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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 6; November 02
Off-the-wall Dictation
( secondary and adult )
by Valerie Fontaine and Alain Moreau, Dutch teachers, I.E.P.S.C.F. – Uccle, Belgium
E-mail: philippe.biava@busmail.net
Translated by Karine Rocher
Level: beginner to upper-intermediate
Time: one hour or more
Material: copies of 4 (or more) different texts or 4 paragraphs of the same texts or dialogues
Focus: listening/memorizing/spelling/concentration
Divide the class into as many groups as you have texts. Stick the texts on the walls or on the blackboard or out in the corridor, at an equal distance from all the groups. Each group has a different text assigned and must choose someone who is going to run to it and read it, try to memorize as many words as possible and run back to his team to dictate the text to them. When all the texts have been dictated, make new groups in which each member has just read a different text. They have to tell each other the contents of their texts and then collectively answer the teacher's questions about the texts. At the end of the activity the teacher displays all the texts so that everyone can read them and correct the dictation.
Variation: use the lyrics of a song
Acknowledgement: Mr R. Cooper taught us this “off-the-wall dictation” during a training session at the I.E.P.S.C.F.
