# data[].attributes.body
Award 1 mark for effective communication, 2 for correct pronunciation

# data[].attributes.body
One student starts reading text aloud, if others think they have mispronounced a word, put hand up. Teacher assesses whether incorrect and passes rest of sentence to someone else. They carry on until they make a mistake, and another pupil picks up their sentence. Must be done with spirit of collaboration /acceptance of errors!! Could be done with timer to see how far they can read without mistakes

# data[].attributes.headline
Team game - two people say the phrase after you and the point goes to the best pronunciation.

# data[].attributes.subject
Team game - two people say the phrase after you and the point goes to the best pronunciation.

# data[].attributes.body
Immersive reading feature in Teams — it assesses your reading and features multiple languages

# data[].attributes.body
Pupils press dictate button on PPT ( after changing to correct language) and they can read a text into the slide. Their reading shows up on the slide. Spelling mistakes show up which shows if they are mispronouncing words and they can record again

# data[].attributes.headline
Tennis game reading - teacher reads a word, class reads the next (or in pairs). 

# data[].attributes.subject
Tennis game reading - teacher reads a word, class reads the next (or in pairs). 

# data[].attributes.body
E.g last word on each sentence... Support by providing alphabetical list of missing words

# data[].attributes.headline
Physical French Phonics is popular with our Year 7 and 8.

# data[].attributes.subject
Physical French Phonics is popular with our Year 7 and 8.

# data[].attributes.body
Running dictations !

# data[].attributes.body
List of English words. Teacher says TL, student has to note it down in TL against correct English meaning.

# data[].attributes.body
Mini white board so can rub out answer

# data[].attributes.body
On LanguageGym (requires subscription)

# data[].attributes.body
Making subtitles for a simple film with little dialogue and note the grammar points/ tricky phonemes in the language

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.slideshare.net/suzibewell/10-minute-guide-phonics-suzi-bewell-links-into-languages

Written over 10 years ago but still relevant!
@suzibewell

# data[].attributes.headline
Give them a dictation that they self-mark and then give them the same dictation the following week to hand in. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Give them a dictation that they self-mark and then give them the same dictation the following week to hand in. 

# data[].attributes.body
Sentences outside classroom. Teams 3+ with runner/scribe/checker. Alternating each round/sentence.
Can be used to check pronunciation & comprehension
Record yourself at full speed so they can double check afterwards. Boom!

# data[].attributes.headline
I love the Wendy Adeniji phonics planets resources. Ready made ppt and lesson plans. I use them from ks2! 

# data[].attributes.subject
I love the Wendy Adeniji phonics planets resources. Ready made ppt and lesson plans. I use them from ks2! 

# data[].attributes.body
@suzibewell

# data[].attributes.headline
Delayed dictation (pens down for 20 seconds and then write).

# data[].attributes.subject
Delayed dictation (pens down for 20 seconds and then write).

# data[].attributes.headline
Teachit languages will be producing dictation packs shortly…watch this space - Fr/Sp/G 

# data[].attributes.subject
Teachit languages will be producing dictation packs shortly…watch this space - Fr/Sp/G 

# data[].attributes.body
@suzibewell

# data[].attributes.headline
Netflix Latin America Street Food Transcript 

# data[].attributes.subject
Netflix Latin America Street Food Transcript 

# data[].attributes.body
A worksheet for the 'Argentina' episode of Latin America Street Food show on Netflix. Made for Year 8+

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What are transcripts and how are they different from subtitles and how can they be used? Let's start with what they have in common, discuss the differences, and see how easy it is to convert YouTube captions to text files. Creating transcripts and subtitles starts with transcription. Transcription is writing down text that captures all of the speech in a video. Both can be used to follow along with the video without relying on hearing the speech itself. And both are text files that can be updated in a text editor.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Language

Transcripts only capture the language in the video.

Subtitles can be in the same language of the video or translated into multiple languages.

Location

Transcripts are separate from the video, often appearing on the side or below a video player.

Subtitles are integrated into the video either as closed or open subtitles.

Style

Timecodes

Transcripts might contain timestamps but often have the option of toggling them on or off in the video platform.

Subtitles require timestamps to align the text correctly with the timing of the video.

Getting a subtitles download is not as intimidating as it may seem at first. It's easy to download YouTube captions or subtitles from the transcript.

