Dictations-type activities

Find the Photo  Differences Have students work in pairs. Give each pair two pictures that look similar, but include several differences. Students do not show the photos to each other.  They have to describe the picture and find both similarities and differences.  After this activity, tell the students to put the pictures side by side so that they can check whether the differences they found really exist or not. If this is too difficult for students, you can give the two pictures to both students and have them work together to find the differences. http://www.nick.com/sam-and-cat/games/ (search “spot the differnce)

Picture Dictations   Find a large magazine photo or textbook illustration that shows a specific setting (a city, park, kitchen, school, office, hospital, store etc) and several people engaged in a variety of activities. Don’t show learners the picture. Pre-teach any unfamiliar vocabulary you will use to describe the picture. Orally describe the picture, using level-appropriate sentences, and pausing between lines to allow learners to draw the picture while you describe it. Include some negative statements such as “The woman isn’t wearing a hat.” and confirm that learners don’t draw in response. Describe the picture a second time to allow learners to check their work. When finished, learners compare their pictures to the original and to each other’s pictures.  For higher level learners, pictures can be given to them and they can describe them to their partners. Sample image

Running Dictation (Messenger Dictation) Choose a short passage or dialogue and make several copies. Put the copies up around the walls of the classroom (or even the school building). Put the students in pairs or small groups. The aim is for one of the students in each pair to walk (or run!) to read the passage on the wall. They remember some of the passage and walk (or run!) back to their partner. They quietly dictate what they remembered to their partner, who writes it down. They then swap roles. Over several turns they will build the whole passage. This means they really do have to run back and forth because students will only remember three or four words at a time. The winning pair is the team that finishes first - although you need to check for mistakes. If there are mistakes, they must keep walking to check! A good idea is to teach them punctuation vocabulary beforehand if you want them to use the correct punctuation in English. It's a good way to check spelling and fabulous for pronunciation - and great memory training!

Final Reflections