Dictation activities on TextActivities

Many of the activities available on TextActivities.com -- both text rebuild and vocab / matching -- can be seen as scaffolded dictation activities, i.e. which require students to listen to some language in the L2 (the target language) and also interact in some way with that same bit of language in its written form.

This blog takes a look at how this works and which modes to choose if your aim is to practise dictation-like activities.

Let's start by looking at...

VOCAB / MATCHING

Those familiar with TextActivities resources containing matching items will know that the "Vocab / Matching" activity menu includes up to 6 modes, as shown in this image of the activity menu:

"L2 audio >> L2 text" = Dictation

The option selected in the above image is "L2 audio >> L2 text", which is the mode which best represents dictation-like activities, with various levels of scaffolding.

With this option selected, you will find that all of the Vocab / Matching activity menu sections are available, as are all of the activities contained within each section.

Let's have a look at some examples of scaffolded dictation-like activities from the Vocab / Matching activity menu.

Snap!

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Students listen and decide whether or not the written version of the phrase matches what they hear.

Multi-match

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Available in various versions, with varying numbers of options to choose from. Students listen and choose the written version which matches with what they hear.

Million match


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As above, but students must correctly match 15 in a row to win a million :)

Match pairs

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Available in various versions (with varying numbers of matches to find). Students click to listen to a phrase, then click the correct written version of the spoken form that they heard. They continue until all matches in the grid have been completed.

Memory pairs

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Available in various versions (with varying numbers of matches to find), and as a one-player or two-player game. Students click to turn over the squares and find the correct matches.

Match - Football

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Choose between a timed game or a "first to..." game. Also 1-player or 2-player.

For each tackle / shot, students listen to a spoken phrase and select the written form which matches with the phrase that they heard. They have a set amount of time to answer each question. The timer starts after the audio has played.

Match - 3 in a row

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Available as a 2-player game or as a 1-player game (against the computer). Students choose circles in the grid to answer a question and turn it their colour. They score a point for every set of 3 circles in a row (vertically, horizontally or diagonally).

For each play, students listen to a spoken phrase and select the written form which matches with the phrase that they heard. They have a set amount of time to answer each question. The timer starts after the audio has played.

Match jumble

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For each of the matching items, students listen to the audio and then put the words into the correct order. The default version tells them immediately if the word they click is correct, while the SUBMIT version requires students to build their response and then submit it before receiving feedback.

Match Space

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For each of the matching items, students listen to the audio and click to separate the words in the text. For the default version, students receive immediate feedback on each click, while for the SUBMIT version, they must build their entire response and then submit it to receive feedback.

Match - Anagrams

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Students listen to the L2 and put the letters of each word into the correct order so that the written form matches with what they heard.

Match - Missing letters

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Available as 5 separate activities:

  1. No vowels
  2. No consonants
  3. 50:50 (half of letters removed)
  4. Initials (shown in image above)
  5. Word shapes

The last of these is the one that gets closest to true dictation in the default mode (but see the "No clues" activity below!). It is similar to the "Match - Initials" image shown, except that no initial letter is provided for each word.

Match - No clues (NEW! in SUBMIT mode only)

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The "No clues" activity is the closest the platform offers to "proper" dictation. It presents students with an empty text box and they have to type in their full response before submitting their answer for feedback. They have a letter count to help them with the length of their answer. They also have accented character buttons to help them to insert accents. Once they are happy with their answer, they click on "Submit". If there are any errors in their answer, they are guided to correct it. If they are unable to get the correct answer after a few tries, they'll be given the answer and asked to copy it out in order to proceed to the next section.

Match - Invaders

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Students listen to the L2 phrase and click on the letters in the correct order to complete the written version of the phrase that they heard. They start with 3 lives and play until they have no lives left.

Match - Snake

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Students listen to the L2 phrase and try to find the missing letters hidden in snake form in the grid. They drag to create the snake shape and fill in the letters missing from the written form of the phrase. The game lasts 3 minutes.

