The Language Teacher

Model dialogs are one of the standard tools teachers and textbooks utilize in teaching foreign languages. Dialogs are not specific to any one particular methodology or approach; we can find dialogs in audiolingual textbooks, grammar translation textbooks, and communicative textbooks. This paper discusses some techniques for dialogs that may not be familiar to all teachers. The purpose of this paper is thus to present an alternative approach for teachers to consider.

The central technique outlined in this paper has been designed to utilize dialogs so that learners can make improvements in their current interlanguage. A learner's interlanguage system is "neither the system of the native language nor the system of target language, but instead falls between the two" (Brown, 1994, p. 204). It is an independent and thoroughly legitimate system that the learner constructs while actively endeavoring to make sense of (and make sense in) the new language. Errors and "strange language" exist not as bad habits but as hypotheses within this active process of language exploration and formation. There is an interaction between the language forms in a learner's system: when a learner starts to learn a new form, formerly "mastered" forms will become destabilized. Likewise, seeing a "rule" in a new context temporarily destabilizes the learner's understanding of that rule (Nunan, 1995b).

It has been hypothesized that one way a learner's interlanguage system develops is when the learner recognizes differences between what she produces and what native speakers produce. In other words, when a learner realizes that the way a native speaker says something is not the way she thought it should be said, the learner re-evaluates her beliefs in light of the new evidence. Schmidt and Frota (1986) claim that when students notice the gap between their own language and that of native speakers, improvements occur (cited in Nunan, 1995a). Ellis (1995) calls this process cognitive comparison¹, and argues that one way to foster this is to "draw learners' attention to the kinds of errors that learners typically make" (p. 94).

The Transcribed Dialog Technique

This points to a need for students to compare their production with that of native speakers. In order to provide opportunities for students to do this, I developed a technique called the transcribed dialog technique. Students are given a task sheet consisting of a dialog with parts missing. The students draw on contextual clues to understand the functions of the missing utterances, and write down how they think those functions are expressed. To foster cognitive comparison, they are then provided with at least two native speakers' completed versions of the same task sheet. Comparison activities designed to draw attention to the similarities and differences between the two versions allow students to notice any differences or similarities between their own choices (whether grammatical, lexical, or functional) and those of the native speakers. This confirms or disconfirms the students' tentative, developing knowledge of and competence in English; that is, it helps foster improvements in the students' interlanguage systems.

There are two types of task sheets that can be used in the transcribed dialog technique. One is a one-sided dialog, in which all of the contributions of one interlocutor are left out; that is, we only have access to what one person is saying. The other way of exploiting transcribed dialogs is to remove selected parts of contributions by both interlocutors.

The application of this technique described below is discussed with reference to one-sided dialogs found within videos. Teachers working with videos may find ideas to add to their repertoire of classroom activities, while those who do not use videos may be persuaded to try. This approach is not strictly dependant on video, though, and is generally suitable for most dialog-based classroom activities.

This lesson exploits a scene from Sleepless in Seattle in which the widower Sam (played by Tom Hanks) is calling a woman named Victoria to ask her on a date. It is Sam's first such call since he was widowed over a year earlier, and he is very nervous about it. Victoria's half of the conversation is inaudible, but it is clear that she quickly takes charge of the conversation. The video used is part of the Cinex series of videos subtitled in English; the transcript below is copied from the subtitles that appear on the screen:

[We see Sam dial Victoria's number and wait for her to answer the phone]
(Telephone rings -- not audible)

Sam:	Hello, Victoria?
Sam:	This is uh, Sam Baldwin. I don't know if you remember me, but . . .
Sam:	Oh, well, great. Hi . . . uh, I, uh, I was wondering if, uh, if, if, uh, you would like to have a drink with me.
Sam:	Dinner?
Sam:	Dinner would be even better.
Sam:	Oh, F-Friday would be great, yeah, yeah. H-how . . .
Sam:	I've, I hear that's a good place, uh, how . . .
Sam:	7:30 would be, would, would be fine, and . . . I'll, uh, I'll, uh, uh
Sam:	Okay, I'll meet you there, okay, all right.
Sam:	Um, so, this, uh, it's Friday, at uh, 7:30, for dinner. Great.
Sam:	Me too. 'Bye.

