Andrew Edwards has sent us a description of an alternative to dictée. I like it. Yes, it does move the students up and out of the conscious mind, but so does regular dictée. Pure input isn’t there, but it is a nice blend of input and output as the student tries to represent ideas and images she has formed in her mind in the form of correct writing. It is probably better for advanced classes trying to learn how to write, since writing is best put off as long as possible in a four year program, depending, of course, on what the experts are demanding from us in our buildings. Another thing Andrew suggests is to use this idea as a bail out move when a story may be bombing.
Here is Andrew’s report on Dictogloss:
Ben,
I was looking through some journal articles by Bill VanPatten for a class I’m taking and happened upon an article comparing two “task-based” approaches. One of them was called dictogloss. Have you ever heard of it and do you feel it could have a place in a comprehension based classroom. It involves output but similar to what is done during a dictation. The three steps they described were:
1. Teacher reads a text while the students just listen.
2. Teacher reads it again while the students jot down key words.
3. Teacher reads it a final time while the students jot down as much as they want.
Then the students try to reconstruct the text. After that they can compare with others and make adjustments before finally comparing against the actual text.
Would this be of any use after step 3 when students are familiar with the story but before a free-write? Or, do you think no real acquisition would be happening here? I feel like it could be a decent bail-out move even during step 2 if they are getting antsy and a story isn’t working too well, or something. Let me know what you think if you get a chance.
Andrew Edwards