Another disadvantage with authentic texts is that they often don't give you enough examples of the target structure.
Short dialogues
Dialogues are a type of text - a spoken text which we listen to, although for teaching and learning purposes we also look at them in their written or transcribed form. Although they are a type of text, it is worth considering them separately from reading and other listening texts as they are often used as a model for speaking practice of structures.
Dialogues are often used as an alternative, or in addition, to introducing language through visual means, especially with lower level students.
Example
This dialogue could be used with low-level students to introduce the question form and the short answer of the verb to be in the present simple. It also revises Sorry? as a way of asking for repetition.
At the airport Customs
Customs officer:Is this our bag?
Woman traveler: Sorry?
Woman traveler:Yes, it is.
Usually the teacher introduces the characters and the situation through pictures/board drawings and elicitation - Who's this? Where are they? etc. The understanding of the new language is checked (see p. 138). The students repeat the lines of the dialogue after the teacher and then take turns to play the roles, perhaps in open pairs first, then in closed pairs. It is a generative situation in that new vocabulary items can then be introduced (in this dialogue, for example, suitcase, camera, handbag, etc) and more sentences containing the same structures can be elicited and practised: Is this your suitcase? etc.
When are dialogues useful?
Dialogues are useful from time to time, particularly at elementary level, mainly for the following reasons:
o You can write the dialogue so that it focuses on the language you want to introduce and doesn't include distractions such as unknown vocabulary.
o You can make the language vivid and memorable, with a clear situation and location, and sharply distinguished characters, often aided by pictures and props.
o Dialogues provide a controlled setting for language items and conversational features.
o They are very useful for introducing language functions. For example, asking the way, at lower levels.
o Dialogues can be used to generate a number of practice sentences. For example, with the dialogue above, the teacher, by using picture prompts, can elicit these questions from students: Is this your suitcase? Is this your camera? and get the same replies from `the woman'.
o It is easy to introduce pairwork practice, as the dialogues naturally have two parts. Pairwork practice often begins with repetition/imitation of the `model' dialogue, but often this controlled practice can be followed by freer, more `meaningful' communication. Dialogues lend themselves to information gap activities in which each student in the pair has access to different information which he or she can feed into the dialogue.
o They can be a springboard for more improvised language practice. If the practice tasks can be made more creative and open-ended the students have some degree of choice over what they say. For example, the last sentence of a dialogue can be left open.
This dialogue practises language for making suggestions:
It's Rosie's birthday next week. What shall we get her?/What about… (the students choose). That's a good idea because… or No, because…
A dialogue can often lead into a cued roleplay, such as the one in Task 3 on p. 43. See also Setting up activities on p. 44. Dialogues can also be used to illustrate the different social identity and the relationship between the speakers, and the kind of language they would use. For example, the way you ask a close friend to lend you enough money to buy a cup of coffee would be different from the way you ask a bank manager for a large loan.
What are the disadvantages of using dialogues?
o If dialogues are uncommunicative, predictable and not mixed in with other approaches to presentation they can be boring.
o They are rarely useful of students above elementary level, who benefit from seeing language within a wider context, no in isolated chunks.
o Because they are idealized, they don't prepare students for the unexpected - in real life people don't always play their part as set down in the dialogue practised in class! For example, the Customs Officer in the dialogue on p. 132 is just as likely to say Your bag, is it? as he is to say Is this your bag?
o It is not always easy to find or create a dialogue which is naturally generative, and in order to make them generative the dialogues can often be rather artificial and repetitive.
Giving or working out the `rule'
In this way of presenting a structure, the teacher explains the rules or patterns of form and use and maybe, in a monolingual group, translates the structure into the students' mother tongue. You can start the lesson by telling them explicitly what language you are going to deal with: for example, Today we are going to look at how we use the third conditional: of example - If you'd woken me on time I wouldn't have been late. Then you can go on to give the rules of grammar and use then set up some practice.
Alternatively, you can give some example sentences containing the structure and encourage the students to work out or suggest the rules for themselves. For example, a number of paired sentences can be given and the students encouraged to say when for and when since is used with the present perfect:
aI've been here of six hours.bI've been here since 3 o'clock.
aThey've lived in this country for ten months.bThey've lived in this country since October.
The `rule' can be elicited and then practice can be given. This approach is sometimes referred to as guided discovery and is particularly useful if you think the students have some familiarity with the target structure or if you want to revise the structure.
When is it useful to give or to elicit the `rule'?
Giving or eliciting the `rule' is useful:
o if the meaning of the item is easy to understand (perhaps it is very similar to the students' first language) but the structure is complex from a `form' point of view: for example, the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives: difficult, more difficult, the most difficult compared with easy, easier, the easiest;
o if different aspect of, say, a verb form is being presented after a stage in which the tense has already been introduced, perhaps via a text or a visual/oral context. For example, if you have introduced the affirmative and question forms of the regular past simple it is quicker, and often more efficient, simply to elicit or give the rules for the formation and use of the negative before going on to practise using it;
o if the students come from a very traditional educational background and expect a grammar/translation approach;
o if the students are at a higher level and can more easily cope with a discussion about language.
Are there any problems with this approach?
o It can seem dry and uninteresting, especially to younger learners.
o It is not so suitable for low-level multilingual groups where the students may not have enough language to understand the explanation, or the language to express it themselves.
o It isn't so suitable for language which is complex in meaning and use: it may be that there is no clear `rule' to discover! For example, it is difficult to explain why such nouns as fruit, money, information and news are uncountable in English but countable in man other languages.
Test-teach-test
In this approach the teacher sets a communicative activity for the students which is designed to find out how well the can understand and use a particular area of language; it can be a creative activity in a role-play or writing a story. The teacher monitors and evaluates the activity in order to assess whether the language structure he or she wants to focus on is being used correctly and appropriately or not. It is also important to note if the students seem to be avoiding the structure. If the students have no problem with the structure the teacher can then go on to something else. If they are having problems or avoiding it altogether then the teacher can revise the target language. Practice activities which consolidate the students' ability to use the language can follow until the teacher is happy with the students' performance.
The first phase is the `test' where the teacher finds out what the students can and cannot already do; `teach' is the second phase when the language is revised, and the second `test' is when practice activities are done to see if the students can use the language better than in the first phase.
What are the advantages of this approach?
This approach is particularly useful:
o at higher levels where very few, if any, language structures are new to the students:
o with confident (over-confident?) students who claim to `know' the target language;
o with classes when you are not sure what the students have done previously and what they already know;
o when you want to focus on more than one structure - perhaps a number of exponents of a function, or the different forms of a tense;
o if you want to compare and contrast structures.
What are the disadvantages?
This type of approach, if it is done in one lesson, requires a considerable degree of flexibility on the part of the teacher. He or she has to respond instantly and appropriately to the first stage - giving feedback and picking out aspects of language to revise and consolidate. However, it may be possible to do the first phase on one day and the revision and practice activities, if it is thought necessary, on another day. In this way the teacher has time to evaluate what the students need and can plan accordingly.
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