To download a YouTube transcript, all that is needed is a YouTube video and the ability to copy and paste. Follow these steps to get a copy of your YouTube video transcript onto your computer:

Go to video.

Click the three dot menu below the video.

Click open transcript.

Click and drag to highlight the whole transcript.

Copy the text (Ctrl +C on Windows, Command + C on Mac).

Open a text editor and paste the text and save the file.

Make sure the correct language is selected in the subtitles menu. Timestamps can be toggled on or off for the YouTube transcript. If the transcript will eventually be used as a subtitle file, it's good to keep the timestamps on so that that information is not lost.

Transcripts can be useful in many ways. They can stand in as class notes for a missed lecture or as an easy reference for musicians searching for lyrics. Transcripts are searchable in a way that video isn't, so if there is an important term it's easy to find in the transcript by a simple find function in a text editor.

After the YouTube subtitles download is completed from copying and pasting, the transcript with timecodes can be easily converted to an SRT file in a text editor. Check out our article on creating and editing SRT files to learn more.

To prepare a file to be SRT, each subtitle entry needs to have all four of the following elements:

1. Subtitle number: each subtitle is numbered, starting at 1.

2. Timestamps: the start and end times for the subtitle to be displayed in the format hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds.

3. Subtitle text: This text will be displayed on screen in the final video with the SRT file enabled.

4. A blank line marks the end of the subtitle entry.

Example of an SRT subtitle entry:
1

00:00:00,100 -> 00:00:07,100

I'm an SRT expert now!

SRT files are supported on most video platforms and are exclusively supported on social media sites like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram where their simplicity is beneficial. SRT is also supported on Amara, where you can upload, edit, and redownload your subtitles for use elsewhere.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Amara teams give people even more options with YouTube integration. Amara teams provide a workspace where multiple people can contribute to subtitles. This can be an important step in quality assurance. Two heads are better than one, whether you are transcribing, translating, or reviewing! Because the accuracy of a transcript or a subtitle file starts with the accuracy of the transcription, which is often best served as a team effort. Amara Community is a great place to get started for small teams with public videos, but there are several Amara team options with customizable workflow features!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Download Transcripts from YouTube Videos - Amara.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What are transcripts and how are they different from subtitles and how can they be used? Let's start with what they have in common, discuss the differences, and see how easy it is to convert YouTube captions to text files. Creating transcripts and subtitles starts with transcription.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
0. Introduction
Dictations were taboo for many years in mainstream language education. However, with recent research findings indicating that decoding skills (the ability to match print to sound) are crucial to language acquisition, especially in the realms of listening and reading fluency development, they have become 'fashionable' again.

I have always been a passionate advocate of dictation and have been using it for over 30 years as a means to develop decoding and listening skills, but also to foster metalinguistic awareness, vocabulary learning and syntactic knowledge.

In this post, I set out to discuss some of my favourite dictation tasks, reserving to provide a much wider range of techniques in my forthcoming book*.
1.Delayed dictation
Delayed dictation is a great zero-prep activity. Younger learners love it, it's great fun and helps practise a key language processing skill, 'holding chunks in working memory', as well as, of course, decoding and transcription skills. This is how it unfolds:

Step 1 - Utter a sentence that the students are familiar with, or at least 95-98 % comprehensible input, and tell them to 'hold it inside their heads' for ten seconds.

Step 2- As they try to hold the sentence in their heads, count up to ten (aloud), make funny noises or utter random words in the target language to distract them .

Step 3 - Finally, ask them to write the words down on their mini whiteboards and show you.

Tip : you can follow this up with 'Sentence puzzle' (see below)

The effectiveness of delayed dictation refers to two well-known cognitive mechanisms: the Zeigarnik effect and the 'Desirable difficulty' principle.

The 'Zeigarnik effect' (Zeigarnick, 1927) posits that a task that has already been started establishes a task-specific tension, which improves retention and cognitive accessibility of the relevant contents. The tension is relieved upon completion of the task. Delayed dictation, by interrupting the task, induces a cognitive tension which may enhance retention.

'Desirable difficulties' is a concept develop by R. A. Bjork (1994). The main idea is that introducing difficulties during learning will result in superior long-term retention because the greatest gains in storage strength occur when retrieval strength is low. Delayed dictation involves a desirable difficulty, in that the learner must hold the chunk in working memory as s/he rehearse it prior to writing it down.

