Running Dictation

RUNNING DICTATION

Recently I have tried a new activity at the lesson. 

We use all kinds of dictations at the lessons, but ‘running dictation’ was unknown activity for me before.

I have tried this activity with my 6^th grade Ss. They are always ready for new ideas and are very conscious in completing tasks.

I have chosen two texts (which were connected with our topic – past habits and childhood memories, using past simple and the phrase “used to”).

I divided the group into the pairs, so there were 6 pairs of Ss. This time I let the students choose the partner themselves.

At the beginning of the task I gave the instructions. Among them was to speak only English during the activity.

I should mark that all the Ss were very excited to do it and tried to be as active as they can only be. There were two pairs with vivid difficulty, as those who were to write had not so good writing skills. The same pairs were slow in writing and have managed to write only half of the text.  I gave the Ss 10 min for the activity.

I had to remind the students to use only English during the process as they tried to leap to L1 while explaining what to write.

After 10 min I asked 2 pairs to read the texts they have written and we compared it to the originals ( the rest I had to check after the lesson  due to the lack of time) One pair had done the task almost without mistakes but with some corrections in the text. The second on had managed to write only 2/3 of the text but had no mistakes and very few corrections.

Of course we all laughed at the handwriting in most of the works as it was far from being perfect. But I think it’s OK in the time limited activity.

I would  use this activity again as both me and the Ss enjoyed it greatly and I can see the advantages in doing it. Next time I will try to do it only with the vocabulary lists and would assign the pairs (or groups) myself using different Ss  combinations (Strong/Weak)