[Sam hangs up.]

Here are some considerations to bear in mind when choosing or creating dialogs for this approach:

• The dialog should be authentic or, at least, realistic. This allows the learners to venture (however artificially) into the realm of extracting meaning from realistic or authentic input. Sources of realistic dialogs are well-written movies, semi-scripted audio tape recordings, television shows and plays. Similarly, the teacher could construct a realistic dialog after paying close attention to authentic conversations that occur around him. Authentic dialogs, on the other hand, include tape recordings of people engaging in conversation.
• The one-sided dialog should be transparent: it should be fairly easy to deduce the content or communicative intent of what the other person is saying.
• The entire approach described below is more applicable to recorded dialogs than written ones. Furthermore, videos seem to work better than audio tapes. Telephone dialogs (from videos) are ideal. Otherwise, short tapes of only one side of video or television show dialogs could be made before the lesson. (Plug your tape recorder input jack into the television's headphone jack. The proper cord can be found at most large TV/VCR stores. The tape recorder can be paused during the longer stretches of dialog that you want to delete. Show the video to your students with the volume off; the cassette can be played afterwards with pauses for the deleted segments. Although synchronizing the cassette tape and the video is better, it is very difficult to do.)

The Steps Involved

It would be difficult in most teaching situations to complete all of the steps below in one lesson. For this reason, some steps are marked "optional." Another possibility is to assign some steps as homework, or to continue over several class periods. The large number of steps provided below, plus additional steps that teachers can create on their own, ensures that the same basic approach can be used several times with different combinations of techniques to avoid monotony. Many of the steps are discussed with reference to my classes. Steps 1 and 2 are pre-class preparation. The key stage, in which the students compare their versions of the dialog with those of more proficient speakers, is in Steps 11 to 13.

Pre-Class Preparation

1. Write the one-sided dialog onto a sheet of paper. Provide space between the lines for the other side of the dialog to be written. This is the task sheet.

2. Have at least two native speakers (or non-native speakers with a high degree of competence) fill in the other half of the dialog on the task sheet. Make copies of these completed task sheets to hand out to students later in Step 11.

Since Victoria is a woman, as are all of my students, I asked two women to complete the task sheet. One was a native speaker from Canada. The other was a second-year student who had already graduated from the top level of a language school in the United States, thereby qualifying to enter an American university as a full-time student in native-speaker classes. Their completed task sheets appear in the Appendix.

It is important to have more than one proficient speaker complete the task sheet. The students will compare these completed sheets with their own versions (Steps 11 - 13); having only one version for comparison gives the exercise an air of correction, whereas showing alternatives highlights the fact that there may be several ways of saying something.

In the Classroom

3. Students watch the video clip containing the one-sided dialog. Of course, if you are using just an audio tape, students listen to the tape. If you are using a dialog that is printed on paper, then you should act it out to the students, interspersing your lines with pauses as you "listen" to the other side of the dialog.

4. Depending on the proficiency of the class, as well as how much prior exposure the class has had to the story and the dialog, you may want to elicit or state the circumstances of the dialog (in English or Japanese).

5. (optional) The students may construct the audible half of the dialog in whole (dictation) or in part (cloze activity). I did not pursue this option, but teachers who wish to do this have several options available to them. If you are using the Cinex videos (with the words printed on the screen) on a large TV, you could cover the bottom part of the screen with a piece of paper. If you are in a language lab, you could turn off the monitors, leaving the speakers on. Alternatively, you could make an audio tape from your own TV and play that to the students from a tape recorder.

6. Ask the students to consider what the inaudible side of the dialog might be. In other words, what might the other person in the dialog be saying? Students listen again. They do not have to write anything down at this point. They will have the chance to write in Step 9.

