Lesson 12: teaching speaking in primary level pupils: monologue and dialogue questions to be discussed

Monologue

In theatre, a monologue (from Greek: mónos, "alone, solitary" and lógos, "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their mental thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media (plays, films, etc.), as well as in non-dramatic media such as poetry. Monologues share much in common with several other literary devices including soliloquies, apostrophes, and aside. There are, however, distinctions between each of these devices.

Dialogue

Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a narrative, philosophical or didactic device, it is chiefly associated in the West with the Socratic dialogue as developed by Plato, but antecedents are also found in other traditions including Indian literature.

In the 20th century, philosophical treatments of dialogue have also developed a body of theory and techniques for using egalitarian dialogue as a pedagogical tool.

Listening to this type of content on topics that interest you can be a great way to improve your listening skills. However, there are two main drawbacks1 to this form of authentic material.

Firstly, this type of listening material is usually a monologue – in other words, one person speaking. It can be very difficult to maintain your concentration while listening to a monologue in a foreign language.

The second disadvantage to listening to monologues is that the way people speak is somewhat unnatural. In these situations, people speak using their ‘broadcast voice’, like you would hear on the radio or television news, and that’s quite different from the way people speak in regular conversations.

In monologues, people tend to speak more slowly and more clearly than they do in regular conversations, and to pronounce words more ‘correctly’ (which, in the case of English, often means using fewer schwas, the hallmark of conversational English pronunciation).

Listening to monologues can certainly have value, especially if you see it as an end unto itself rather than as a means to an end6 – that is, if you want to improve your ability to listen to monologues precisely because you want to be able to enjoy listening to more monologues. But you may find that it doesn’t help as much as you might think when it comes to participating in conversations.