Stephen Tarbuck is based in Poland where he is currently a senior teacher at International House Bydgoszcz. His current professional interests are: Task based teaching and dictation. Email: Stephentarbuck@gmail.com

 

A recommendation

If you want some new student centred and low preparation activities then I recommend Dictation: New Methods, New Possibilities by Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri.

If you associate Dictation with rows of students listening to a drill of Latin verb conjugations as spouted by a tweed based lifeform. Then be aware, this book could change that image! It will show you that dictation has merit in the communicative classroom and how you can start taking advantage of it.

When it comes to reading TEFL literature. I often find that too much of it is lengthy and too far beyond my immediate understanding to be usable when I require it.

So, when reading any new resource book the dread of encountering something like Lewis’s spectra is always in the back of my mind. This book, after the first read, didn’t give me that thought but gave me a smorgasbord of ready to go activities.

 

Contents

The book is around 114 pages and part of the Cambridge Handbook for Language Teachers series. Published by Cambridge University Press. This book and the series at the time of this publication was edited by Michael Swan.

The book starts with a brief introduction that focuses on challenging our perception of dictation and lays out the idea of the book: demonstrating a new methodology for an age-old exercise through a variety of activities. It then explains how to use the book and gives a guide to how presents the activities for different levels.

Then it gives some very thoughtful tips for actually giving a dictation. Such as: considering your volume, when to read from a paper and other useful tips to consider.

Next there are twelve chapters. These are titled by the categories that the activities focus on and many of the activities have photocopiable materials ready to be used.

The chapters are titled as follows: Correction, Sounds, Spelling and Punctuation, The Telephone, Single Word Dictations, Thinking about Meaning, Where on the page? Text Reconstruction, Using the students’ text, Lost in thought, Finding Out About Each Other, Community Language Learning and Working with Teachers.

Here are a few chapters that I consider to be standout: Correction, Telephone, Single Word Dictations, Text Reconstruction and Finding Out About Each Other.

The first chapter from my list, Correction. Presents dictation activities that are both student-centred and with the potential for peer-correction. It does this by showing some activities that deviate from what we consider standard dictation and even make it fun for young learners! Also, it is demonstrated helpfully with diagrams to show you how to arrange students.

On to Chapter 7, Text Reconstruction. This chapter contains the highlights of the book's activities. Which means a lot of students piecing together parts of dictated texts and involves high levels of processing for students.

As if that wasn’t enough, it includes the often heard of but rarely demonstrated: dictogloss.

Jumping around again, this time to chapter 10, Finding Out About Each Other. This chapter continues a strength of this book. It is short, coming in at only 8 pages and is focused on a variety of getting to know you activities.

The activities include adaptations of some classic icebreaker activities, such as 3 truths and a lie and it shows an idea: That dictation can be used as an introduction to your target language.

Let’s move onto Chapters 3 and 4. Telephone and Single Word Dictations. Chapter 4 continues to demonstrate an excellent range of activities. Although these chapters show that some of the ideas from the book are simply too personalised or dated.

For example setting up a series of phones for students to call or asking students to translate a dictated text from American English to British English.

Overall these are excellent chapters and some particular highlights I found are: connections or senses from Chapter 4, which are wonderful for topic introduction and pre-reading tasks. Also, picture dictation from Chapter 6, which is fun and easy for vocabulary review. Additionally, it’s hard to complain about using dictogloss from Chapter 7 in order to introduce a grammar point. Which means students have already interacted with the form and processed it in context using multiple skills communicatively. 

 

Final considerations

There are three key reasons I recommend this book. First: it can show you ways of presenting language and encouraging peer work that addresses the different abilities of your students.

For example, Shadow Dictation from Chapter 1, which doesn’t simply encourage peer work, it requires it. I have found to be very effective for weaker and dyslexic students, as it focuses on cooperation by making use of individual strengths in a collaborative activity.

Secondly: the straightforwardness of the material. The activities are clearly laid out and the instructions take only a skim for workable comprehension. Also, the contents page does an admirable job as it is very simple to find an activity based on its type.

Lastly: we shouldn’t neglect older resource books. While it's true that the usefulness of various books suggestions are limited, especially when they refer to: tapes, language labs and news articles from the 1980’s. This need not be a big issue as technology has changed enough to make some of the ideas, such as: producing copies, displaying work and recording students for the purpose of self-correction considerably easier, leaving us with only tried and tested activities.

Also, there is a massive advantage: it is not always difficult to find copies. In fact, I found my copy of this book for under £5.

 

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