Purpose:

To provide controlled speaking practice using a simple dialogue

Preparation time: 

5 minutes

Materials:

Whiteboard and marker or blackboard and chalk

Preparation:

Find or write a suitable short dialogue (4-6 short lines for lower-level students). You can use simple English, but try to make the dialogue sound natural. A dialogue that you have used recently in class would work best for students with low literacy levels. Write the dialogue on the board. Here is an example of one for making a doctor’s appointment.

            A: I’d like to make an appointment with Dr. Smith.

            B: Ok. Can you come on Wednesday in the afternoon?

            A: Sure. What time?

            B: How about three o’clock?

            A: Ok. Wednesday at three o’clock. Thank you.

Procedure:

1. Drill the dialogue line-by-line until the students are comfortable with it and sound natural. Learners should not be writing anything during the activity.
2. Erase a couple of words from each line. You may choose to erase words related to a language structure the class has worked on before. For example, if the class has worked on prepositions used with time phrases, you might erase “on” and “in” from the second line to concentrate on these structures.
3. The class should say the complete dialogue again, without you prompting them. Repeat the lines as necessary until the class sounds natural again.
4. Erase another word or two from each line and get the class to say the dialogue in complete lines again.
5. Repeat until there are only one or two words left in the lines.

Follow-up:

Learners do the dialogue in pairs. Learners could write the dialogue, higher-level students writing more of it from memory and lower-level students doing a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.