Running dictation

"Running dictation": what a great collocation! Spotlight 2/2011 contains a language feature about the power of collocations, but of course you'll find useful word partnerships in many other Spotlight articles, too. Some, such as those in the World View and People sections, are the perfect length for a running dictation. This lively activity works on reading, writing, listening and speaking skills, gets students on their feet, working both together and competitively, and requires little preparation. Never done one before?
Read on.

Who it's for:
All levels

What it's for:
All skills, collocations

What you need:
A short text from any Spotlight magazine that your students will find interesting and which contains some good collocations.

What you do:
Before the lesson, type out or make a copy of your chosen text. If you want to add the collocations option, blank out some words which make good collocations with words in the text. Make copies of the article and number them, enough for one per group of two to four students.

Allocate each group a table and a number and pin the numbered texts up on the wall around the room.

Explain that each group needs a "scribe"; someone who will write down the text. Depending on the size of the groups, the other students will take turns to get up, go to the relevant text (i.e. the one that is the same number as their group) on the wall and read a piece of text from it. This might be a sentence, but it could also be just a few words.

This student memorizes as much of the text as he or she can and runs back to the group to dictate as much as possible to the group and the scribe as accurately as he or she can. Then the next person gets up and goes to the text. He or she may need to check some of the language from the previous dictated chunk, or may be able to move on to the next bit.

Start the activity, which continues until the first group has finished writing down the text. During the activity, encourage the students to swap roles, so that everyone gets a chance to be the writer. You can ring a bell after every minute or so, or make some other noise to indicate that the scribes should change place, for example.

If you are integrating a collocations challenge to this dictation, you can hand each group a card with the words that have been blanked out of the text in random order. Groups can refer to these as they go through the text. You could instead be the keeper of the card, so that students have to run up to you (in your place of safety in a corner of the room) and ask you (nicely) for a word. You oblige by giving them one word per student. You can do this by showing them the word, or by just saying it, in which case the students might also need to ask you how to spell it.

One way to mark the students' texts is to give the team that finishes first 100 points, the team in second place (that have got the furthest through the text) 90 points, and so on. Groups swap texts, and mark each other's work against an original version from the wall. For every mistake they can deduct a point. This means that the fastest team may lose out to a slower but more accurate group.

Another collaborative marking method is to get one group at a time to go up the board and to write a sentence, which you and the class then check for accuracy.

As a final check, get the groups to reconstruct the text from memory.

*The next Try It Out will appear on 14 March 2011.