Dialogue journals are notebooks in which students write to their teacher, in English, about whatever they choose, to which the teacher responds without correcting any errors. The objective is a written conversation. One Los Angeles sixth grade teacher used the technique with a linguistically diverse class consisting of 27 students from 12 countries and 10 different language backgrounds, of whom only 2 were native English speakers using English at home. The dialogue journals students wrote were used for daily student-teacher conversations, and have become the core of the teacher's teaching, increasing individual student contact and providing spontaneous interaction using the dialogue journal has advantages for both students and teachers. Advantages to students include the opportunity for real communication and, consequently, language acquisition. Learning grows directly from students' individual interests and concerns. Advantages to the teacher include the opportunity to assess each student's language competence immediately and build from that point instead of starting at some predetermined level of instruction. Also, the teacher has the opportunity to learn a great deal about each student's language, culture, and customs. (MSE)