TEACHERS FORUM

Using Dialogues at School

Many people have said that language is the most important of all human activities. Some added that learning to talk is the most remarkable intellectual achievement that most people ever manage. People use language to talk about things, relations, actions, other people and objects. Language functions are different. They include communicating: 1) factual information; 2) intellectual views; 3) emotional attitudes and influencing the behavior of others.

The main purpose for using dialogues in the classroom is to motivate students to communicate in the foreign language. Students should concentrate on the meaning of the message they are conveying in the dialogue and not on the form. This focus lends itself to natural repetition as students practice their lines in the most effective way to communicate the meaning or the relationship among speakers in that particular speech event.

Dialogues represent spoken language, so it is necessary for the teacher to free her students from any written text. The theatre rehearsal technique which allows actors to look at their lines before they speak, but requires them to look at their listener when they say their lines is an effective way of using dialogues in the foreign language classroom. By reacting to their dialogue partners in different ways reflect different role relationships or emotional states of mind, students practice different ways of saying their lines. This sensitizes them to the language and in the long run helps them to communicate better. Choosing the dialogue teachers should emphasize the communicative function that is at the foundation of the exchange. When students perform these dialogues for the whole class, they should act them out, standing, moving, using appropriate gestures or properties to enhance the meaning of the communication.