Tips for a good dialogue

It will help both yourself and your partner if you work together collaboratively on this task.

1. Turn taking: Be prepared to ask your partner for his or her opinion rather than simply stating your own. Respect the turns in the conversation: don´t speak for too long – let your partner do his/her turn. Be positive, helpful and supportive with your partner. 
Remember: balanced dialogues! If one person speaks a lot and the other doesn’t speak much, that will be bad for both people, so avoid it. If someone is quiet, do something! Invite him or her to speak, e.g. You’re very quiet (smile) What do you think about all this? / What would you do? / Do you like the idea?

2. Listen 'actively' to what your partner says, responding to comments he or she makes. Use little signals to show that that you are following: 
"Oh, I see./ That´s right./Yes, I understand./ Oh, yes, I love that. / That's annoying. / Sure."
"I see/know what you mean."
"Really? That´s interesting."
"What do you mean by .......?"  "So, what you are saying is that ........?" (to clarify the information, when you don´t understand an idea)

3. If you don't understand someone's English, relax and try to notice the words that are most clearly pronounced or stressed. You can also ask them to repeat, or, even better, you can ask specific questions to get a specific word you need to reconstruct their message (communicate!) – in this way you wouldn’t make the person repeat it all, just the part you really need to understand to continue. Use your knowledge of the world and your info about the activity to do so.

4. For more functional expressions for interaction in a dialogue (for expressing opinion, agreeing and disagreeing, making a suggestion etc), click to download a LIST OF USEFUL PHRASES FOR INTERACTION

5. Try to bring the discussion to a consensus (though it´s not always possible) . Or you can try to summarize by repeating the main points briefly:
So, we'll be getting some clothes for Peter, then. We'll meet next Friday afternoon to go shopping and you will call Mary to ask her if she wants to share expenses with us. Is that right?
So, there are more sides to this topic than I could think of! It's been an interesting discussion!

6. Practice timing yourselves (in small groups or in pairs) to get the feeling of how long developing all the suggested ideas takes.

7. More things:
Useful language for organizing events, helping people and pros and cons of options
Beginning a dialogue

Communicative strategies: Asking for words

Tips for a good monologue

GATHERING USEFUL LANGUAGE:

1. Read or watch some materials on a similar topic before you start. Gather Useful Language ( words, expressions, whole sentences, ideas) on the topic. Use texts+ audios+ videos from the current course book + previous coursebooks/ notebooks +class blog etc. 

2. Brainstorm on the grammar you want to use, to make your range richer: e.g. different verbal tenses, modal verbs, adjectives (also -ing/-ed adjs.), conditionals, I wish+regrets, phrasal verbs etc.

* later, we can organize the topics in a list: you can also find topic labels on the right toolbar of this blog 

PREPARATION:

1. DON´T WRITE DOWN the complete text of your mon. You have to learn to develop a topic just from an OUTLINE (notes: main ideas and key words). This exercise will also teach you to learn to speak freely, not just read aloud. For example, you can use two sheets of paper: one for your OUTLINE and another for USEFUL LANGUAGE. 

2.  If you use audios as models, LISTEN AND REPEAT TO (bits from) AUDIOS which you can include in your mon. 

3.  Practice/ practise  the mon. several times: by reading aloud your notes or listen and repeat to the model audio. 

4. Record and listen to yourself at home 
-  record yourself doing the monologue samples from the Exam Practice handouts: respect the timing: 4-6 min. and the 3 points to talk about

ORGANIZATION:

1. Structure your talk around an INTRODUCTION, MAIN BODY AND CONCLUSION.

2. SIGNPOST YOUR TALK to help the audience or the examiners follow your train of thought, but be careful not to abuse the signposting formulas! They help you organize your talk, but a good monologue needs ¨substance¨, not lots of formulas and no meaning! 

SIGNPOSTING LANGUAGE EXAMPLES: Let me tell you something about/ I´d like to talk  about…/ I’m going to speak/talk about… To begin with.../ So, let’s start with…/ Let me start by (saying that.../ telling you about...) Now, let´s go on with… Finally I’ll tell you something about… There are 3 things I´d like to tell you about/ we have to take into account/ to consider: First(ly)…Second(ly)…Third(ly)…Finally... It´s also important that.../ Another( idea) is to... Last but not least... Now, moving on.../ And now something about.../Now let´s look at... To conclude/ In conclusion... To sum up… As you can see.../ As we (all) know.../As I said before... For instance/ For example... I´ll / Let me give you an example (from my personal life)... Rhetorical questions: So, what does this mean? / What do we learn from this?

3. You can also use discourse markers: by the way, actually, anyway, basically, in other words, on the one hand/ on the other hand, as I was saying, I mean  etc ( see Grammar Bank Unit 3B: English File Advanced)

DELIVERY:
1. Remember to speak clearly and not too fast - the examiners or the audience have to follow and understand the talk easily, without straining their ears. Pronounce clearly, don´t mumble!

2. Sometimes you need to simplify some thoughts/ ideas/ long and complicated sentences for the sake of delivering the message clearly. Remember that in an exam, in most cases, less is more.

3. Don´t try to translate 100% of what you can say in your mother tongue- rather think about how to express the ideas in English with the vocabulary/ grammar that you know and you can use confidently. Be careful with word-for-word translations!