Maze

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Students listen to the L2 phrase and steer araound the maze zapping the letters that are missing from the written form of the phrase that they heard, whilst avoiding the monsters, and before the time runs out. The game continues until all 3 lives are lost.

Now let's take a look at how TextActivities.com makes it possible to do all sorts of scaffolded dictation activities with a text...

TEXT REBUILD

As long as you have enabled TTS (text-to-speech) for the text part of your resource, you should see an "Include TTS audio" option at the top of the "Text Rebuild" activity menu.

"Include TTS audio" = Dictation

Make sure that this is selected (as in the image above) to enable dictation activities.

With "Include TTS audio" selected, you will find that some of the more "gamey" activites are no longer available for Text Rebuild (usually because having an audio prompt doesn't make sense for that particular activity), but let's look at the many text rebuild activities that are available...

Multi-choice

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Available as several versions with varying numbers of options to choose from. Students listen to the audio and click the sections of text in the correct order to rebuild the whole text.

Jigsaw rebuild

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Again this activity is available in various versions (with 6, 8, 12, 18 or 24 tiles). Students listen to the TTS audio and rebuild the text by clicking the blocks of text in the correct order. For the default version, students receive immediate feedback on each click, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to build their entire answer, putting all blocks in place, before hitting "Submit". If there are any errors in their submitted answer, they can remove incorrect blocks, re-order blocks etc, until they get the whole text in the correct order.

Million

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Students listen to the TTS audio and rebuild the text by selecting each time form the 4 options available. They need to answer all 15 questions in a row correctly to win a million :)

1, 2 or 3 words at a time

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Available as "Word by word", "2 by 2 words" and "3 by 3 words", this activity requires students to listen to the TTS audio and rebuild the original text by clicking on the next word(s) which match what they hear. They continue until they have rebuilt the entire text.

Gap-fill (random & user-defined)

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Available as random and user-defined. (User-defined is only available if you have defined gaps for your resource via the edit page). Students listen and select the correct word from those available to fill in the next gap. For the default version, they receive immediate feedback for each word entered, while for the SUBMIT version, they must enter all of the words before they can submit their answer and receive feedback. (They can then remove any incorrect words and keep trying until they get it all correct.)

Space (separate the words / break the flow) *

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Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they click between the words to separate them. You can choose what proportion of each section is affected (image above shows "All spaces" selected). For the default version, students receive immediate feedback after each click, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to enter the spaces for the current section before they are able to submit their answer. (They can then remove any incorrect gaps and keep trying until they get it all correct.)

Jumbled words *

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Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they click on the words in the correct order to rebuild each section of text. For the default version, students receive immediate feedback after each click, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to build their entire answer for each section before hitting the Submit button and receiving feedback on the current section. (They can then remove incorrect words and re-order words until they get it all correct.)

Anagrams *

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Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they click the letters of each word in the correct order to rebuild it. You can choose what proportion of each section is affected (image above shows "1/2 text" selected)

No vowels * / No consonants * / 50:50 *

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The "fill in the letters" activities are available in various versions. (I'm grouping 3 together here to save a bit of space.)

Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they type the missing letters in the correct order to rebuild each section. You can choose what proportion of each section is affected (image above shows "Whole text" selected, "No vowels" activity).

For the default versions, students receive immediate feedback after each letter, while for the SUBMIT versions, they have to fill in all of the letters for the current section before submitting their answer and receiving feedback. (They must then remove incorrect letters and keep trying until they get it all correct.)

Initials *

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Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they type the missing letters in the correct order to rebuild each section. You can choose what proportion of each section is affected (image above shows "3/4 text" selected).

For the default version, students receive immediate feedback after each letter, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to fill in all of the letters for the current section before submitting their answer and receiving feedback. (They must then remove incorrect letters and keep trying until they get it all correct.)

Word shapes *

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Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they type the missing letters in the correct order to rebuild each section. You can choose what proportion of each section is affected (image above shows "1/2 text" selected)

For the default version, students receive immediate feedback after each letter, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to fill in all of the letters for the current section before submitting their answer and receiving feedback. (They must then remove incorrect letters and keep trying until they get it all correct.)

