Dialogues, or role-playing, are useful in second language instruction because they increase student motivation to learn the language, enhance self-esteem by showing students they can express themselves in realistic communicative activities, and inhibit students less than non-simulated situations. In one teacher's approach, students have no prepared script and do not know when they will be called on to perform. Students are grouped by two or more and placed in a predetermined situation coinciding with subject matter and possible language-use circumstances and involving a conflict of some sort, often cultural. In a business French course, one successful role-play involved simulation of an interaction between a French bank teller and an unpleasant American tourist. A native French-speaker played the teller and dispelled stereotypes of rude French clerks. Other units involved job interviews with underqualified applicants, an error in a product delivery, and interactions at a French store's customer service department. Dialogues can be designed to suit the students' proficiency levels, accommodate individual student personalities, encourage skill practice, and still allow students to lose their self-consciousness. Good results are obtained with minimal correction and evaluation. (MSE)