One
type of listening technique not really considered in this chapter is
dictation. How useful is dictation? What are the pros and cons of using
dictation in a classroom?
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I think that there is a use for dictation in the classroom if the focus is on correctly hearing and interpreting what is being read (dictated). The pace can be adjusted for the class, and it can be helpful to be provided constant input that is CORRECT so that you can hear what it is supposed to sound like. Also, this would be a way to encourage students to not only focus on comprehension but also on correctly spelling and ordering phrases. The biggest con that I can see is that this is a rote type drill that may not be particular memorable or meaningful to the students and therfore may not be particularly helpful. It certainly is not communicative at all.
ReplyDeleteDictation has its uses, but is rather limited in scope. Dictation can help with a student's understanding and comprehension of the spoken language, and can accurately demonstrate to the instructor how proficient a listener the student is. It can also help with spelling skills, and might eventually ensure that the student accurately hears every word being spoken, and can spell it with little to no difficulty. In this sense, dictation could be useful. The problem here, of course, is the fact that the student is basically just repeating everything spoken, but in written form.
ReplyDeleteOutside of demonstrating the students' listening ability and spelling ability to the instructor, I don't know that dictation really has a place in the classroom. They might pick up a few grammatical structures on their own, but it is not actively teaching them anything, certainly not speaking or pronunciation. Dictation is really better as an assessment tool, if that, simply because there is no communicative aspect to such an activity, there is no relevance, unless the students are aiming to be the secretary taking minutes at a meeting, or a personal writer, taking down everything someone might say, while trying to create an autobiography.
I think that dictation does have its place, and it can be helpful for the instructor to assess how well their students can understand, but it doesn't have much of an instructional purpose.
I think dictation is good for students who struggle with discerning clustering, etc. I know for me, I benefit from dictation because, if I hear something strange and write down what I think is being said, when I discover the correct answers for what was said, I have an epiphany as to how those words sound like when strung together. Flow of language has always been difficult for me to hear. So, I think that is useful.
ReplyDeleteHowever, at the same time, dictation does not assure understanding. It only assure being able to understand the phonetic realization of the words correctly. I could hear a phrase, write it perfectly and have no idea what it means.
I have two experiences with dictation. One as a student of Chinese, and another in my experience teaching in Spain. I'll discuss the Chinese example first.
ReplyDeleteIn a beginning Chinese language class, the professor had an activity where 5 students would come up to the board, he would pronounce a word in Mandarin, and we'd try to write it on the board (using pinyin phonetic spelling, not characters). Then he'd check off who got it right. It felt like a good exercise because we were just learning Chinese phonology and pinyin alphabet, so this got us to listen "hard" to discern the pronunciation and match it with the pinyin. But, understanding wasn't necessary -just picking out the correct sounds (sometimes he used words we hadn't even learned yet). There was a competitive element to the activity, so the challenge was kind of fun.
My other experience with dictation was when I was assistant teaching in secondary schools in Spain. I saw how teachers there used dictation in the classroom. Usually if the kids were being unruly or misbehaving, the teacher would switch to a dictation to quiet them down. Unfortunately, the kids came to see dictation as a punishment, and whenever the teacher announced it was dictation time, there was a groan all around the classroom. But, there was one occasion when it became more interesting to students, and that was when it was their classmate reading the text, not the teacher. When their classmate read the text, the students listened much more intently, asked the reader for clarification, and seemed more focused on the task. The student reading was very focused on pronunciation as well. If I were to use dictation of a text in the classroom, I would do it that way having the students do the reading. However, Caitlin makes a good point -understanding isn't necessary in completing a dictation task. Therefore it may not be beneficial to internalization of vocabulary or grammar since there's no need to link sound with meaning (however recognizing a word and linking it with the correct spelling may require some understanding of meaning within a context).
Overall, I have mixed feelings about dictation. It may be useful for beginners who are just learning a new phonology or alphabet. Maybe in short focused doses, such as in the Chinese example, dictation may exercise students' ability to discern new sounds. But I think at higher proficiency levels it should be replaced with listening exercises that involve interaction and understanding of meaning.
Dictation does have potential uses for listening in the classroom, but would have to be carefully planned in order to be truly called communicative. As Kathy, mentioned, dictation could become simply a rote drill with little emphasis on the meaning of what was being. Also, if dictation were being used for any sort of assessment, then the teacher would need to be aware that students’ results would be filtered through their writing ability, not just their listening comprehension. I can see some potential communicative uses for dictation in upper level classes. Practicing hearing, processing, and quickly writing down information would be useful in preparation for later note taking in college courses (though this would resemble searching for the main idea rather than straight dictation). Another way dictation could be used without losing the meaning of the transcribed could be to dictate students a list of directions (which they would later have to follow) or an interesting story. I have also been thinking about Zahra’s mention of tongue twisters, and think that perhaps spelling-sound correspondences could be practiced with dictation of tongue twisters. This would be a focus on listening and writing.
