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Dictation #1

While we are all in thrall to the wonderful technological advances of web 2.0 ? the social media, the tools for this, that and the other, the IWBs etc, it's important to remember the stuff that doesn't necessarily need technology. In fact, most of the oldest ideas require no materials at all, just willing participants. They are also incredibly useful as a back up when the technology fails! So, it is here that I will declare that...

...I LOVE dictation!

There is a huge variety of ways dictation can be employed in the classroom. I suppose what qualifies as 'dictation' depends on your personal opinion, but why restrict yourself?

Rinvolucri and Davis, in the introduction to their book 'Dictation' (CUP, 1988) refer to old-fashioned experiences of dictation at school:

?In many cases the teacher probably read you the text, dictated it, and then read it a third time so you could check through. To many people this, and nothing else, IS dictation. The picture begins to change if you ask yourself a series of questions:

Who controls the dictation, and who to?

Who controls the pace of the dictation?

Who chooses or creates the text?

Who corrects it??

When you challenge the old-fashioned ideas of what dictation is, it's possible to come up with a great number of variations on the theme, for learners of all levels and ages.

I wanted to write a short series on dictation activities partly to share some knowledge that I have acquired, but also to encourage others reading this blog to share dictation activities they like using, or suggest variations on the ones I write about.

Single Word Dictation

There are various activities that I use regularly and have done for a few years because they always work well; from single word dictations, through sentences, to longer texts. I use a lot of single word dictation activities with young learners and it's these single word activities that I going to write about here.

Anagrams

Really simple. Just dictate the letters of a word that have been rearranged to make an anagram. The students copy the letters down and raise their hand when they've changed it into the correct word. For example, dictate 'rolicoced'. The first student to raise their hand and show you the correctly written word 'crocodile' wins a point!

A variation on the above, is that there is no writing involved. The teachers spells the anagram to the students and they put up their hand and say the answer. This can be done as individuals or in pairs/ teams. Kids love puzzles, so this one presents them with an enjoyable challenge and recycles vocabulary you want to focus on.

Secret Code

Instead of dictating a word, dictate a number that is a letter in code (A ? 1, B ? 2, etc). The students can then attempt to solve the puzzle first, again individually or in teams. For me it works well in pairs, with the students taking turns writing. This is a great way of revising numbers and vocabulary. It's best to have the alphabet with numbers on display for them to refer to; it's very difficult otherwise.

Air drawing

One of my current classes, some 10 year olds with a few years of English, absolutely love this one. It's very simple. I draw the letters of a word in the air (it's backwards from their perspective, but they can still do it) and they write the answers down or put up their hands to say the answer. I don't do points for them with this, they're way too competitive and argumentative as it is! A great tool for this is a laminated A4 piece of coloured paper and board pens, the students write, clean and write again!

Mouthing

This is great for helping very young learners to recognise the shapes made by the mouth when pronouncing words. Usually after a drilling activity when we've done some loud and quiet and slow and fast pronunciation practice, I quieten things down a bit by simply mouthing a word silently and they point to the corresponding flashcard, saying the word out loud themselves. To increase the challenge and make it a more normal dictation, the students could write the word instead, or make the word with scrabble letters - which is one of my favourite writing tasks with YLs.

Maths Dictation

(Obviously not a single word, but it's only a short dictation!)

Another way of practising number recognition while introducing a cross-curricular aspect is to dictate a few numbers and have the students add them up. The first student to reach the correct answer wins. To make things more complicated, a whole sum could be dictated as long as the students are familiar with the vocabulary ? such as 4 plus 7, multiplied by 2, minus 5 equals...(answer below!) Some of my students love maths (I always hated it) and they enjoy doing these calculations.

To sum up

The great thing about all these activities is that the students can do it themselves in pairs, groups or in open class, making it more learner-centred. Once they get into it they often don't even need me as a referee, which is great for taking a back seat to listen carefully to their pronunciation and check for gaps in their knowledge.

Just an idea: A variation on simple points scoring systems is to draw lines to create an object, for example a house. The first student or team to 'build' their house, wins! I think this idea is from 'Young Learners' by Sarah Philips, which is a book worth having if you teach kids.

For more ideas, visit these pages as well:

Marta's blog reminded me to get on with my previously brain-confined dictation post and the first 12 pages of the wonderful 'Dictation', by Davis and Rinvolucri, can be found here on google books.

Disclaimer: The ideas I present here are things that I have acquired from who knows where during my time as a teacher. I honestly don't know if any have previously been presented in copyrighted material. I am not aware that any of these ideas appear in the aforementioned book 'Dictation'. If anyone knows of printed material from which one of these has come, please let me know and I can then give credit where it is due.

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