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Dictation #2
Well, it's taken me a while, but here's the second part of my mini-series on dictation activities. Here are a few activities for sentence length texts:
How many words
I first saw this demonstrated at an IH workshop day in Poland, by a teacher who was a native to Nigeria. He read us sentences pronounced with a thick accent and we could really feel like the students would during the same activity, it was really hard to understand him!
It's very simple, all you do is dictate sentences at a natural pace and for the first task the students write only the number of words they think they hear. For example: 'I'd love to go to the cinema' is eight words. It's great for focussing on contractions and difficulties with connected speech.
After reading all the sentences, you ask the students to compare and then tell them the correct answers. Then you read the sentences again and the students attempt to write out the complete sentences, using the number of words as a guide. They can compare again before a final feedback to check the correct sentences.
Pass the Pen
This is an activity the kids love as much as I do! Again it's very simple. The kids sit in circles of three or four and they have a pen and one sheet of paper. You play music and they pass the pen around the circle (it works well with board pens and the plastic sheets I mentioned in Dictation#1). When you stop the music the student with the pen will be the writer for this sentence.
Then you dictate a sentence two or three times and the student who finished up with the pen (helped by the others) writes the sentence on their paper. They must all raise their hands and shout 'finished' when they feel that they have completed it correctly. When they've all finished, check their work and write the correct sentence on the board for them to check.
The scoring can be done in any way, but I like to award a bonus for being first (if correct) and also start with 5 points so that minus points can be awarded for dropping the pen (it stops them throwing it), noisiness or arguing!
Running dictation for one to one
Ok, it might sound strange, but it works! I have a couple of young learners (nine years old) who come for private tuition and something they love is writing on our IWB. To practise writing, I sit at one end of the classroom, away from the board, and write a sentence on paper. They have to read the sentence, say it to me and run over to the board to write the phrase. They can run back as many times as they want, to re-read the sentence. We usually do three or four sentences like this and it takes about ten minutes.
I've also done it by just saying the sentence when they come back to me, but they seem to benefit a lot from comparing one sentence with the other and are becoming better at checking there own work for mistakes.
Well, there you go. Please share any other sentence length dictation acivities you have and I'll get on with the next post, which will focus on activities using longer texts.
Thanks for reading!
- Secret Of Successful English Writing - Write As You Speak!
English writing is not a big issue if most writing you have to do is work-related. Sending e-mails describing various issues and communicating with your colleagues and superiors is pretty straightforward and you don?t have to be creative to pull it off....
- Present Perfect Tense
affirmative sentence: in affirmative sentence "have" with plural noun (I, we, you they) "has" with singular noun (he, she, it) has, have + third form of verbExamples I have read my book?They have come to the party.She has finished her work.We...
- Present Indefinite Tense
There are three kind of tenses Present TensePast TenseFuture Tenseeach form of tense has it s own structure. Present tense Structure of the present tense Present indefinite tense- it has four forms affirmative sentence negative sentenceInterrogative...
- Sentence
SENTENCEA group of words, which expresses a complete idea or thought, is called a sentence.Example: He bought a book. The above group of word expresses a complete idea. Such combination of words is called a sentence. Now, look at another group...
- Top Ten Ways To Use Dice In The Esl Classroom
Did you know that dice can be a great way to increase motivation and spice up boring lessons and exercises in class? Dice can be bought at any dollar store in the US in a pack of 10 for $1. I'm sure that they are also cheap in other countries.Because...