I went through discussions about the so-called "dictations" and I'd like to ask sth. What can we do with young learners (7-8 yrs old) when we want them to learn how to write? I mean, we want them to learn how to write rat or hat or bat or anything. After the speaking and listening stage, we (here) usually tell them to write the words in their notebooks, go home and learn how to write them in order to be asked in the next lesson. That's called "dictation" and surprisingly enough, they like it...
I've always disliked the traditional spelling exercise (or, "dictation") style because it seems to be quite dull. Most teachers use it to death though because we're all so used to it. I have an interesting collection of ideas on dictations and I'm going to work on them but still I don't know what to do with my absolute beginners. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Liana
Dictations (again!)
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You might try putting students in groups of 4 or 5 and giving 1 student in each group a short (3-4 sentence) segment to read, using the language to be practiced.
The reader has to pay attention to pronunciation/intonation, and the others can practice saying "please repeat", "not so fast" etc.
When students check their work with each other and with the original, they can see which words gave them trouble. It's also good to have students correct each other ("You said 'HOT' and it was 'HAT'!") instead of having the teacher correcting all the time.
The reader has to pay attention to pronunciation/intonation, and the others can practice saying "please repeat", "not so fast" etc.
When students check their work with each other and with the original, they can see which words gave them trouble. It's also good to have students correct each other ("You said 'HOT' and it was 'HAT'!") instead of having the teacher correcting all the time.
Thanks for your suggestion. It's sth I could try with my older classes though. I don't know whether I could do it with my absolute beginners since they are at the "word phase" and cannot manage long words and sentences. Of course, they can learn "It's a pen" or "I am a doctor" but even that after Christmas (starting in September, that is) when they feel more confident with reading and writing. My question concentrates rather on how to replace traditional dictation. All my colleagues dictate some words, the children write them in their notebooks, the teacher corrects and that's it. We usually say that this saves time but I don't like it... I'm not very confident myself about the "learning how to write " procedure or the "listen and write" one. I want to check my pupils' ability (and interest!) to understand and write but I haven't really worked on this issue.
I apologise if I sound paranoid about the so-called dictation problem but I think it's important as it involves listening, writing and reading. I'm particularly interested in 8-yr-olds because they start English at school at that age and I want them to have a good start. On the other hand, I might feel too tense about it because of my ignorance. I don't know but I intend to find out!
Liana
I apologise if I sound paranoid about the so-called dictation problem but I think it's important as it involves listening, writing and reading. I'm particularly interested in 8-yr-olds because they start English at school at that age and I want them to have a good start. On the other hand, I might feel too tense about it because of my ignorance. I don't know but I intend to find out!
Liana
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Sally Olsen
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The students I had were very proud of their dictation books and so I started to use them as a journal of their day at school. First we talked about what had happened at school that day and wrote a story as a class on the board. It was simple at first with just five or six lines but got more complicated as the year progressed. Then we studed certain words they thought were going to be difficult and finally I covered the story with the screen that pulled down over the board or a cloth. Then I dictated the story and they tried their best to follow along, leaving a blank if they didn't know the words or were too slow. Then they got into groups and tried to fill in the blanks for each other. Any group that was finished could make a picture underneath to illustrate the story. Finally they checked their stories against the original work on the board and corrected mistakes. They could find someway to practice the words they spelled incorrectly that was best for them. Some children like to write the word over and over on the board and have another pupil test them. Some liked to trace the word in sand and some liked to see how many other words were similar and so on. At the end of the year we had a really interesting little book with the main activities of the year highlighted and they could proudly show their book to others. We need to practice but it doesn't have to be boring.
Dictation can be interesting though!
Hi there,
I have just read a book about different teaching method.
Well, yeah for me, I think dictation is a dull task, still we need to think of the student's viewpoint, if they love it, that's great. They have motivation to do it best.
Use the format of dictation to test their " articles " use, such as a/the articles,etc. You can first prepared an article, read it without any stressed tone, then let the students to insert those 'articles' that they just heard.
Or you can use dictation to test their "prepositions" too.
Same here, prepared a passage/an article, leave a space for them to fill in the correct "prepositions". This time, you can ask them to fill in the blanks before listening to you (just get them to make a guess), then you read aloud the passage to them. Finally, you can correct their errors.
Let's try it, okay? Hope you find it's useful though.
Cheers,
Alice
I have just read a book about different teaching method.
