Good old dictation revisited. How to make the most out of it!

Dictation has been a feature of language classrooms for hundreds of years. However, for many teachers these days, the word 'dictation' is synonymous with 'old-fashioned', 'boring', and 'teacher-centred'. But, is it really as outdated and uncommunicative as it first appears?

Dictation has numerous uses in the ELT classroom, often involving very little preparation and a lot of creativity and interest. Used imaginatively, it can be an effective tool for working on accuracy and fluency in all four skills.

In this workshop, we will discuss what dictation can be, why do it, how this can be student-centred and at the same time provide some practical ideas for activities, focusing particularly in the use of Dictogloss as a collaborative listening and writing task that promotes oral interaction, communicative competence, and written output through the exploration and understanding of both content and structure of text and its language features.