Vanishing Dialogue

It also becomes very personalised when students create their own dialogues in the final stage. As the drilling is done in groups it is non threatening and enjoyable.

The activity can be used with any level and any number of students. The procedure I have suggested below is designed to be used with primary students.

• Show a picture of two people in a restaurant. Elicit language and vocabulary for the picture. You could do this as a mind map with different categories such as phrases, food vocabulary, people, furniture, etc.
• Elicit a dialogue taking place between the people. Depending on how many you have in your class and the size of your groups this could be a diner and a waiter/waitress or a family and a waiter/waitress. I would choose the group size first then build a dialogue with this amount of people. Take into account the level of your learners and vary the length accordingly.
• Drill the dialogue. Mix it up with one side of the class as waiters/waitresses and one side the diners. Swap roles and drill again. With young learners I like to change the pitch of my voice and add silly voices to keep it lively and interesting.
• After the students are comfortable with the dialogue omit a word or phrase and drill again. This time they have less of a written record and are required to remember the dialogue.
• Repeat the above stage until all the dialogue has gone.
• Now put the students in groups to practise. Monitor for pronunciation errors and correct as a class.
• Put students in pairs to practise. This time you can monitor more effectively and pick up on any individual errors learners may be making.
• Put students into groups and ask them to write a similar dialogue for themselves. Monitor and check for language and pronunciation errors.
• Students could then act out their dialogues in front of the class.

Extension
If possible record the dialogues and play back. While students are listening they could complete a worksheet and record what each student had to eat. This could also be done real time with students controlling the dialogues of each other. The data collected could be used to create a chart detailing the type of food students chose.