Dictée – 3 Questions

4 thoughts on “Dictée – 3 Questions”

1. Alisa Sapiro-Rosenberg

   February 6, 2018 at 4:43 pm

   To bring this point home and keep it developmentally appropriate, I do dictees starting in the second half of fourth grade but only on lined dry erase boards. This brings the affective filter way down in my high-performing wigged our parents district…

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2. Loly Mireles

   October 14, 2018 at 6:18 pm

   I will be trying Dictée for the first time this week. I am looking forward to this and I hope it will help my level 3Bs learn how to speak/write in the simple past.
   Should I be looking out for anything? Is there anything I should know beforehand?
   Any advice?

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3. Ben Slavic

   October 14, 2018 at 8:12 pm

   Yes Loly the first thing to know is that dictation is something I introduced to the TPRS community in about 2001-2002 with no intention that it be used to “teach” anything. It’s output, after all, and output too early has very little value in a CI class.
   It’s just that back then TPRS stories were so hard for me that every now and then I personally needed to just stop all the input and do something I had learned in France when I was in college, dictee. So the first thing to know Loly is that dictee has next to no pedagogical value, but is only used to take a break from all the input. It is because when kids have a pencil in their hands, they think that they are learning.
   In my opinion, we can’t really teach the languages in parts like grammatical concepts like the past forms, etc. anyway. We can talk about them, intellectualize them, but doing that is like when it rains on soil that is so packed that it just runs off and does not bring any moisture to the parched flat earth. This statement is in accordance with the research. If we don’t teach in a way (via comprehensible input vs. intellectual parsing and analysis – right/whole vs. left brain instruction) then the language (water) can’t soak into the deeper mind of the students and so it just runs off and ends up being a waste of instructional minutes.
   Only slow deep soaking of the language/water into the soil works.
   So by you consciously speaking to the kids in the past tense forms, without regard to focusing on any one form, they can then hear and absorb and experience unconsciously via the story, one word image, etc. the difference (between the perfect and imperfect forms, for example) and when they sleep at night after lots of CI that day, the language is thus absorbed deeply – during the magic of sleep – and is then acquired and not merely learned (Krashen).
   But you are right that if you want them to learn (vs. acquire) the forms, then dictee is a great way to get that done, and a great way to take a break from the input game.

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4. Ben Slavic

   October 14, 2018 at 8:15 pm

   One other point Loly is that the specifics of exactly how to do a dictee are somewhere here, or in one of the books. Maybe look in the dictee category in these pages.
   The instructions can be complex (like the Word Chunk Team Game) but are worth it bc they do the most important thing that there is in language instruction, they guard our mental health by eating up instructional minutes. Remember that flooding the students with input is great but that most CI teachers do that at the expense of their mental health, and that is not the focus of this group.
   I will post something on dictee from my ANATS book as a separate post tonight so look for it as well.

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