ReplyDeleteWe have passage dictation in English proficiency test so we do a lot of dictation exercise before test. I feel that I learnt a lot from the practice. First, I was pushed to listen to the sentences carefully and understand all the words. Not like the normal listening exercise, we just catch the main idea and ignore the words we didn’t understand. Second, I became quick reflection and quick writing during dictation so it’s helpful for development of quick-mindedness. Third, it makes me be more familiar with the sound of the words, which is important to learn L2. However, dictation has some disadvantages like ignoring the meaning of words and sentences and not practical in real situation. If using dictation in a classroom, we may consider about the main function and purpose of using it. To be more communicative in language skills, dictation is not a good way.
ReplyDeleteDictation helps you with spelling the most (or so I believe from my experience). It is useful in that it connects listening and writing very well, and it helps you understand the “grammatical” aspects of the target language and how it is when you actually see it on paper. It does have some pros, it strengthens your writing ability (how fast you can perceive something and write it yourself), and also if you understand the grammatical rules well (tenses, word order, etc.), and also if you can connect and recognize the sounds with the words (is the phrase one word, two words, connected, disjoint, etc). The cons is that this seems very technical, and it would probably not be the best thing for a beginner class that probably has trouble with reading and writing (I think you should probably focus a bit more on the speaking and listening for beginners, and then maybe when they are a bit comfortable with that, go on to more detailed focusing on reading and writing).
ReplyDeleteI think dictation has some use but shouldn't be used all the time. Dictation can help students with listening skills and gives them a chance to hear the target language, especially if the target language isn't always used in the classroom. All of my language teachers have used dictation at some point in the class. Most of the time dictation was used as part of the listening practice in homework and would also be used as the listening portion of a test.
ReplyDeletePros: Exposure to target language and practice with listening and writing skills.
Cons: Students not understanding the speaker (be it accent or pronunciation) for example: One of my German teachers was fluent in German but her "Texan" accent made it hard for me to understand her during dictation.
Stefani Goode
Dictation can be useful, but not too frequently. I think there are both pros and cons to using dictation in the classroom.
ReplyDeletePros: It can help with listening, spelling, and writing. It can help students differentiate words that sound very similar (such as "same" and "shame"). It can help students decide which word to use through context that have the same pronunciation but different spellings (such as "no" and "know"). It can also help students gain more exposure to the target language in natural speaking. What I mean is, if you're speaking in a natural and normal tone and flow, then the students will be able to practice catching every individual word when listening. It's also a great evaluation tool for the teacher. If the student can't understand anything at all when you speak, it will be very apparent when the student has nothing written on his/her paper. In my experience, some students nod along with whatever you say when in reality they may not understand you at all.
Cons: It's hard to use dictation in a "communicative" lesson. Although dictation can help with listening, spelling, and writing, if you only use dictation with random sentences then how are the students going to connect that to anything? You may have a student who can correctly write down any word that you say, but will he/she really be able to put those words together on his/her own? The main issue that I have with dictation is the seemingly randomness of it. I also think it is very difficult for students to keep up with what the teacher is saying while writing it down at the same time. They may be able to listen well, write well and spell well but if they're not a quick writer then they're going to fail at this activity. When is there going to be a time where students will have to write down what a native speaker says word for word in the real world? I think almost never. However, I do think activities of writing down key information of what one is saying (time of an event, directions, phone number, etc.) would be useful and very practical for real-world use.
Dictation can be helpful in the classroom but I think it needs to be strategically placed. I think we need to ask ourselves if it is a practical and real world exercise for the students. If it's not, then maybe the activity needs to be re-considered.
I have an affinity for "busy-work" and administrative type tasks, so for me personally I love doing dictation as a student. It seems like a very useful listening exercise, and provides something written than can be evaluated. It seems like there are many better ways to work on developing listening skills, but just like spelling tests in elementary school, it does provide a method for assessing students. I think dictation does have it's place in the classroom, but obviously some students are going to think it's boring and it isn't very communicative at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hayley - as I student I personally like dictation :) As a teacher, I see both pros and cons. I have to use it in the classes I currently teach because dictation is a part of the U.S. citizenship exam. One pro is that it can help students in the accuracy of their listening. It also helps me to sounds that students have problems with. If your students have pronunciation issues, it will affect their listening and writing (and vice versa). For example, my hispanic students will often write "United Estates" because they can't have the consonant cluster -st at the beginning of words. They always say "estates" instead of "states," so it makes sense that they would write it that way when they recognize me saying that word. Doing dictation can alert the teacher to problems students are having with English phonology. I know some of my students love dictation because it gives them great feeling of accomplishment when they do well, and it's something they can prepare for. As others have said, it's not communicative, but if it's improving their hearing and pronunciation, then it has a purpose. For students who are going to be pursuing degrees in English-speaking universities or doing business in English, the accuracy of their hearing and writing is very important.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned, dictation is not inherently communicative or interesting. It has a limited scope of use, BUT it does have its purposes. There are variations of dictation that can be very useful, such as running dictation. Students are put in teams of 3 or so. One member from each team as a piece of paper with a paragraph or individual sentences. One person is the "runner." The reader reads the sentence to the runner, who runs to the other side of the room to dictate the sentence to the writer. The first team that finishes the sentences or paragraph wins. Then they can switch roles for the next round. You could also have the students do dictation in pairs. I like to do this with minimal pairs to improve their listening and pronunciation. The student reading must say the words accurately for the other person to write them correctly, and this exercise makes them aware of when they're not saying the sounds clearly.
