Hi,
Sorry that I didn't have time to talk about the usage of dialogues yesterday, but hopefully the following will be of use to any interested members.
Traditional textbook layout has been the 'Name A', 'Name B' or quite simply 'A', 'B', 'A', 'B' format, but when you are doing it yourself you have more options. There is the "Dialogue Card" layout and the "Comic Dialogue" layout. Dialogue cards are very simple to make. Here is briefly how I would make one.
Colour code your dialogue so that the font for character "A" is black and character "B" is blue; an alternative to using colour is to use a different font for each character. Now copy the dialogue to clipboard and paste it into a new page in your publishing software. Add some suitable clip art (Pictures should not tell the story but should aid the comprehension of the vocabulary.) to your project to make it attractive and easier for the students to understand. I added the following pictures -- a seaman, a seasick seaman, a cook, some beans, a bowl of peaches and cream and two seagulls to 'Seaman Dean'. Put your copyright (unless it's my story) mark at the bottom of the page and either print your project directly or save to hard drive and then print.
A more attractive layout is to create a Comic Dialogue. You can use your publishing software to create your own unique layouts or you can use Comic Life for Mac
http://plasq.com/comiclife# or Comic Book Creator for Windows
http://www.mycomicbookcreator.com/#, both of these can be downloaded from the Internet. If you choose to do your own, then the first one will take quite a long time, because you are creating a brand-new template but your second and subsequent Comic Dialogues will be easier to make and take less time to produce.
An easy way of using these cards (dialogues) is to lay two of each card around the classroom, put the students in pairs (the teacher may partake) and go through each card once or twice (changing roles) and as soon as one pair has finished all the cards, have them pick up the spare cards and the activity will wind down naturally. You can use your cards for role playing activities, your students will love acting out the scenes and bringing them to life. The cards are time efficient, everyone is involved, the students are practicing their reading skills and they are learning dialogues whose meaning is made clear through pictures. I have used them with students from elementary school through to adults, with great success. Students who are usually loathe to pick up a book absolutely devour these materials.
You can of course write a sub story, as most comics do, to your "comic dialogue" and then your pupils will naturally be encouraged to read further and get deeper into the story.
Try writing and making your own.
Regards,
David
PS I trust that you found the phonic pattern to each dialogue.
