One activity for all four skills: the dictogloss

I like to call this activity “4 in 1”. With one activity, your students will practice the four skills...all at once!

And it works with ANY level, and for ANY language you're teaching!

Grab this lesson activity (topic: my language learning experience) + a productive task as a bonus!

For those of you who might not be familiar with the term dictogloss, let’s look at what a dictogloss is not!

What isn’t a dictogloss?

The dictogloss is not your usual (I might add “boring) dictation we might have encountered back in school.

What is a dictogloss?

With the dictogloss, your students listen to a story you tell them.

Then, they get to listen to the story by writing down only the key words.

Then, they re-write a story by using only the key words they wrote down.

The key word here (no pun intended) is in “writing down only the key words”. Why? Because it’s not important for us if the students are able to re-write every single word of the story. However, what is important is if they are able to re-build a story that keeps the meaning of the story you told them.

What does it look like in practice?

Let’s look at the steps.

1. Tell the s/s (students) you are going to tell a story (1 minute or 90 seconds max). They have to just listen.

I usually record my story (using my phone), so that it is the same as for the all of the steps.

2. After you tell the story, have the s/s summarize orally what they understood.

3. Now, tell the s/s they are going to listen to the story again and they have to write down only the key words. Do an example.

Take a look at my lesson on my language learning experience.

In our example, we can ask

“What are the key words in “In 2009 I decided to take up Russian because I was doing my master’s in Germany”? Maybe:

- 2009

- Russian

- Master’s

4. Have the s/s share they key words they wrote down.

Now, you can play the audio again here and repeat this step OR you can go to the next one.

5. Ask the s/s to re-write the story.

Remind them that it doesn’t have to be with the exact same words. However, the meaning has to be the same.

6. Before showing them the text, ask the s/s “Why did we do this activity? What did we practice?”. This is the reflection that s/s need to get used to. I’m sure your students will come up with:

• Speaking

• Sharing words

• Reading each others’ words

• Working together / teamwork

• Writing and spelling

• Listening to the words and to each other.

This is what it looks like:

7. Now, show the original text and ask the s/s

“What are some of the similarities? What is different? And why?”

Keep scrolling...

8. After this, you can focus on the words or expressions of your lesson. In my case, it was about vocabulary around learning a language.

And that’s it!

Now you…

a) know what a dictogloss is

b) know what a dictogloss activity looks like in real practice

c) have a lesson you can use for your future lessons

And you will also get a productive task to wrap up this lesson.

🗨️ Over to you:

Have you ever tried the dictogloss?

How would you adapt this to your learners?

Share your ideas in the comments!

Source of the speech bubble: https://emojipedia.org/left-speech-bubble