Teacher Discussion Forums

Does anybody out there have any suggestions for fun ways of reading/reviewing stories and dialogues? I like to get everyone to read it by themselves, as they don't always participate when everyone is reading together. However, when two students are reading, the others are bored silly and usually start talking. Does anyone have any suggestions for ways to get everyone to have a chance to participate without the others getting bored? Thanks!

You could try to make the story into a play with dialogue and give differenet people parts to read and if possible to do as much action as is required to make it more authentic but all on the fly.

Once they have acted out the play, you could get the students to silently read through the story looking for various points and then discuss in groups some points, either of grammar or social significance, etc.

I used to make sure that the students knew the story I was going to cover the next day so they could read ahead and search out words they didn't know in the dictionary as homework.

For the poorer students, I would give them a cassette of me reading the story so they could get the pronunciation.

I also tried to find a movie that was very similar to make their learning as visual as possible.

They then wrote about a situation that was similar in their lives and we discussed the differences betweent the original story and theirs - usually cultural differences or different outcomes.

I typed up all these stories and the students read each others and commented. When I typed them up, I corrected small errors or asked the students to explain ideas more fully so it made sense. Seeing their classmates contributions really improved their writing for the majority of the students and they took more chances. When we started writing stories, they wrote one paragraph and by the end of the year, many were writing 4 pages.

There are a lot of effective techniques out there to build on your usual dialogues. The other students aren't listening because, having heard and/or practiced the pre-written conversation, there aren't any more challenges. The key, then, is to build additional challenges into the activity.

Here are some ideas.

Different dialogues: If everyone in the class has a different dialogue, then the performers can ask 2-3 comprehension questions at the end. Award points to pairs that answer quickly and correctly. I'm assuming that your class doesn't have more than a dozen people, as you'll waste a lot of precious class time doing this with a large class. For big classes, break everyone into groups, and let them run the activity themselves.

Same dialogues: Have the students perform the same dialogue with different partners. Read once, switch roles, and then switch partners. As an extension activity, switch partners once more, and have the students continue the dialogue (building something along the lines of a role play).

Or you could work on a different focus for each reading. As above, students switch partners each time the dialogue is read. On the first run through, each student holds an imaginary microphone as if in an interview. This encourages eye contact. Next, in order to reduce distance, the pairs should place a hand on one another's shoulder. On the third reading, students work on using body language in the dialogue. Lastly, on the fourth run through, students stand back to back, so as to practice speaking clearly and at an appropriate volume. Of course, they should then finish by putting everything together, reading the dialogue without referring to the script (if possible).

These are only a few ideas, and all can be mixed and matched to extend ta dialogue activity. Challenge your students, and they'll stay interested.

Chris Cotter
www.headsupenglish.com