Well, yeah for me, I think dictation is a dull task, still we need to think of the student's viewpoint, if they love it, that's great. They have motivation to do it best.
Use the format of dictation to test their " articles " use, such as a/the articles,etc. You can first prepared an article, read it without any stressed tone, then let the students to insert those 'articles' that they just heard.
Or you can use dictation to test their "prepositions" too.
Same here, prepared a passage/an article, leave a space for them to fill in the correct "prepositions". This time, you can ask them to fill in the blanks before listening to you (just get them to make a guess), then you read aloud the passage to them. Finally, you can correct their errors.
Let's try it, okay? Hope you find it's useful though.
Cheers,
Alice
Thanks for your ideas. Thanks Alice for the prepositions suggestion. I'm not sure I understood the articles one, though (sorry...)
Actually I needed ideas for my absolute beginners who are 8 years old. They cannot do such tasks but it's okay, I can use them with the older pupils. I thought about the "dictation" issue with my little ones and decided that I'm not going to give them any dictation words to learn by heart, at least not in the form of "open your dictation notebook and write your dictation words". As far as the children's viewpoint is concerned, I'm not sure they like dictations. It's just a habit they acquired in their Greek language lessons and the private EFL schools they all go to. I noticed that whenever I decided to skip the dictation bore and prepared a fill-in-the-gaps exercise with the vocabulary words written in a box above the sentences, a lot of them were at a loss. They could not recognise the words and what's more they couldn't fit them in a sentence. Not even if it were the same textbook passage we had read the previous day... But if you dictated the words, they could actually write them and translate them. Well, I'll try to go for fewer words next year, more vocab revision, more consolidation activities and more self confidence with language.
Actually I needed ideas for my absolute beginners who are 8 years old. They cannot do such tasks but it's okay, I can use them with the older pupils. I thought about the "dictation" issue with my little ones and decided that I'm not going to give them any dictation words to learn by heart, at least not in the form of "open your dictation notebook and write your dictation words". As far as the children's viewpoint is concerned, I'm not sure they like dictations. It's just a habit they acquired in their Greek language lessons and the private EFL schools they all go to. I noticed that whenever I decided to skip the dictation bore and prepared a fill-in-the-gaps exercise with the vocabulary words written in a box above the sentences, a lot of them were at a loss. They could not recognise the words and what's more they couldn't fit them in a sentence. Not even if it were the same textbook passage we had read the previous day... But if you dictated the words, they could actually write them and translate them. Well, I'll try to go for fewer words next year, more vocab revision, more consolidation activities and more self confidence with language.
Hi there,
Oh I think of another way for the dictation.
In case your students aren't very clear about the sentence structure.
You can introduce it to them.
Let says.
You have a sentence like this:
e.g. Tom likes to read. You can guide them to know "Tom" is a noun and you can always substitute other nouns to it too. "Read" is a verb (showing actions), you can also substitue other verb to it, so that the sentence is not the same. Now you can put few sentences for them to practice, ask them to use symbol N - Noun, and V - Verb. Guide them to know what's in a sentence.
And testing their N and V by simply speak loud a word, and tell them to give you the N or V answer. I tried it in a group setting, it's fun though, they love to play with Noun, Verb, Adjectives and Adverb by running to each corner,as each corner represents Noun, Verb, Adjectives and Adverb.
For the article ones...articles (=a/the)
Read a passage without any stress on the 'articles' - a/the.
It may seems to be hard for the young children at first stage, so again, I will suggest you to introduce a/the to them...
Cheers.
Alice
Oh I think of another way for the dictation.
In case your students aren't very clear about the sentence structure.
You can introduce it to them.
Let says.
You have a sentence like this:
e.g. Tom likes to read. You can guide them to know "Tom" is a noun and you can always substitute other nouns to it too. "Read" is a verb (showing actions), you can also substitue other verb to it, so that the sentence is not the same. Now you can put few sentences for them to practice, ask them to use symbol N - Noun, and V - Verb. Guide them to know what's in a sentence.
And testing their N and V by simply speak loud a word, and tell them to give you the N or V answer. I tried it in a group setting, it's fun though, they love to play with Noun, Verb, Adjectives and Adverb by running to each corner,as each corner represents Noun, Verb, Adjectives and Adverb.
For the article ones...articles (=a/the)
Read a passage without any stress on the 'articles' - a/the.
It may seems to be hard for the young children at first stage, so again, I will suggest you to introduce a/the to them...
Cheers.
Alice