7. Pass out the printed version of the one-sided dialog (the task sheet from Step 1) for the students to read. Allow them time to read through the dialog or, if the dialog is better suited (because of hesitations or intonation) to be heard rather than to be read silently, then read the dialog to the students in a natural voice, but at a rate that is slow enough for them to hear and decipher the printed versions of hesitations and false starts (i.e., when Sam says, "uh, I, uh, I was wondering if, uh, if, if").

8. Play the tape once or twice more.

9. Have the students fill in the task sheet with what they think the other side of the dialog might be. When students asked what the name of the restaurant should be, I told them to use "the Traildust." During this stage, some students asked me for specific formulations, such as "How do you say 'moshi moshi' in America?" I replied, "Well, what would you say in America?" As one of the main points of this activity is to allow students to notice the differences between what they would say and what more proficient speakers (native or near-native speakers) would say, I answered questions about grammar and structure when students asked, but otherwise left the students to their own devices.

10. Allow the students adequate time to finish, and then play the tape again.

The Key Steps

Steps 11 - 13 are central to this approach. The students are able to notice any differences between their own choices (grammatical, lexical, functional) and the choices of more competent speakers, as well as notice similarities. These steps confirm or disconfirm the students' tentative, developing knowledge of and competence in English.

11. Hand out the completed task sheets from Step 2. Ask the students to compare their versions with the other two, and to take note of the differences and similarities. Due to a lack of time, my students could start this in the classroom, but had to finish the task as homework in preparation for the next day's lesson. An in-class option here is for students to do this in pairs or in groups, which would enable students to compare their task sheet not only with the more competent speakers' task sheets, but with those of their classmates as well.

12. Discuss the differences and similarities. Survey the class to decide which completed version they like better. (Optional: Ask for reasons.) This allows students an opportunity to process the differences that they have noticed with reference to the overall style they feel more comfortable with.

13. Have the students decide which features of the two completed versions and their own they like best. In other words, for each utterance, which version offers a formulation that they think is best? (A large number of my students took bits from each of the three versions.) Rather than having students write out a fourth version containing selections from each dialog, have them simply draw a circle around their new choices. If they wish to combine aspects from different dialogs, to create new lines, or to alter their own choices at this time, they should be allowed to do so.

14. The students record themselves acting out the other half of the dialogs. First have the students record the two completed dialogs from Step 2, and then the new version compiled from Step 13. This is the fun part that the students enjoy the most. Doing this in the language lab allows each student to make her own tape. Because my students speak slower than native speakers would, I occasionally paused the video tape for about a second between Tom Hank's lines to give them more time.

15. The students listen to the tapes. Some of the tapes came out very well, actually sounding like conversations with the famous movie star. Specific attention can be drawn here to aspects of voice quality which influence comprehension. Also, students can be asked whether they feel that they convey enough emotional quality through their voices, or if they sound like someone reciting.

The Next Step(s) - Further Options and Techniques for Dialogs

The following steps are all optional, and could be done in any order.

16. The tapes from Step 15 could be traded among students so that intonational choices can be critiqued or discussed. Similarly, groups of students could do this together, if the required equipment is available.

17. Native speakers could be asked to record their own versions of the other side of the dialog. Even if the teacher is a native speaker, this option allows the students to hear and discuss the intonational and lexical choices of other native speakers. I wanted my students to actually hear the way in which the speakers who wrote the completed task sheets (from Step 2) actually delivered the phrases they had written. This option also allows for a diversity of input: not all native speakers make the same choices about how or what to say, and I believe the students benefit from exposure to options.

18. Students practice the dialog in pairs. Students can read or paraphrase the two sides of the dialog. This is standard practice in most classrooms, and can be exploited in the well-known ways. The difference here is that one half of the dialog consists of choices and decisions that the students have made after considering carefully the appropriateness of those choices.

