Building Better Dialogues

Most EFL/ESL textbooks incorporate model conversations as a means to present and practice language in a meaningful context. However, these textbooks can be frustrating to use as some of their contents, including the dialogues they contain, are not always relevant to our students’ interests. This paper describes a teacher designed conversation course that follows a simple yet effective system of encouraging students to study model conversations tailored to their interests, and then create, practice and perform their own personalized dialogues. Suggestions for application of the principles and techniques presented in this work are also given.