Liliana Borbolla, Mexico

These notes on dictation come from a talk presented by Edna Equihua, 22 August , 2003.

• The senses
  
  The students take dictation and express feelings about the words.
  The teacher dictates words and they sort them out according to the sense(s) that the word awakens in their feelings. For example,

I SEE: church, computer ,cloud, rainbow, rabbit

I HEAR: yesterday, typewriter, radio, rain, music

I TASTE: pie, rabbit

I SMELL: pie, rabbit

I FEEL: typewriter, rabbit, rain, music

When they finish, they can sit in pairs and compare their tables and discuss their feelings about the words, why did they put them in the columns?

• Think about meaning

Quantifying sentences

Teacher dictates sentences using adjectives.
Students have to add a quantifier to the adjective used.
For example,

SENTENCE DICTATED .....................................QUANTIFIERS ADDED
He gets home late in the evening ................... at 7 pm
They live in a large flat ....................................... 100 square metres
It saves time ........................................................ many hours
She's overweight ................................................ 20 kilos
He spends a lot of time in the bathroom........ 1 hour a day
It's efficient............................................................ very
She gets up fairly early at the weekend ......... at 7 a.m.
It's noisy ............................................................... 100 decibels
It often breaks down .......................................... every week

• Fill the gap

Dictate, leaving blanks by saying "mmmmm". They have to fill the gaps.

For example, HIM or HER. The students complete the sentence with an appropriate pronoun (with "him, her, she or he").

1. _______is a good goal keeper.
2. ________was 80 and lived alone, but ________lives happily knitting all day long.
3. They made __________study medicine.
4. ______went to visit________in prison.
5. Her parents gave her a present but ____ didn't like it.

ALTERNATIVE: Dictate a story asking them to fill in the blanks with verbs

• Associations

Set the groups in pairs,student 1 and student 2
Dictate 2 words that are similar, student 1 writes word 1 and student 2 word 2
They add 3 words related to the word.

EXAMPLE:

PERSON 1 ................ PERSON 2................. ADDED WORDS
wood .......................... dark ............................. trees, chair
would.......................... may.............................. modal, might
dear ............................ wife ............................. sir, sweetheart
deer............................. brown ......................... Bambi, fast
bee ............................. buzz.............................. honey, sting

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