19. Students role play the dialog, but alter it completely. One student in each pair takes the role of Sam. Be sure that Sam's objectives are clear to these students: Sam is to invite Victoria out for a drink. The day, time and place must be established. Also, be sure that Sam's character is clear: He is a widower who is very nervous about making this call; he knows Victoria well enough to call her, but not well enough to feel at ease. The other student in each pair plays herself. In the one-sided dialog from the movie, it is clear that Victoria took charge of the conversation; she changed the invitation to a drink into an invitation to dinner, and proposed the day, time and place. In this option, the student takes Victoria's part, not Victoria's role; the student reacts to the invitation in a manner consistent with her own personality, even to the point of refusing the invitation if she so desires. The student playing Sam has to react and alter what Sam says accordingly, all in an attempt to secure Sam's objectives.

20. Students can act out the dialog for the benefit of other students. Divide the class up into pairs or small groups. One student in each group acts out Victoria's role either while the video is playing or with a partner, trying to convey what she feels and what she means with her voice. Another student is the "evaluator" who listens and gives feedback.

21. Reveal the identities of the people who wrote the completed task sheets in step 2. Also, discuss your feelings about the two versions.

22. Discuss the situation. Several avenues can be explored. The options below refer directly to the one-sided dialog from Sleepless in Seattle, but can be modified for any one-sided dialog:

• What prompted him to make the call? How does Sam feel immediately before the phone call? During the call? Immediately afterwards? Have you ever felt the same way in this kind of situation?
• Other personal experiences: This is one of those "It wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be" kind of stories. Do you have a similar story?
• The song in the background is "Back in the Saddle Again." What is the meaning of this idiom in American English? How is it applicable in this situation? Can you think of other examples to illustrate what you are saying?
• What is the general opinion of Victoria? Is she pushy, or simply empathic? Is she a "driver" or a "rescuer"? Do you know anyone like her? Why do you think this person is like Victoria?
• What are some of the difficulties of being a single parent who is dating?

These can be done as a written assignment, a whole-class discussion, in pairwork or in group work. Due to time constraints, some teachers might want to attempt one or two discussions in a subsequent lesson; one option is to have students assemble notes for homework.

Conclusion

One difference between the techniques described above and traditional ways of dealing with dialogs (whether through listening or reading) is that initially only one side of the dialog is presented to the students, and the students create the other side. This is then compared with at least two other versions of the dialog. Furthermore, when a completed version is given to the students, at least two versions are given. This approach is predicated on the belief that simply presenting a complete dialog to students, while useful, is not always sufficient for improving students' language ability. This approach offers a way to present dialogs to students in such a way as to allow them to utilize what language they do know to hazard guesses about what native speakers find appropriate and useful. The underlying assumption is that learning will be facilitated by offering opportunities for students to notice the gap between what they currently believe is correct and appropriate and what actually is correct and appropriate. Teachers who find this idea acceptable will use this approach at the beginning of learning cycles; teachers who do not find this acceptable can still use this technique for revision and review.

References

Ellis, R. (1995). Interpretation tasks for grammar teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 29 (1), 87-105.

Nunan, D. (1995a). Closing the gap between learning and instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 29 (1), 133-155.

Nunan, D. (1995b, November). Getting it right: Learners and grammar. Paper presented at the 21st Annual JALT Conference on Language Teaching/Learning and Educational Materials Exposition, Nagoya, Japan.

Schmidt, E., & Frota, S. (1986). Developing basic conversational ability in a second language: A case-study of an adult learner. In R. Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language research (pp. 237-326). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Note

Appendix

Completed Task Sheet from Step 2: Person One

Completed Task Sheet from Step 2: Person Two

Bill Pellowe can be contacted at: Aso Foreign Language & Travel College, Hakataekiminami 2-12-24, Hakata-ku Fukuoka-shi. 814.
e-mail: billp@gol.com

Article copyright © 1996 by the author.
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Last modified: December 13, 1996
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