Here are two forms of delayed dictation one can deploy to develop students syntactic awareness whilst practicing transcribing skills.
1.1 Delayed dictation with signaled combining
Step 1 - Show the sentence to be combined with the cue in brackets. For instance:
I have a sister (who) Her name is Marie
Step 2 - Combine the sentences, e.g. I have a sister who is called Marie' and say it to the class

Step 3 - After 10 seconds, the students write the sentence out on their mini whiteboards.

Tips: this task can be an effective prelude to an explicit sentence-combining task.
1.2 Delayed dictation with open sentence combining
Step 1 - show the sentences to be combined. For instance:
I have a sister My sister is called Marie She is friendly, pleasant and helpful I argue with her from time to time she is too talkative
Step 2 - combine the sentences according to whichever pattern you intend to model or reinforce, for instance, and utter the resulting sentence, e.g.:
my sister, who is called Marie, is very friendly, pleasant and helpful but from time to time I argue with her because she is too talkative
Step 3 - after 10 seconds, the students are tasked with writing the sentence as the teacher uttered it
Mad dictation
Mad dictation is a dictation in which you alternate slow, moderate, fast and very past pace. It is very successful with students of all ages, but especially younger learners.

Preparation: select a text containing familiar sentence patterns and around 90% comprehensible input.

Step 1 - Tell the students to listen to the text as you read it at near-native speed and to note down key words

Step 2 - Tell them to pair up with another student and to compare the key words they noted down. Tell them they are going to work with that person for the remainder of the task.

Step 3 - Read the text a second time. This time read some bits slowly, some fast and some at moderate pace. The purpose of these changes of speed is to get the students to miss some of the words out.

Step 4 - The students work again with their partner in an attempt to reconstruct the text.

Step 5 - Read the text a final time, still varying the speed of delivery.

Step 5 - The students are given another chance to work with their partner.

Step 6 - They are now given 30 seconds to go around the tables and steal information from other pairs

Tip - some of the students might panic the first time you stage this activity. Hence, it is helpful to let them know how the activity will unfold.
3. Sentence puzzles with metalinguistic categories
Sentence puzzles are a great way to sensitize students to syntactic order through the aural medium. A fantastic (recapping) lesson starter or plenary task that students love. When you add the metalinguistic categories element, you also enhance their language awareness and contribute to the explicit development of their parsing skills.

Step 1 - Write on the board the short-hand / symbols of a sentence pattern you have modelled and your students are familiar with. For instance, :
Time marker + Subject + Verb + Adverb of place
Step 2 - Ask the students to copy out the above in their books / or mini whiteboard

Step 3 - Utter a jumbled-up version of a sentence which follows that pattern. Ensure the students are very familiar with every word in the sentence

Step 4 - The students now unjumble the sentences they hear placing each element under the appropriate heading. For example :
Time marker Subject Verb Adverbial of place
Hier Je suis allé au cinéma

Partial dictations with parsing grids

Partial dictations can be used to focus students explicitly on phonology, morphology and syntax by omitting from the gapped text the students must complete a key constituent of the target structure. In this sense, they can effectively promote noticing.

For instance, as far as phonology are concerned, you could gap the parts of word which refer to the target sounds and students will have to complete the words as they listen.

In the realm of morphology, instead, imagine teaching the perfect tense of French verbs ; you could gap all the auxiliaries or all the past participles. Another example pertains to word ending in highly inflected languages, which could be gapped to draw the students' attention to the gender and number of nouns/adjectives or to verb tenses and/or conjugations.

Parsing grids (see example in Fig. 1 below) can be used in combination with partial dictations, thereby focusing the students more explicitly on syntax.
5. Spot the missing word
In this task, words are omitted from the text. In this sense, it could be considered a partial dictation, the notable difference being that the students are not alerted to the presence of a gap by a blank space.

To add a metalinguistic focus, the words removed could refer to item the students usually tend to omit by mistake (e.g. the auxiliary in the formation of the perfect tense in French or Italian).

Step 1 - Remove words (containing the target sounds if your focus in phonological) from a text.

Step 2 - Read out the text

Step 3 - The students are required to write down the missing words in the correct place
6. Write it as you hear it
This task is not a dictation in the traditional sense of the word, but it is very effective in raising student awareness of GPC (grapheme-phoneme correspondence) through the transcription of oral input, by contrasting the way words sound with their spelling. For this reason, this task is most useful with less transparent languages such as English and French. This is how it unfolds:

Step 1 - Display a few sentences on the board and give the students a copy of those sentences on a sheet

Step 2 - Read them out at moderate pace enunciating them as clearly as possible

Step 3 - Ask the students, as they listen, to write, under the correct version they have their own phonetic transcription of what they heard.

