Shouting Dictations: Turn Reading into Communication
Two gapped versions of one text turn a reading task into a four-skills speaking activity.
Reading tasks can be tedious for students, and yet they are probably the single most important thing they’ll do to grow their English. One way of bringing a reading task to life is to turn it into a shouting dictation.
The method is simple. Take a reading text, and produce two versions of it – let’s call them Version A and Version B. Delete some parts of Version A. Delete other parts of Version B. When deciding what to delete, you might choose words or sentences, but generally you’ll want to focus on target language.
The final product looks like this:
Put students into pairs. Erect a barrier between them, so they can’t see their partner’s work. Then, give Version A to one student, and Version B to the other. Very simply, the students must them help one another to fill in the blanks. One student speaks and reads. The other listens and writes. Then, they swap.
I also supply some useful phrases to help students, such as ‘Stop!’, ‘Go back!’, ‘Can you say that again please?’ and ‘How do you spell “classroom”?’.
The whole activity turns what might otherwise be a dull reading comprehension activity into a highly communicative activity that hits all four skills at the same time.
When the students are finished, remove the barrier between them, and have them check their work against their partner’s work, correcting any errors. From there, you can re-read the whole text as a class and then move onto other comprehension activities.
Shouting dictations are a fantastic way to drive up communication in your classroom. They are flexible and adaptable, easy to differentiate, and stretch students into using all of their language skills. Try it in your class and let me know how you do!