Dictation Ideas for English Language Learners. Разнообразие форм диктантов при изучении английского языка
статья по английскому языку

Musailova Roza Grigorievna

                                                                                        Russia

             Moscow

DICTATION IDEAS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Are dictation activities a common thing in your lesson? Do they seem old-fashioned and teacher-centered? Is it really as outdated and uncommunicative as it first appears to be?

During my study in London for taking TKT course [1] , I knew about Jo Gakonga`s ideas on how to make dictation activities not boring and motivating. I knew quite a lot of unusual forms of  dictations and I would like to share the “stolen goods” with other teachers of English.

Why should we use dictations?

Dictation is  a great and  interactive way for practicing writing and spelling[2]. For ESL learners it is really more about listening and writing and spelling is a part of a dictation. We know that dictation is something that goes from the teacher`s mouth to the learners` pen through their brains. And what you want is make sure that the things  you dictate go first to learners`  heads  and then to their pen [3].

Top tips how to make dictations interesting

Make it a puzzle. This should be  a short dictation, that  can be dictated easily. There is a lot of useful language, but the pupils have also to think. I often use it as a  warming-up activity. For example, I`m orange but I`m not an orange, I have seeds but I`m not an apple, I`m bigger than a pineapple, You have to cook me  before you eat me. What am I? (a pumpkin)

Keep it short. Dictations should not be delivered in large doses. Keep them short.

Give a natural model. As I have already mentioned, dictation is about listening, largely about listening. When you are dictating, it is quite important to  give a natural model, perhaps a bit slower than usual but we should not overslow. It is necessary to include all features of connected speech: weak forms, contractions, stress, everything we use in spoken speech.

How to dictate

The mostly used type of dictation is a ‘teacher to learner” dictation. Here Jo Gakonga distiguishes independent dictations when students write on their own and collaborative dictations when students work together with each other.

Independent dictations are easy to do, take little preparations, can be  just integrated into our everyday classroom activities . We can use the instructions and the warmers of the course books for independent dictations. We can dictate a question and then ask the students to discuss it. There are a lot of useful things in this activity: question forms, auxiliaries and other things which are interesting to look at.

We can also use a spelling dictation as an introduction to reading a text. A teacher needs to spell the letters of the title without telling where the spaces are, then gives time to find the words of  the title. This kind of activity brings in more interest to the text as well as  practice in listening for spelling.

Another idea is to dictate the beginning of the text, just a small part of it to stimulate intensive listening practice. Students have to listen really very carefully for every word. It raises the awareness of connected speech. It can be useful because it helps the students to have the overview of the text. After writing students are to compare their version with the one in the book. It teaches them to pay more attention to articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, words that can be difficult to hear in connected speech.  All the facts mentioned above add a variety to reading lessons.

Besides, spelling dictations can be used in the beginning of the lesson as a lead-in activity. We can either dictate a guiding question or a kind of a riddle for students to guess the topic of the lesson.

As well as having dictations which are dictated by the teacher to the learner independently, we can use dictations for collaborative work called dictagloss. As I have realized,  it is a kind of russian “izlozhenie”. Let`s have a look at how to do it.

1. Show a picture to the students, ask some questions about it. For example “What is it?” , “Where would you find/see this?” , etc.
2. Give some of the vocabulary learners might not know, chunk of words, explain what they mean, tell the students when they must include them.
3. Red the passage first time at normal speed. Students should just listen, but not write anything.
4. Read again at normal speed but pause after each sentence, so that students make notes. This is not  a typical dictation, so do not let the students write the whole sentences.
5. In pairs or in groups learners reconstruct the passage. It does not have to be the same as the original, as long as the meaning is conveyed correctly and accurately.
6. Give the students the original version to compare.

Attention should be drawn to the difference between the level of the learners and the authentic language. They can see where they have grammatical mistakes, missing articles, wrong use of prepositions, incorrect word order. They can see how vocabulary is used. After it draw students` attention to some grammatical features. For example, mind  the difference between Past Simple and Past Continuous.

e.g. I was lying in my tent VS I lay in my tent. 

I can say that though this activity is rather time consuming, it appears to be very useful. It helps in revising vocabulary, learning new words, collocations, chunk of words and common expressions. It also raises grammar awareness. It is very engaging for students and they really enjoy this kind of collaborative work.

Learners` dictations are also considered to be popular according to Jo Gakonga. It can be useful to get learners to dictate to each other. Dictations do not have to come only from teachers. They are valuable for developing students` pronunciation skills as well as listening ones.  Moreover, these dictations give learners a real reason to make a language intelligible.

Here are some examples of learners` dictations.

Alternate line or information gap dictation. Students work in pairs with special cards which must be prepared by the teacher. Student A predicts what may have Student B by looking at his or her card.  Then students dictate in turns to each other and fill in the missing information.  

Running dictations are  great to escape monotonous atmosphere during the lessons. This can be a race between the pairs of students. First, put the learners in pairs, then put the text on the wall. After it one student runs to the text, reads and remembers a passage, runs back to the partner and dictates the part he has remembered.

Another version of a running dictation is:  put the dictation in stripes around the wall; give each pair a set of blank stripes; after it Student 1 runs to the stripe, reads, runs back and dictates to Student 2. In the end they have some stripes which they should rearrange to make a story.

When having running dictations teacher should think carefully where to put the tasks so that the students do not stumble or bump into each other while running, as they are in a hurry.

All in all,  dictations are valuable for  teachers as they increase energy level in class.

LIST OF REFERENCES AND WEB SITES

1. M.Spratt, A.Pulverness, M.Williams The TKT Course. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, Short Run Press, Exeter ,The UK, 2014. 256 p.
2.  C. Speck  8 Great Ways to Use Dictations with ESL Students https://busyteacher.org/25011-8-great-ways-to-use-dictation-with-esl-students.html
3. J.Gakonga Using Dictation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbjiMnMx_qk

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