Interactive Dictations

Interactive Dictations is a low-intermediate to intermediate level text that is intended to improve the listening, speaking, and writing skills of ESL students. Each dictation is preceded by an introduction and vocabulary/pronunciation work and is followed by discussion topics. Pair and small-group work is encouraged. Following the discussions, there are an optional writing topic and a variety of other activities, including idiom/vocabulary work, role plays, and many cooperative learning activities. Reading skills are also reinforced, along with attention to vocabulary and grammar. This text provides a wide variety of dictations that include provocative news items, problems to solve, and decisions to make. - There are four different types of dictation: - Partial (Cloze): Students listen and fill in the blanks in the activity. - Pair: Students work in pairs with different gaps in their passages. - Dictogloss: Students hear a sentence once and have to write the gist of that sentence. - Prediction: Students predict what should be in the sentence blank and then check to see if their prediction was correct.