Dialogue jumble

I once went to a workshop where the trainer tried to convince us that an entire lesson could be based around the instructions on a teabag sachet. I've never attempted this (sorry, Scott), but do believe that in teaching, "less" can be "more", especially in terms of short texts or dialogues.

Standard reading and listening comprehension activities have their place in developing vocabulary, but do they really help students listen and read any better? To improve these skills, students need not only to be able to understand discrete bits of language, but also to understand how text works — that a question will probably be followed by an answer, for example, and that if someone mentions "him", then you can assume that word refers to a previously named male.

This is all part of discourse analysis. Some of us find it quite exciting, and for students it can be fun. The following is a simple jigsaw activity that can be run competitively. While students put the pieces together, they are actually engaged in a quite complex analytical task. It is your decision as to whether to inform them of this or not.

Who it's for:
All levels

What it's for:
Building understanding of how conversations are developed and how text works.

What you need:
A dialogue from Spotlight that includes questions and answers and reference words such as pronouns (he, she, that, etc.). The first dialogue of Everyday English in Spotlight 7/2009 is also on Spotlight Audio. It contains many types of references and exchanges and would work well.

What you do:
Before the lesson, enlarge and make copies of the dialogue you want to use. I usually type out the text in a large font, as it is then less fiddly. In a complex dialogue, it is also a good idea to mark the first line, for example by putting it in bold or another colour, or adding the word "Start".

Keep one original version, then cut up the dialogue into its separate parts. If you use scissors to do this, make sure you cut straight, or some students will realize that they can just play jigsaw puzzles with the paper. A way to avoid this is to jumble the typed-out text before you copy it; another is to have just one line repeated on single pages.

Keep sets of the cut-up dialogue together with a paper clip or in envelopes.

Hand out the dialogue to students in pairs or threes. Tell them it is their job to put the dialogue back together. Encourage them to talk to each other while solving this problem, and to read the lines aloud often.

Go round and see what is going on. Rather than giving instructions or saying what is wrong, I like to help by moving slips that are in the wrong place to the side, so that the communication stays within the group.

Once you think everyone has had a good shot at putting the dialogue together, play the original version on Spotlight Audio. You can stipulate that students are not allowed to move the slips of paper around while they are listening. Give students another couple of minutes to get the dialogue in order. If one group has finished and is looking fidgety, send its members to other groups to act as consultants.

It may be that a group has a different solution to the original. Discuss with the class whether their versions work or not.