Step 4 - Ask them to pair up with two other students and to come up with a phonetic transcription they all agree with
7. Syllabling
(1) many words are monosyllabic;

Step 1 - Dictate syllable by syllable. Students transcribe

Step 2 - Dictate syllable by syllable again. Students check and make changes if they feel fit

Step 4 - Students pair up with another student and compare transcriptions
8. Read, look up and say it
This task combines a technique originally devised by Jones (1960), 'Read and look up', with dictation. It is a form of dictation with a double whammy, in that both partners are actually being challenged.

Step 1 - Partner 1, who dictates, must read silently a set of sentences one by one.

Step 2 - he must then look up and repeat each sentence to Partner 2 without looking at the text as s/he speaks. Every time s/he manages to recall the full sentence s/he scores a point per word s/he remembers correctly.

Step 3 - Partner 2, on the other hand, will get a point for each word s/he transcribes correctly
9.Collocational grids 9.1 Modelling dictation
Collocational grids (see example in Fig 2) can be used to model collocations, as in the activity below:

Step 1 - Give a students a grid like the one in figure 1 below, designed to practise verb collocations, in which the first collocation partner is provided (e.g. I read , I play, I watch, I listen to)

Step 2 - Utter sentences which contain both the first and the second collocation partner too (e.g. I read a book, I play tennis, I watch a film, I listen to a song) whilst the students note them down in the appropriate row of the grid (e.g. book, poem, article, novel, will be written on the same row as 'read')

Fig 2. - A collocational grid
9.2 Retrieval practice
Collocational grids can also be used for retrieval practice. For instance, going back to the example in the picture, you could utter the noun phrases 'a book' , 'a gift', 'stamps', 'music',etc. in random order, and the students will have to write them on the correct row.
10.Concluding remarks
There is much more to dictation than meets the eyes. As the examples above clearly show, they can impact L2 development on different levels, from spelling to decoding skills, vocabulary and syntax. What is key, as I always reiterate, is to ensure the input is 98 % comprehensible, and flooded with many occurrences of the target patterns. The point in the instructional sequence they occur at is evidently also crucial.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beyond transcription: unlocking the full power of dictation - My favourite dictation tasks

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
0. Introduction Dictations were taboo for many years in mainstream language education. However, with recent research findings indicating that decoding skills (the ability to match print to sound) are crucial to language acquisition, especially in the realms of listening and reading fluency development, they have become 'fashionable' again.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When the communicative movement began to take hold, particularly in the 1980s, dictation went out of fashion to a considerable degree in UK schools. Many teachers were already rejecting it as a classroom exercise since pupils often found it too hard and the results were often poor. Furthermore, as an activity it's hard to call it "communicative" in any way. Indeed, in many teaching contexts I would not personally recommend dictation, but in an MFL secondary setting, with assessment requirements in mind and very limited teaching time available, it makes sense as part of a varied diet of input-based, interactive and communicative practice, with form emphasis on listening and speaking.

Nowadays, transcription and dictation have made a return for a few reasons. First, it's increasingly clear that a secure grasp of phonics (sound-grapheme correspondences) and sound phonological memory are important for listening skill. (When we listen we need an accurate phonological representation of words an chunks in our minds to pick them out from the stream of sound.) Transcription and dictation help develop this skill. Second, we've always known that dictation was as much about spelling and grammar as about listening - that remains the case. Dictation leads to noticing correspondences between sound, spelling and morphological form.What's always been the case is that dictation gets pupils to listen and decode very carefully, providing an opportunity to recycle and retrieve previously practised language.

What about the problem of its difficulty? Well, perhaps much of the problem arose from careless implementation of dictation in the past. This can still be the case. If it comes too early in a teaching sequence (before plenty of receptive comprehensible input), or if it includes input which is not comprehensible, or if it's too detached from the previous practice of the language - all of these factors can lead pupils to transcribe poorly and achieve no satisfaction or learning gain from the task. If those issues are addressed, and in particular if dictation is pitched at the right level after a series of other exercises (e.g. based on a sentence builder frame, comprehensible text, practise at word and chunk level), then dictation can be a fruitful task. I would also add, from a very practical point of view, it's a time in a lesson where pupils work in a very calm, focused way, possibly after more obviously interactive tasks. It's a good settling activity. Not that dictation is a passive task. Far from it. It gets the brain working very hard.

