Teacher Refresher Course - (London) 4th session

4th Session: Revisiting Dictation

The topic in the 4th session was "Ditcation". We have to ask us about:

- Who gives the dictation, and who to?

- Who controls the pace of the dictation?

- Who chooses or creates the text?

- Who corrects it?

The teacher gave us ten good reasons for practising dictation:

1.-The students are active during the exercise.

2.-The students are active after the exercise.

3.-Dictation leads to oral communicative activities.

4.-Dictation fosters unconscious thinking.

5.-Dictation copes with mixed-ability group.

6.-Dictation deals with large groups.

7.-Dictation will often colm groups.

8.-Dictation is safe for the non-native teacher.

9.-For English, it is a technically useful exercise.

10.-Dictation gives access to interesting text.

After talked about that questions, the teacher presented us different kind of dications:

- Running Dictation

- Speed control

- Past endings

- Associations

- Mutual dictation

- Connections

- Shouting dictation

Speed Control

Ususally it is the reader who controls the speed of the dictation. In this exercise, the writers dictate the speed they need and want. The writers have to be as a tape recorder: start, stop, go back to..., start again.

Students control the speed of the dictation and it turns into a funny activity.

Associations

Dictate different words to your students and after each word leave them time to write down the first three associated words that come to their minds. For example: "wing": plane, bird, sky, "nose": hankerchief, red, cold...

It is interesting to compare at the end of the activity the words that every student wrote. 

Shouting dictation

Students work in pairs. They have a worksheet with some information: places and their telephone numbers, for example.
The student A has some information that the student B needs, and viceversa. They have to stay in a certain distance and when the teacher says "Start", all students' pair start to shout the information that they need to complete their worksheet. It is funny!