Name______

Dialogue Quiz Rubric

You’re at a café with a friend or friends. One of you plays the server. The others, playing the customers, order. They should ask how much things cost. The server should answer questions, take the orders, and bring the food and drinks. The customers call the server over to pay at the end of their meal.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Content / Dialogue includes only some or little of the required content: going to a café, deciding on, and receiving dishes, asking for the check, and paying. / Dialogue includes most, but not all of the required content: going to a café, deciding on, and receiving dishes, asking for the check, and paying. / Dialogue includes going to a café, deciding on, and receiving dishes, asking for the check, and paying, but seems unnatural. Dialogue could be improved with more work. / Dialogue includes going to a café, deciding on and asking about the price of items, receiving dishes, asking for the check, and paying, Conversation is natural.
Comprehensibility / Students giggle, speak too softly to be heard, mumble, and/or speak so fast or slow as to impede understanding by the audience. / Students speak too softly to be heard, mumble, and/or speak so fast or slow as to impede understanding by the audience. / Students generally speak in loud, clear voices, with understandable rapidity. / Students consistently speak in loud, clear voices, with understandable rapidity.
Staging / Students do not move to the front of the room. / Students place themselves in the front of the room, but do nothing to give the audience a feeling of the setting. / Students stand or sit in the front of the room and align themselves in a well-thought out manner. / Students use props and the stage to convey the meaning of their dialogue.
Language / French is not used, or is used in a consistently inaccurate manner. Extremely difficult to understand due to pronunciation and/or grammar errors. / French is used, but is often difficult to understand due to pronunciation or grammar errors. / Students generally use French effectively. Some difficulty in understanding occurs due to pronunciation or grammar errors. / Students effectively use French to convey the meaning of the dialogue.
Participation / Dialogue is dominated by one group member; other members do little, nothing, or act as props. / Dialogue is dominated by one or two group members; other members do little, nothing, or act as props. / One group member has an obviously lesser role. Others make valuable contributions to the dialogue. / All group members make equal and valuable contributions to the dialogue.

Dialogue Quiz Tips

1. Write a good script.

a. Give every group member a script—This leads to less rattling of paper, peering over other people to see the script, and there is no problem if a group member is absent on the day of the performance.

b. Write the script in French. If you write in English and attempt to translate it, you will find it difficult. There will be many problems with idioms, verb tenses, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

2. Keep your audience in mind.

a. Talk loud enough.

b. Use vocabulary from the unit because the audience knows it. If you are going to introduce new vocabulary, teach important words to the class first. If you need to give the audience information about the scene such as “the next day” or “at the party”, give it in French: “le jour prochain” or “à la boum”.

c. Use the “stage”.

d. Identify characters with signs on desks or hung around necks, mustaches, rattles, or other props.

3. Act big. Act well. Make it funny if you can.

4. Be a good audience.

Respect your classmates’ work by being quiet and paying attention. Audience members who do not conduct themselves appropriately may receive a zero on their own dialogue quiz.