Here are some tips to make the most of this exercise:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Make sure everyone gets a chance to speak and practice enough lines.<\/strong> To this end, try to choose relatively short dialogues, and make sure every student gets a chance to role-play.<\/li>\n
- Choose dialogues based on the subject material, vocabulary or grammar covered in your textbook curriculum.<\/strong> If you’re not using a textbook, use your students’ particular weak points to help you determine how to choose a dialogue. For example, if they’re struggling with past tenses, use a script with people talking about what they did yesterday.<\/li>\n
- Over time, try throwing in some unscripted material to test their speaking abilities and help them prepare for conversations outside of the classroom.<\/strong> This style of role-playing is great for intermediate and advanced students, because it requires them to use the English they already know in order to express themselves. So, not only are they practicing their speaking skills, but they\u2019re also learning how to use their own language resources to communicate with each other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2. Create Dialogue Gap Fills<\/h2>\n
Think of this activity like a Mad Libs game<\/a> targeted directly at your lesson of the day.<\/p>\n
Here’s how it goes:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Erase key parts of your dialogue to create gaps that students will later fill in (hence the name gap fill<\/em>).<\/strong> If possible, make sure that what you choose to blank out is relevant to your lesson. For example, if you\u2019re studying actions, remove all of the action verbs from the dialogue, and have your students fill in the blanks using a word key.<\/li>\n
- In class, hand out your blanked dialogues, and have students work independently or in small groups to fill in what’s missing.<\/strong> They don’t have to guess exactly the words or phrases you removed, but their input should be grammatically sound and demonstrate that they understand the context of the dialogue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
3. Put Together Comprehension Worksheets<\/h2>\n
The good thing about worksheet activities is that you can adapt them to any skill level depending on the questions or conversation prompts<\/a>. And with dialogues, you can create a worksheet that targets both listening and reading comprehension.<\/p>\n
To execute this activity:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Craft an audio version of your dialogue. <\/strong>You can get your audio from these real English conversation resources<\/a> or from short clips on YouTube. You can also just record yourself and a colleague speaking any dialogue you like.<\/li>\n
- Create a transcript of the audio.<\/strong> If this is too time-consuming, you can always look for audio files or videos with transcripts from the resources I just mentioned above.<\/li>\n
- Play the audio for the class, then have your students complete a series of listening comprehension questions on what they just heard without letting them read the transcript.<\/strong> Your questions can cover the plot, characters, setting and other important details.<\/li>\n
- Hand out the printed version of the transcript, and have students correct their own responses on a separate sheet of paper.<\/strong> This way, you can assess both their initial listening comprehension and their reading comprehension.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
4. Craft Scripted Puzzles<\/h2>\n
Another fun activity that works with all skill levels is the scripted puzzle exercise. It goes like this:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Write parts of a dialogue on pieces of paper.<\/li>\n
- Mix the papers up so that the script is out of order.<\/li>\n
- Have the students work in a group to piece the script together in its correct order.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This activity is good for testing your students\u2019 reading skills while giving them conversational English practice as they work together to construct the script. And since students need to use context clues to determine if the script is correct or not, you get to assess their general English knowledge as well.<\/p>\n
Resources for English Dialogues<\/h2>\n
TeachingEnglish Dialogues<\/a>
![\"teachingenglish-british-council\"](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/site\/\/1\/teachingenglish-british-council.png\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nTeachingEnglish is run by the British Council, which means that every dialogue has been carefully created by a team of experienced ESL teachers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Here, you can download the script and accompanying audio clip of two dialogues. The vocabulary presented in each dialogue is designed for beginner students, but the natural conversation of the audio clips can also make for great listening as far as intermediate learners are concerned.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re looking for even more dialogues and lesson ideas, be sure to check out the lesson plans available on the site. These are broken down into three sections:\u00a0lessons for children<\/a>,\u00a0lessons for teens<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0lessons for adults<\/a>.<\/p>\n
ThoughtCo Reading Comprehension Dialogues<\/a>
![\"thoughtco\"](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/site\/\/1\/thoughtco.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nThoughtCo has one of the most comprehensive lists of scripts designed for teaching English with dialogues. What makes this website particularly great is that some of the scripts are arranged by skill level for your convenience.<\/p>\n
Each dialogue covers a different topic that students need to know when living in an English-speaking country, like working in the office or talking about the weather. There are also dialogues for specialized vocabulary<\/strong> like medical English, business English and more.<\/p>\n
BusyTeacher\u2019s Role-playing Guide<\/a>
![\"busyteacher\"](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/site\/\/1\/busyteacher.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nBusyTeacher is home to a number of great ideas and activities for the ESL classroom, so it should come as no surprise that their dialogue resources are top-notch.<\/p>\n
Their role-playing section offers hundreds of dialogues for students of all levels<\/strong>, as well as mixed-level activities that can be adapted to every classroom. Additionally, most of these dialogues come with vocabulary words, reading exercises and other forms of assessment to help your students learn new information as they practice their dialogues.<\/p>\n
SimplyScripts<\/a>
![\"simplyscripts\"](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/site\/\/1\/simplyscripts.png\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nSimply Scripts offers scripts from movies, TV shows and radio shows, and makes a nice DIY source for authentic dialogues<\/strong> that you can adapt to your classroom.<\/p>\n
All you need to do is choose what script you want to download, cut and paste the excerpts you want to use in class and design a lesson around that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a quick, easy way to come up\u00a0with dialogues that’ll hold your students’ attention.<\/p>\n
“Drills, Dialogues and Role Plays”<\/a>
![\"drills-dialogues-and-role-plays\"](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/site\/\/1\/drills-dialogues-and-role-plays.png\")
<\/a><\/h3>\n“Drills, Dialogues and Role Plays” is a free teacher\u2019s guide<\/strong> filled with ideas on how to teach dialogue in a way that can help your students improve their listening, speaking and reading comprehension.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re new to teaching ESL or you\u2019re an experienced veteran who needs a little inspiration for role-playing activities<\/a>, this text can help.<\/p>\n
FluentU<\/a>
![\"FluentU](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/iTunesArtwork@1x.png\")
<\/a><\/div><\/h3>\nWhile it isn’t strictly a resource for dialogues and role-plays, FluentU has a vast collection of native English media clips that that come with interactive subtitles and transcripts.<\/p>\n
FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n
<\/p> \r\n
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\n
P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)<\/a><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n
![\"FluentU](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/site\/\/4\/SimpleText.jpg\")
\r\n \r\n
- Create a transcript of the audio.<\/strong> If this is too time-consuming, you can always look for audio files or videos with transcripts from the resources I just mentioned above.<\/li>\n
- In class, hand out your blanked dialogues, and have students work independently or in small groups to fill in what’s missing.<\/strong> They don’t have to guess exactly the words or phrases you removed, but their input should be grammatically sound and demonstrate that they understand the context of the dialogue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Choose dialogues based on the subject material, vocabulary or grammar covered in your textbook curriculum.<\/strong> If you’re not using a textbook, use your students’ particular weak points to help you determine how to choose a dialogue. For example, if they’re struggling with past tenses, use a script with people talking about what they did yesterday.<\/li>\n