Dialogue Journals
Intended students:
Beginning level English in an IEP for a one-year study abroad university program. Students have a particular need to practice their speaking skills to build confidence and fluency.
Time needed: 10-20 minutes, including student preparation time
Objectives:
Procedure: This speaking task is designed as a weekly homework assignment.
EXAMPLE:
Following Unit 6 from Q: Skills for Success, entitled “What makes a good home?” the following prompt is used to coordinate with the learning outcome from the unit in the book. The unit goals include listening for opinions, compound nouns, prepositions of location, stress in compound nouns, and agreeing and disagreeing.
Unit 6: Speaking Homework
Discussion (Speak for one minute): Tell me about your ideal home. Where will it be? What will it be like? Why? Will it have anything special about it?
Pronunciation: To practice can and can’t, tell me 2 things you can do well, and 2 things you can’t do well. Ex: I can swim. I can’t cook.
Materials:
Evaluation:
Recording feedback can be time consuming for the teacher. If time is limited, use a paper rubric and write comments. However, the audio format gives students listening practice and valuable feedback that they can review as many times as needed. To cut down time in the audio feedback process, consider 1) keeping the required speaking time shorter rather than longer, 2) listening only one time to each recording, and 3) commenting selectively instead of comprehensively on pronunciation and aspects of delivery. Occasional peer feedback may also be a way to cut down on teacher grading time.
References:
Beginning level English in an IEP for a one-year study abroad university program. Students have a particular need to practice their speaking skills to build confidence and fluency.
Time needed: 10-20 minutes, including student preparation time
Objectives:
- To promote student confidence and fluency in speaking tasks
- To reinforce and practice pronunciation of can/can’t
- To practice new vocabulary from the unit
- To practice prepositions of location
- To practice describing and giving an opinion
Procedure: This speaking task is designed as a weekly homework assignment.
- Teacher prepares a discussion prompt and pronunciation task based on the current lesson or unit and prints it on small slips of paper to hand out to students.
- As homework, students briefly prepare their message based on the given prompt, making notes on the paper slip (small paper limits them to notes only).
- Responding to the prompt, students record an audio file for one minute (or longer) on their phone or computer and email the file to the teacher.
- Using a short rubric, the teacher listens to the recordings and comments on areas of noticeable improvement or strength, as well as anything that impedes the student’s clarity or comprehensibility.
- Using Vocaroo.com or another digital recording program, the teacher records and returns comments via another audio file. Alternatively, the teacher may use the paper rubric and return the hard copy to students.
EXAMPLE:
Following Unit 6 from Q: Skills for Success, entitled “What makes a good home?” the following prompt is used to coordinate with the learning outcome from the unit in the book. The unit goals include listening for opinions, compound nouns, prepositions of location, stress in compound nouns, and agreeing and disagreeing.
Unit 6: Speaking Homework
Discussion (Speak for one minute): Tell me about your ideal home. Where will it be? What will it be like? Why? Will it have anything special about it?
Pronunciation: To practice can and can’t, tell me 2 things you can do well, and 2 things you can’t do well. Ex: I can swim. I can’t cook.
Materials:
- Student’s preference of audio recording app/program (i.e., Vocaroo, smartphone app, Google Voice, etc.)
- Printed homework slip
- Rubric
Evaluation:
Recording feedback can be time consuming for the teacher. If time is limited, use a paper rubric and write comments. However, the audio format gives students listening practice and valuable feedback that they can review as many times as needed. To cut down time in the audio feedback process, consider 1) keeping the required speaking time shorter rather than longer, 2) listening only one time to each recording, and 3) commenting selectively instead of comprehensively on pronunciation and aspects of delivery. Occasional peer feedback may also be a way to cut down on teacher grading time.
References:
- Activity adapted from Whitney Siefke, Hope International University
- Chernen, J. (2009). Taking pronunciation further with oral journals. In T. Stewart (Ed.), Insights on teaching speaking in TESOL (pp. 223-239). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
- McClure, K. & Vargo, M. (2011). Q: Skills for success, listening and speaking, intro. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.