Using Cartoon Strips to Practise Dialogues

 Need some novel way to enliven your class?

The traditional way of practising dialogue is to have students work in pairs (or groups), prepare their dialogues, then role-play them, maybe in front of the classroom.

Instead of doing that, why don't you get them to prepare a comic strip first (after working on expressions, vocabulary, etc., of course). Either have them do it on the fly in the computer lab, or set it as homework. Later, they can role-play the situations. To make it even more fun, randomly assign the comic strip to a group for them to act it out.

One of the best I've found is ToonDoo. It's quite versatile; you not only have several characters to choose from, but you can easily play around with backdrops, fonts, expressions, etc. You can bet the kids (and the adults, too) will love it!

What do you think? If you need a tutorial, let me know. Leave your comments below by clicking on 'comments' if you don't see the form.