-Debby Adams
I’m not confident that dictation would have a place in any beginning L2 classes. I could possibly see it as an exercise in an advance L2 class where sometimes it is necessary to listen and take dictation but not in an early L2 class where understanding of the new language is the focus.
ReplyDeleteI can see how a beginning student might become discouraged trying to listen, understand and dictate. It seems like quite a bit of work for even a native speaker. I figure just trying to get all the words down someone could easily lose the meaning of the words and phrases being said.
It just seems like too much of a challenge for an early learner. Although challenge is good I wouldn’t want to discourage them.
I think that dictation definitely can be used in a communicative classroom, but we would have to be careful in our approach to it. I don't know that I would spend a lot of time on straight traditional dictation, in the sense of a teacher reading something and the students trying to write it down. I do think, though, that it could be incorporated in an extremely enjoyable way using other types of media - movies, songs, etc. I think you could build a very communicative class around the idea of listening or watching some form of carefully chosen media, having students write down exactly what they think they are hearing, doing a comprehension activity with the result, and then also comparing what the students have written to the actual transcript to evaluate accuracy. The activity Deb mentioned above would also be an example of a situation in which dictation could become meaningful - and I think you could even adapt the above so that the paragraph is a set of instructions the second (receiving) set of students must act out once the dictation exercise has been completed. I think we can incorporate dictation into our classrooms but we need to think outside the standard box a little.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always truly hated dictation because I don’t write very quickly. I may understand the material perfectly and be able to give a great summary, but ultimately fail the assignment because I left out words or misspelled them, misconjugated or any number of other things. I’ve found that can be a useful tool to help students learn to “skim” while they’re listening and not get hung up on a word or two that they may not know yet, or have a pronunciation epiphany as Caitlin mentioned, but for students like me it is very stressful. I also agree with Kathy, it may help some students understand word order better but I disagree that it can help with spelling. If I’m sitting in a dictation session, I’m trying to put the word down as quickly as possible- not spell it right. And if I ever use dictation in the classroom, it will be at an upper level and we’ll be using song lyrics and some creative thinking to discuss the meaning(s).
ReplyDeleteI have very rarely had dictation in language class but when I have, I have hated it. First of all, spelling is not my strong point in any language and I spend too much time worrying about the spelling of individual words while taking dictation and falling behind. Spelling may be a good thing for teachers to force me to work on, of course, but the keeping up with the teacher/recording as I'm trying to spell gets frustrating. The other problem is that there is not way to communicate to the teacher that I was paying attention/understanding besides writing all the words out. Leaving blanks and question marks where I can't figure out how to spell a word or where I fell behind may give the teacher the impression that I didn't understand the word even if I could have told the story back to her or paraphrased it. Similarly, a student who is very good at spelling and writing quickly will do much better on an assignment like this even if they don't understand the meaning of anything they have written.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the dictation were followed with questions about the story that the student had to write and answer to, it might be an effective communicative exercise testing a student's listening, spelling, overall comprehension and writing/ability to form sentences.
Kailey Watson
Dictation is something that probably should be used minimally in a class. Like drills, dictation can have some limited benefit, but it must not be continued for a long period of time. It may be good in helping students to listen for certain forms, in that perhaps you do not have the students write down everything exactly as you say it, but that you tell them a specific form to listen for as you tell or read a story. This could help them to recognize it. It could also allow you to talk at a more natural pace, allowing students to practice listening at a natural pace but in a manner that is less intimidating because they do not have to understand the whole message but just to catch certain forms. However, this is not the most communicative goal a teacher could have. After all, thinking communicatively, it is far more important for a student to be able to catch the main message, than to be able to pick out words or certain forms from within a message. But perhaps in order to train their ears to hear that form, so that then they will be able to have another piece to the puzzle, so to speak, so they can decode more of the messages they hear, perhaps in this case it would be useful. Still, overall, I would think dictation is limited in its usefulness in a language classroom.
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