Controlled Dialogue Writing

1) Find a picture showing two people having a conversation in an interesting setting, and/or showing interesting emotions (see the example below). Now set this as your virtual background image, or share it using the screen share feature.  

2) Tell everyone that they are going to work in pairs to write a six-line dialogue between the two characters. The dialogue must be organised so that each line has an exact number of words :-

 A: 6 words

B: 5 words

A: 4 words

B: 3 words

A: 2 words

B: 1 word

 There are obviously an infinite number of possible dialogues that could be written to go with such a picture. Here's an example which follows the word count rules above. (Remember that contractions count as one word)

 A: You're not going to school, then?

B: I just can't stand it.

A: What about your exams?

B: I'll fail anyway.

A: And Maria?

B: Stop!

 3) Go round the breakout rooms to help out where needed with the writing. When they've agreed on the lines, ask them to decide who is who, and check that everyone can say their lines in a natural fluent way.

4) Now bring everybody back and ask them to perform their dialogues. They could do this with their cameras on, but, since we already have a picture to set the context, an interesting way of doing it is to have everyone's cameras off and the image displayed as a virtual background or shared screen. The two speakers say their lines as if the characters in the picture are speaking. Everyone could vote on which dialogue they think is the best, and possibly which one to develop into a longer remote play.

5) Now ask everyone to share their dialogues in the chat, or on pieces of paper. Use their texts to focus on the features of natural dialogue. Some things to draw their attention to could include:

- making dialogue sound authentic by using contractions (you're, can't and I'll above)

- use of discourse markers to link text together (then and just)

- being economical with language by using ellipsis (and Maria?)

- very direct language (Stop!)

- having a subtext: well written dialogue will often encourage the listener to start speculating about what is behind the lines (Who is Maria and why does B not want A to talk about her?)

Variation

Ask each pair of students to find a physical or online dice (eg https://freeonlinedice.com/)

Tell them they have to produce a short eight-line written dialogue where the number of words in each utterance is determined by the throw of a dice. This could be done with a picture (as above) or it could be done by giving them a topic for the conversation. The dialogue below was created in this way for the topic of arranging an evening out. 

1) A: Do you want to go out? (A threw a 6)

2) B: No. (B threw a 1)

3) A: Why's that then? (A threw a 3)

4) B: Too tired (A threw a 2)

5) A: How about tomorrow night then? (B threw a 5)

6) B: Where could we go?

7) A: Shall we go to the theatre?

8) B: OK. Where's the paper?

Note: Setting tight controls on the number of words in an utterance is a good way to encourage learners to break out of their comfort zones and start experimenting with saying things in new ways.