Dictations

will mcculloch · Post by **will mcculloch** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:02 pm

Hi,

I've been searching for sites that offer graded dictations to add the "Word Surfing" site.

Students of all languages would benefit greatly, I'm sure, from the availability of a service that allowed them to ....

1. listen to individual sentences being clearly read.
2. replay each sentence as often as required - and
3. "reveal" correct sentences once an attempt had been made to write down what had been heard.

Such a site could only help students to practice vital listening and writing skills in a useful manner. It would also allow them to correct their own mistakes in a comfortable environment - and encourage them to expand their vocabulary knowledge.

Personally - (and I'm sure I'm not alone) - I'd jump at the opportunity to use internet based dictations to help me with both Spanish and Italian - so if anyone can point me in the right direction ... I'd be hugely grateful.

Finally, if no such service exists.... is anyone else out there

a) keen to see graded internet dictations become widely available?
and/or
b) interested in becoming involved in making the process happen?

If so - please reply!

Best Wishes

Will
http://www.wordsurfing.co.uk

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 12:13 pm

I enthusiastically agree with you! It's a pity those in favour of dictations are in a tiny minority. I have in fact been doing this with Chinese adults and college students precisely because they have such incredible trouble understanding any one sentence with more than 5 words! The most common words escape their ears because they are only used to hear words individually, not inserted in phrases and sentences.
And, hearing a whole story they often fail to understand the gist, or in the case of a joke, the punchline.
When they write the story sentence by sentence, with the help of one of them acting as "secretary" on the blackboard, they discover how many misunderstandings they were victim of. Once the semantics have been cleared up, (without using Chinese), they finally see that English - as any language - works only if you string words together, and this requires speakers of it to use grammatically correct language.
I don't know about "graded" dictations - with my so-called "advanced" learners I use simplified English that uses somewhere between 1000 and 2000 common English words.
Even so, I have to explain a number of "difficult" vocables such as "senator" (admittedly not a "simple" word) or "calm" as in "calm sea".