But there are ways to make it more varied and enjoyable too. (In my experience, pupils actually rather liked dictation.) In Chapter 3 of our book Breaking the Sound Barrier: Teaching Language Learners How to Listen, we suggested a range of different approaches to dictation, some of which you may not have thought of. Here is the relevant section from the book:

1. Say a sentence that students are familiar with, or containing at least 95% comprehensible input, and tell them to 'hold it inside their heads'.

2. As they do this, make funny noises or utter random L2 words to distract them for a few seconds. (Or just have silence.)

3. Finally ask them to write the sentence on their mini-whiteboards and show you their answers.

Select a text containing familiar sentence patterns or highly comprehensible input.

1. Tell students to listen to the text as you read it at near-natural speed and to note down key words.

2. Tell them to pair up with another student and compare the key words they noted. Tell them they are going to work with that person for the rest of the task.

3. Read the text a second time, reading some bits slowly, some fast and some at moderate pace. The purpose of these changes of speed is to deliberately get students to miss some of the words.

4. Students work again with their partner to reconstruct the text.

5. Read the text a final time, still varying the speed of delivery.

6. Give the students another chance to work with their partner.

7. They get 30 seconds to go around the tables and compare notes with other pairs.

1. Put the students in groups of four and name them 1, 2, 3 and 4.

2. Put up on the classroom walls, as far from where students are seated as possible, a sheet with the text for each group.

3. Students 1 and 2 take turns walking briskly to their designated sheet, memorising a sentence or more from the sheet, returning and repeating it to students 3 and 4 who transcribe what they hear. It is then the turn of students 3 and 4, etc. until the text has been written down.

4. Give students five minutes to proof-read the text.

5. Allow a minute to check anything they have doubts about by running to the designated sheet and relaying the information back to the rest of the group (students 1 and 2 first, then 3 and 4).

Tip: you may prefer to just play this game in pairs.

Students often find traditional teacher-led dictation difficult, but you can be scaffold the activity in various ways:

1. Supply the first letter of each word. This simple variation adds a further puzzle-solving element students may appreciate.

2. Supply all consonants, but no vowels, or vice versa. This resembles activities described above.

3. Provide a gapped version omitting chosen grammatical points such as articles, verbs or prepositions. This helps develop students' parsing skills when listening subsequently.

4. Provide a translation; give students a translation in L1 of the text you read. This allows them to focus on form (phonics) less than meaning, lightening the load on memory.

1. Students work with a partner (possibly back to back). Student A has a complete text, student B a version with gaps.

2. Student A reads to student B, a phrase at a time. Student B can ask for repetitions.

3. After a given time stop the activity and get the pairs to correct the dictation.

1. Students work in groups of four or five. Choose a more proficient student in each group to be the reader. Give that person a copy of a short comprehensible text, possibly with plenty of particular sound-spelling correspondences you wish to practise.

2. The reader carries out the dictation as a teacher would, reading a phrase at a time twice. The other students write their transcription.

3. After a given time display the correct transcription for all students to correct. The reader in each group can support the others, then another person can become the reader.

1. Dictate a number of personalised sentences of the type I get up at 6 o'clock.

2. Students transcribe the sentence, adding an adverb of frequency to evaluate the statement, e.g. never, occasionally, sometimes, often andalways.

3. Display the sentences and ask students how they graded the statements.

1. Dictate some sentences, each one containing a false fact. The sentences could relate to general knowledge or something recently studied in class.

2. Students transcribe and try to underline where they think the error is.

3. Display the sentences and ask students what the factual problem was in each case.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Share Get link Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Other Apps

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the communicative movement began to take hold, particularly in the 1980s, dictation went out of fashion to a considerable degree in UK ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Lingopie | Language Learning with TV & Movies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Learn a new language just by watching TV shows with subtitles - Lingopie

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn a new language just by watching TV shows with subtitles. Get instant access to hundreds of great foreign TV shows in the language you are learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LingoClip - Enjoy learning languages with music

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover a new and fun way to learn English and other languages by filling in the lyrics of your favorite songs.