I used to hate the technique
as a student. I found it sooo boring and useless and tiring. “Why the hell are
we doing it?“ I kept asking myself. “Is it just to kill time?“
I never told my teacher
trainees to try it out and make it part of their lessons. I found it too
old-fashioned, traditional and totally uncommunicative. “There is nothing
students can get out of it. It is just about drilling spelling and copying
blindly what the teacher says.“ I kept telling myself.
I have not used it as a
teacher for ages. Or have I?
Actually, I do use IT in my
classes. I use DICTATION surprisingly often. Even though it is traditional,
uncommunicative and old-fashioned
… I just do it DIFFERENTLY from
what I experienced as a student of English back in late 80ies and beginning of
90ies when the grammar translation method was still flourishing in the
classrooms.
Inspired by Paul Davis and
Mario Rinvolucri (Dictation) believe
that it is important to decide and vary
- Who dictates
- Who chooses or prepares the text to dictate
- What is dictated
- How long it is
- How it is dictated
- What is to be written down
And here is one important
question I would like to add: What do
you do with the text that was dictated then? How does it link to the rest of
your lesson?
Ask these questions, too,
switch off your autopilots, surprise and challenge your students and test some
dictation techniques in your classes.
Whistle/Banana Dictation
Choose a short text, e.g. the
first paragraph of a story you are going to read in a course book (5 sentences
maximum). Dictate it to the class. Gap some words and whistle instead of them
or say “banana”. Students should complete the missing words and write the
complete text down.
Would you like to give it a try? Check this Voki.
Drawing dictation
Ask one student to come to
the board. Give the rest of the class the same picture to describe. They take
turns to “dictate” the picture to the student who draws the picture on the
board. Use a picture which leads into new topic or which recycles vocabulary
you have just studied. Check google clipart, fotosearch.com or cartoon strips.
Alternate Dictation
Prepare a short text
consisting of about 10 sentences. Divide students into pairs. Each student gets
half of the story, but their sentences or lines alternate, i.e. student A has
sentences or lines 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and student B has sentences/lines 2, 4, 6, 8,
10. Students take turns dictating their parts of the story to each other.
Students then work with the story, e.g. continuing it, coming with a surprising
twist …
Student A
1 It is 10 p.m. on a cold
Friday and I am standing
2
_____________________________________
3 to persuade him to find my
friends. “Can you shout
4
_____________________________________
5 The friends I´m supposed to
meet later are
Student B
1 _____________________________________
2 in a smelly phone box
speaking to a barman, trying
3
_____________________________________
4 out?” I ask, “or maybe look
for them?”
5
_____________________________________
6 in a bar somewhere in
Central London, and we haven´t yet …
Upside down
Prepare a suitable text, 3 or
5 sentences max. Dictate it to students, but students should write down the
opposites when they can think of any. Of course, each student gets a different
version of the story. Then they compare it in pairs/groups. Finally, they can
try to reconstruct the original story.
I usually use fairy tales
such as Cinderella.
Once upon a time there
lived an unhappy young girl. Her mother was dead and her father had married a
widow with two daughters. Her stepmother didn't like her one little bit. All
her kind thoughts and loving touches were for her own daughters.
Partial Dictation
Dictate a sentence (a prompt,
a question), students write only a response.
I usually revisit tapescripts
to focus on functional language and to get students ready for ESOL listening
Part 1.
E.g. Could you lend me some
coffee, please?
What about going to the
cinema tonight?
Riddle me
Challenge students with “what” you dictate. Use riddles or jokes as
a warmer or a lead—in to a topic.
- Three
eyes have I, all in a row; when the red one opens, all freeze. What am I?
- I
have a tail, and I have a head, but i have no body. I am NOT a snake. What
am I?
Variation: Dictate about
five questions from here. Then students work in groups trying to answer the
riddles.
Variation 2: Dictate
questions to group A. Dictate answers to group B. First, they try to complete
the missing part. Then they work together to complete the jokes.
Collocations
Dictate a set of first parts
of collocations, students only write down the missing part of the collocation.
E.g. You dicate
take/pass/fail, students write down “an exam”. Or you read:
“sunny/foggy/rainy”, students write down “weather”.
Then later on, they can
reconstruct the prompts again.
Groaning Dictation (from
Dictation)
Prepare a list of about 10 to
15 words. Dictate them to students very quickly, without pausing while students
are groaning trying to write them down. Then they work in pairs or groups
trying to reconstruct the complete list. Then they can predict what kind of text
the words come from or what they are going to read about, or write a story
using all the words.
Word by Word (from Dictation)
Students work in groups. Each
group has a sheet of paper. Group A writes down the first word of a sentence
and dictates their word to the other groups. Group B comes up with the second
word and dictates it to the other groups. Group C adds a third word and
dictates it to the other groups …
Strings of a story
Give each student a strip of
paper with one sentence from the text. Give it out in a random order. Students
take turns to dictate their sentence to the class. Everyone takes down what is
dictated. Then they work in pairs/groups, check the answers and then
reconstruct the text, putting sentences into correct order.
Variation: Challenge your
students. They have to learn their strip of paper by heart.
Lost in translation
Dictate a sentence in English
to student A. Student A writes it down then dictates its Czech version to B who
writes it down. B then dictates its English version to student C, etc. Put some
“party music” on to make the task more challenging.
It´s (not) me
Dictate sentences to
students, e.g. sentences containing a grammar structure which you need to
practise with them. Students write down only sentences which are true for them.
E.g. I have never been to
London. I have drunk three cups of coffee today. I have never eaten sushi. I
have just got married.
Variation: They write down
all sentences you dictate but must alter them to make them all true about themselves.
Personally, I believe
Dictate statements related to
a topic, e.g. statements on animal rights from NEF advanced.Students only write down statements which they agree with or only write down the response/reaction to it,
e.g. using language such as Yes, but …
And here´s a well-know activity you have definitely done, but which is
worth reusing from time to time J
Running dictation
Students work in pairs. One student is the writer and the other is the “runner”.
The short passage is put on the wall. The runners have to go to the text and
return to their partners having memorized the first line of the text, which
they dictate. They keep returning to the text until they have dictated the full
text to their partner. The role can be swapped in the middle of the activity.
If interested in Dictogloss,
Human tape recorder and other challenging activities, check Dictation in our
Glossa library.
