed choral and individual repetition
•
Choral repetition by portions of the class.
b) Presenting the written form of the dialogue.
c) Blackboard practice:
Effective use of the blackboard can speed the
process of memorization. Referring to the dialogue as it appears on the
blackboard, erase it gradually in one of the following words:
•
Remove one word or phrase at a time:
say the first line of the dialogue, and, as you do so, erase one word or phrase
from the line. Then have your students repeat the line. Next, erase another
word or phrase from the same line and have the students repeat the line again,
continuing in this way until the entire line erased. Repeat this procedure for
the other lines in the dialogue.
•
Remove words from the right side of the blackboard: erase a strip of words from top to bottom on the far right side of the
dialogue. Go through a repetition drill of the dialogue, filling in the blank
areas orally with the correct words. Erase another strip of words from the
right side, go through another repetition practice, and repeat the procedure
until the dialogue has disappeared from the blackboard.
•
Remove words by category:
erase all the nouns from the dialogue; then conduct the repetition drill. Next
erase all the adjectives or all the verbs or all the prepositions or any other
word category you wish. Continue in this manner until the dialogue has
disappeared.
d) Stick figures, puppets and other visual aids.
e) Shutting out extraneous matter.
If the students are having a particularly difficult time in memorizing
dialogue lines, it may help to have close their eyes while doing the drill, so
that they shut out all extraneous material and concentrate solely on the
sentences of the dialogue. It is surprising how useful this simple technique
can be.
10. After the above
memorization activities have been conducted the students should be checked up
to see how well they have learned the dialogue.
11.
Assigning
the dialogue as homework.
12.
As soon
as the students are thoroughly familiar with the dialogue, it is possible to
proceed with manipulation drills (substitution, transformation, etc.) based on
the dialogue lines.
13. Previously learned dialogues should be
regularly reviewed.
Література:1. Біленька О., Павлюк А., Чепурна О. Business English Essentials. – Тернопіль: Видавництво Карп’юка, 2003. – 200 с.
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