This activity is the one that most approaches true dictation (in default mode -- but see "No clues" below!), especially if you use it based on the whole text.

No clues * (NEW! in SUBMIT mode only)

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The "No clues" activity is the closest the platform offers to "proper" dictation. It presents students with an empty text box and they have to type in their full response before submitting their answer for feedback. They have a letter count to help them with the length of their answer. They also have accented character buttons to help them to insert accents.

Students listen to the whole text, presented one section at a time, and they have to type in the full text for each section. Once they are happy with their answer, they click on "Submit". If there are any errors in their answer, they are guided to correct it. If they are unable to get the correct answer after a few tries, they'll be given the answer and asked to copy it out in order to proceed to the next section.

* Activity interchangeability :)

When accessed via the resource or competition page, all of the above activities marked with an * (on this page) can be switched on a per-section basis. So you can switch to a more or less challenging activity mid-text when working front of class :)

PROVIDING L1 SUPPORT?

All of the above activities -- both "Vocab / Matching" and "Text Rebuild" could also be done with additional L1 support.

Why would that be a good thing?

Well, dictation alone is all well and good, but you can end up with activities where students attempt to find or type bits of L2 text based on the sound alone, without actually understanding what they are clicking or typing.

Adding L1 text support does a couple of things:

  1. It lets the student know what the text means that they are trying to write or rebuild
  2. As a result of 1, it takes some of the onus away from aural input processing, and it allows students to combine listening skills with translation into the L2. This brings a lot of additional skills and knowledge into play.

So although adding L1 support may water down to some extent the pure dictation nature of the tasks, it will allow the student to use many more skills along with listening, AND crucially, it means that they are working on text that they can understand the meaning of.

I am not going to post an example of all of the above activity images with L1 support, as I think I've gone on for long enough already. BUT I'll post a couple of examples below:

Match activities with L1 support

"L2 audio + L1 text >> L2 text" = Dictation / Translation combined

Select the match activity menu option "L2 audio + L1 text >> L2 text" (see above image) for match activities which combine elemnts of dictation and translation.

In the example below, students hear the phrase that they need to type, but they also see the English meaning. They use a combination of skills to complete the written version of the L2 phrase.

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The example below is similar, but it uses the "No clues" activity from the SUBMIT sub-menu instead. Again the student listens to the audio prompt, but they also have access to the L1 meaning, and they use a combination of skills to complete their answer.

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Parallel L2 text = Find the [French]

The image below shows the same activitiy as the first one above, BUT with the L2 text for the resource also visible, so that students can find the French that they are looking for spelled out in the text itself.

(To have this option available, your resource must have a text in the TL, and you have to have selected the main L2 text as the parallel text for vocab / matching activities).

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And the image below shows the same "No clues" activity as the 2nd one in the previous section, but this time with a parallel L2 text, so that students can find the French that they need in the text, which will help them to type out the correct answer.

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Text Rebuild with L1 support

If your resource has a parallel L1 text, making this available for dictation activities produces this sort of thing:

Jumble + TTS + Parallel L1 text

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Students rebuild the text section by section, listening to the TTS audio, and with reference to the meaning provided by the L1 parallel text.

For the default version, students receive immediate feedback after each click, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to build their answer for each section before submitting (and then correcting any errors).

Word shapes + TTS + Parallel L1 text

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Students rebuild the text section by section, listening to the TTS audio, and with reference to the meaning provided by the L1 parallel text.

For the default version, students receive immediate feedback after each letter entered, while for the SUBMIT version, they have to build their answer for each section before submitting (and then correcting any errors).

No clues + TTS + Parallel L1 text

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The ultimate dictation-translation combination! Students rebuild the text section by section, listening to the TTS audio, and with reference to the meaning provided by the L1 parallel text. For this version, they have no word shape clues or letter clues, just the word count. They have to build their answer for each section before submitting (and then correcting any errors).

Hope you find this user guide useful :)