Revista simpozionului Eficiență și calitate în educație - 19 mai 2017 Eficiență și calitate în educație | Page 28

After swapping roles and being done with the task, all my students were extremely
pleased to see their two drawings side by side, very similar indeed – a few giggles could
be heard too however, as minor differences got pointed out:
This Christmas collaborative colouring-in dictation constantly helps me check
whether my pupils can produce adequate speaking and understand a listening text. It is
invariably an interesting and agreeable way to especially boost my pupils’ learning of
Christmas vocabulary and reinforce their proficiency in using names of colours. I am
always delighted to see they all do their best, and the activity is a celebrated success.
My students use a few well-balanced listening strategies that support them in
achieving success. They think about what they will hear (predicting), listen “between the
lines” (inferring), notice what they do and do not understand (monitoring), ask questions
and give feedback (clarifying), react to what they hear (responding) and check how well
they understood (evaluating). The activity requires “close and detailed recognition and
processing of the input” (Jack C. Richards, 2008). As far as authenticity is concerned, the
task is simulated, but modelled after a real-life undertaking, while the input is genuine –
used in language learning indeed, yet created for the realm of real life.
The activity presented is one of the ways of improving listening skills through
dictation while developing pronunciation, working on fluency and accuracy, practising
vocabulary, syntax and grammar, revising areas of vocabulary, performing collaboratively
and promoting the use of English in monolingual classes. Dictation in various forms has
stood the test of time because it is easy to implement in the classroom, it requires minimal
preparation on the part of the teacher and it is usually suitable for groups of any size and
at any proficiency level (Kidd, 1992). In addition to its practicality, it can also provide a
basic, yet reliable and valid ancillary assessment of functional language skill (Savignon,
1982) when used appropriately.
Bibliography:
Kidd, R. (1992). Teaching ESL grammar through dictation. TESL Canada Journal, 10 (1),
49-61 www.teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/download/611/442 (last accessed
21 April 2017)
Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching and Learning. Boston: Heinle and Heinle
Publishers
Richards, J. C. (2008). Teaching Listening and Speaking: From Theory to Practice
http://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/teaching-listening-and-
speaking-from-theory-to-practice.pdf (last accessed 21 April 2017)
Rumelhart, D. E. and Ortony, A. (1977). The Representation of Knowledge in Memory in
R. C. Anderson, R. J. Sprio and W. E. Montagues (eds) Schooling and the Acquisition of
Knowledge. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
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