Our Dialogue As A Productive Way To Practice English (ELPG)

Call it a Magic Table Dialogue Group. Call it a Dialogue For Peace group. Call it an English Language Practice Group.

As an English Language Practice Group it can be easy enough to be practical and productive for a beginning learner; it can be enjoyable enough and culturally enhancing enough for a native speaker of English to keep her coming back; it is a focused practice of listening to, and hearing a variety of individuals speaking English. 

So our "ELPG" helps a beginning learner to hear the sounds of English as he listens to a variety of speakers say a few sentences on a limited topic. He experiences a focused intensive listening practice. He also has opportunities to choose the topic. When he is taking English class elsewhere to he will see his learning exhilarate.

This practice group can be of considerable interest to a native speaker. Such an English speaker can learn fun and empowering cultural enhancing rules of Magic Table Dialogue, she can also learn the Dialogue for Peace skills for dealing with and appreciating the assumptions and opinions perhaps very different from her own. She can also make friends with with individuals of a different language and culture than her own.

The middle ground learner of English can build his own word power by hearing targeted words in context. He also learns hear the English of a variety of speakers rather than just the pronunciation and manner of speaking of the teacher. He will here a number of people speak a given word in their own way. Hearing and listening to this speech for, say, pronunciation and intonation is great language practice. This practice combined with hearing a  single word in a variety of sentences leads the learner into meaning and understanding in context. Practice is the main is the main aim here and listening is the principle practice. He will also get his turn by a very interested group of individual. He will say his few words. He will be listened to closely by the group.

Or dialogue is not a substitute fe other language studies. However, you could learn a valuable practice which serve you for a lifetime.You will eperience meaning in dialogue.

What's in it for you?
* You can improve your listening skills.   
* Yuo can practice hearing what is said.
* You can practice using a language other than your own. 
* You can improve your understanding of language and people.
* You will be listened to.
* You will learn to understand a variety of English speakers.
* You will learn to be understood as you speak English.


by Richard
for Mago Bill

More On Dialogue

                In our dialogue practice there is no agenda in the ordinary sense. Our purpose, in large part, is the practice. The practice is the honest and just sharing of meaning and development of coherence.  We practice certain methods and skills for thinking together.

                Our present purpose is to practice skills and learn rules of effective dialogue. We hope that others will come to see how this mere practice builds and supports our culture even as we listen and speak.

                This Dialogue For Peace, this Magic Table Dialogue, this dialogue is mostly leaderless. We can practice it and share its benefits without leaders.

                To begin your dialogue you will need to talk with others about the dialogue. You will begin, probably, by talking it over, discussing why you are doing it, what it means, and how you want to do it. 


                More to come.


                                                                                    by Richard Sheehan

Our Dialogue

Participate in a dialogue group

                Our dialogue talk is designed to create areas of coherence in the vastness of misunderstanding. Often a major benefit of our dialogue practice is our experiencing the power of collectively shared meaning. Most ordinary talk in our society may be called incoherent. To learn our dialogue talk takes ongoing practice. This practice we have named The Dialogue, Dialogue for Peace, Magic Table Dialogue. The dialogue has which call for practice to develop proficiency. The rules need not be rigid, but hey do point the importance of correct practice.

Aim:

                The dialogue is aimed at learning to think together coherently. Thinking together coherently calls for sustained dialogue. The earliest dialogue may be called a listening practice, but also calls for use of your voice and mind as well as your ears. Thinking together is both satisfying and a great power. We believe that it is worth the effort to practice. 

                This thinking together is a growth and learning process. It occurs consciously and also on a preconscious level. It may occur within us as in our talk to ourselves, or even on an unspoken level. Such talk and thinking may be expected to take on renewed honesty.

                There were times and places when and where this kind of talk was common, but in these days it is uncommon At this time the dialogue of which we speak is rare. It seems to me that it is urgent that more of us practice this sort of dialogue. It is urgent that more of us practice a more effectively honest and coherent communication. By 'we' I mean humanity in general as well as well as those willing to practice the dialogue now.      

Group benefits:                    

                A dialogue practice group benefits when its members strive for diversity and inclusiveness.

                For our own well-being  and perhaps our survival we need to better share our consciousness and become better able to think together. Being able to think together enables us to do intelligently and effectively that which we deem necessary.

            Seems time to close for now. Later we might consider how dialogue supports and strengthens our culture. Another topic might be the set of a dialogue group.

                                                                                    by Richard Sheehan