Dictation Activities

One of the activity related that is offered by Clare Lavery is dictogloss “this is a technique where a text is read twice at normal speed and the student write down the key words or phrases, after which they reconstruct the text together in a small group”.[1] The main purpose is that the students understand and then reconvey the meaning of the passage, concentrating on the communicative aspect of the activity rather than producing a grammatically perfect text.

In the same way David Nunan explain the stage of dictogloss as follow:[2]

a.       Preparation. At this stage, teachers prepare students the text they will be hearing by asking question and discussing a stimulus picture, by discussing vocabulary, by ensuring that student know what they are supposed to do, and by ensuring that the students are in the appropriate groups.

b.      Dictation. Learners hear the dictation twice. The first time, they listen only and get the general feeling for the text. The second time they take down notes, being encouraged to listen for content words which will assist them in reconstructing the text. For reason of consistency, it is preferable that students listen to a cassette recording rather than teacher-read text

c.       Reconstructing. At the conclusion of dictation, learners pool notes and produce their version of the text. During this stage it is important that the teacher does not provide any language input.

d.      Analysis and correction. There are various ways of dealing with this stage. The small group version can be reproduced on the board or overhead projector, the text can be photocopied and distributed, or the student can compare their version with the original, sentence by sentence.

Dictogloss is not the only activity that can be applied for contemporary listening teaching, But also some dictation activities considered by David Nunan and Lindsay Miller can be an excellent activities to reinforce student’s language skill. Because, the purpose of these activities is not only improving student listening skill but also to improve other skills. these activities are: Piccaso dictation, memory dictation, group dictation race, fast speech dictation, and listening cloze dictation.[3]

a.       Piccaso dictation

Unlike usual dictation which student concern to the word or sentence, it is concern to identify the meaning. So that students express their answer by drawing picture. And the purpose of this activity is the practice of listening to description of place, special relation, and preposition of place.

Example:

Draw the picture base on the information said by your teacher

This is my room:

1)      There is one bedroom with two pillows on it

2)      There is the desk and chair beside the bedroom

3)      There is three books on the desk

4)      There is a pair of slipper under the bedroom

5)      There is the computer in the room

b.      Memory dictation

This is an activity that involves student memory. Teacher is only the facilitator while the student should memorize the text given and then dictate it to his classmates. And finally his friends will analyze the key answer. In addition, the purposes of activities is listen for information and ordering of event

Example:

Memorize these sentences one by one below and dictate it to your partner.

1)      The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.

2)      For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then, recognizing each other.

3)      They stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the same direction.

4)      "News?" asked the taller of the two.

5)      "The best," replied Severus Snape.

6)      The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high.

7)      The men's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they marched.

8)      Thought I might be late

9)      But I hope he will be satisfied

10)  They turned right, into a wide driveway that led off the lane.

c.       Group dictation race

Actually Race or game can heal the tedious. Dictation is not always boring if we can develop it with race. In the class student are divided into small group, every group have own a piece of paper to write the answer when teacher dictate the text student write on this paper. Then student compare their answer with the other group, for the right answer the group get 1 point. In the end of the race, the high score becomes the winner. This activity is very useful. Because, it encourage cooperation develops grammatical accuracy in listening comprehension and transfers this to writing skill.

            Example:

Divide the students into small group and each group write the passage read by the teacher.

Well these activities above are only a view of dictation activities. However there still many dictation teaching which can be taught to students. The explanation of the activities above have been giving description that dictation is not always old technique which is boring and teacher center only.

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[1] Clare Lavery, Language Assistant (London: The British Council, 2001) p. 90

[2] David Nunan, Language Teaching Methodology (Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International Limited:1991) p 28

[3] David Nunan and Lindsay Miller, New Ways In Teaching Listening, (Illinois: Pantagraph Printing, 1995) pp. 55

Definition of Dictation

Dictation is technique used in both language teaching and language testing in which a passage is read aloud to student or test taker, with pauses during which they must try to write down what they have heard accurately as possible.[1] Basically, this is a technique used to know how much student ability to recognize and identify the spoken language

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            In addition, John Flowderdew described dictation as a simple technique that the listener listen to an oral text and write down what they hear, the passage may be presented more than once and it need to be presented in segments, or information units, so the learner has time to process the language and write it down.[2] While according to Sonya Shafer dictation is useful to reinforce punctuation and grammar by studying a selected sentence or passage from a living book rather than just a list of words.[3]

            In its simplest form, dictation refers to a person reading some text aloud so that the listener can write down what is being said. When it is used in the language classroom, traditionally the aim has been for students to write down what is said by the teacher, word for word, later checking their own text against the original and correcting the errors made. While this certainly has its uses, there are countless variations that can make it more interesting and learner-centred.           

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[1] Jack C Richard and Richard Schmidt, Longman Dictionary Of Language Teaching And Applied Linguistics (London: Longman Group Limited, 2002) p. 157

[2] John Flowderdew and Lindsey Miller, Second Language Listening Theory And Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2005) p 200

[3] Sonya Shafer, Education Is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life (Georgia: Simply Charlotte Manson, 2007) p. 40

AN INTRODUCTION: DICTATION

Language is the basic knowledge of human being. Since human was born, parents have taught them how to use language. It starts from saying “Mom, Papa,” until some complex words that’s hard to say. Anyways, it is undeniable that language is the first knowledge which human ever got in their life. In other hand, it is the basic knowledge that can not be separated from its neighborhood around. Or in other words, neighborhood has an important role in human language acquisition. Because environment around is a human closest society, where human use a language.

Meanwhile, English is known as an international language which it is commonly used as communication media between someone with the other one from different language or country. Therefore English becomes one of major subject in every school whole over the world. While the English usage in every countries are various. P Bhaskaran Nayar divided the typologies of English user, they are:

1. English as a native language (ENL)

2. English as a second language (ESL)

3. English as a foreign language (EFL)

4. English as base language (EBL)

In Indonesia, English is used as a foreign language which it is not mainly used as wider communication. But it is also taught in every school as foreign language which officially becomes student’s requirement for their graduation. An English language has been taught since the student was at primary school; in fact some private schools teach this subject more extensively by inviting the native English teacher or used English as school daily language.

Generally there are four goals for language learning that consist of speaking, listening, reading, or writing skills. It means that every student should master four skills in language learning. It has been explained by Douglass Brown “for more than six decades now, research and practice in English language has identified the four skill - listening, speaking, reading, and writing – as a paramount importance”

From the statement above, listening still becomes one of the significant problem that mostly faced by many students. And most of English teachers do too. Jill Hadfield stated that the one of the most common problem is students have bad at listening to each other. Therefore, teacher should apply the good technique to improve student’s listening skill.

So far there are many techniques to improve listening skill. But the technique that will uncover on this paper is dictation. Anthony V Manzo said “dictation method is design to improve listening, speaking, reading, spelling, self correction, and content analysis”

Meanwhile for the students of any foreign language, dictation is useful and necessary exercise in that it can give practice in the most essential skill of linking together the spoken and written form. Its fact was supported by the research of dictation for foreign language teaching, “Dictation was confirmed to be an effective teaching method in this experiment. Subjects in all the three groups show statistically significant improvement in foreign language listening comprehension. Dictation technique offers the easiest way for students and teachers to learn. It exercises student’s listening little by little. So that why this thesis entitled “the influence of dictation through student’s listening skill”

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