ESL Activities

ESL Games, Activities, Lesson Plans, Jobs & More

  • Warm-Up
  • Listen
  • Read
  • Speak
  • Write
  • Jobs
  • Podcast

in Listening· Writing

Dictation Practice: ESL Writing and Listening Activity

Are you looking for a simple writing and listening activity that you can use for just about any level of English learner? Then dictation practice should certainly be an ESL activity that you consider. Keep on reading for all the details about how to do it with your students and get ready for some ESL teaching gold!

dictation-esl-activity

Dictation ESL writing activity

Here’s everything you need to know about ESL dictation.

Dictation ESL Writing and Listening Activity

Skills: Listening/writing
Listening Sub-Skills: Detecting transition signals, note taking, listening for detail, using context to anticipate what comes next
Time: 5-10 minutes
Level: Beginner-advanced
Materials Required: A text to dictate

Dictation can help our students with some important sub-skills, including detecting transition signals (first, second, third, etc.), note taking, and listening for details. It also helps students practice a range of other things, from printing English letters to punctuation, spelling, proof-reading and lay-out.

Dictation can also offer a serious dose of syntax, vocabulary and grammar! In short, it’s an extremely versatile activity. It’s also a nice break from the very communicative activities that dominate most of our textbooks and classes today.

I love to use it for frequency adverbs. I dictate either a question or answer and when students have finished writing them down, they have to write the question if an answer and vice-versa.

The way it works is that you find a writing passage that you’ll read to your students. Or, you could even make up your own on the fly for a truly no-prep activity. In an emergency situation, just grab something off the shelf in the teacher’s office or from your desk and it should work in most cases.

Consider the Textbook or Breaking News English for ESL Dictation Passages

However, if you have a wee bit more time, some good sources for writing passages are the textbook you’re using for the class, a website like Breaking News English, or just about anything for that matter! You may even want to write it yourself. The key is finding something at a similar level to your students, or just slightly below.

Read out the passage to your students who write down what they hear. You may have to read it again, depending on the level of your students.

I generally give students a minute or two at the end for proofreading and instruct them to check things like spelling and punctuation. Check answers and correct any errors with spelling, punctuation, etc. Or, you can write the passage on the board or online and students can check their own answers.

ESL Writing Activities, Games & Teaching Tips: Practical English Writing Ideas for the Classroom...
11 Reviews
ESL Writing Activities, Games & Teaching Tips: Practical English Writing Ideas for the Classroom...
  • Amazon Kindle Edition
  • Bolen, Jackie (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 96 Pages - 12/08/2019 (Publication Date)
Check Price on Amazon

Teaching Tip for Lower-Level Students ESL Dictation

If you’re teaching beginner level students, it may be a good idea to type out your dictation with single-word fill in the blanks in each sentence. You may even put two possible answers in parentheses after each blank. For example, “Jackie goes to __________ (the beach, the beats).”

If you’re feeling really motivated, and have the time and energy, you can also try making a dictation worksheet with words that only have prefixes and suffixes. Then students must listen and complete the words. This is great for teaching spelling and you can help students learn how to listen/read parts of speech and their particular beginnings and endings.

Explain that if you know how different parts of speech are spelled, for example verbs often end with -ing, then you can more easily write down what you’re listening to. On tests, you can guess the meaning of a word more effectively if you know what part of speech it might belong to.

Teaching Tip for Higher-Level Students

For intermediate and advanced students, it’s important to help them learn skills like anticipating what comes next in the dictation. Teach and review briefly things like collocations (high frequency groupings of words) that students can use to reduce stress and anxiety when listening. Give an example like, “How are _____ _____? (you today). Tell students to think about the context of the listening dictation. Context + collocations can often help them fill in words they might have missed writing down.

Teaching Tip for Teaching Listening Strategies

Also, often the easiest and fastest way to find listening strategies to teach students is to break down into micro-skills and strategies what you would do if you were a student in your own class. If you really want to challenge students, paraphrasing or summarizing the dictation passage are incredibly useful skills. These skills are often weak or unpracticed for many of our students.

Ask students to write, for example, a summary of the dictation passage in one sentence that has the main idea and maybe a few key details. Be sure that you have a summary sentence of your own to show students as an ideal example if you do this.

Procedure for Dictation Writing Activity:

  1. Choose a passage that you’ll read to your students.
  2. Read the passage and students have to write down what they hear.
  3. Give students some time for proofreading and then optionally, they can compare with a partner.
  4. If you have a digital copy of the dictation text on your computer, copy/paste it into a PPT slide. Put this up on the screen after the dictation for students to check their work.
  5. If you suspect that some/many students aren’t bothering to check and correct their errors, tell them you’re going to collect their papers and for every 3 uncorrected errors you find, they will lose a point from their participation grade at the end of the course. Or something along those lines. Most students will suddenly be extremely focused on checking their work for accuracy and fixing any errors they have made

Did you like this Dictation ESL Activity

ESL Listening Activities for Teenagers and Adults: Practical Ideas for English Listening for the...
8 Reviews
ESL Listening Activities for Teenagers and Adults: Practical Ideas for English Listening for the...
  • Amazon Kindle Edition
  • Bolen, Jackie (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 85 Pages - 02/02/2020 (Publication Date)
Check Price on Amazon

Yes? Thought so. Then you’re going to love this book over on Amazon: ESL Listening Activities for Teenagers and Adults. The key to better English classes is a wide variety of student-centred, engaging and interesting TEFL activities and games and this book will help you with just that thing!

There are enough top-quality ESL games and activities to get through an entire semester of listening classes in style. Check out the book for yourself on Amazon but only if you want to get yourself a serious dose of some ESL teaching awesome in your life. Are you ready for it? Head over there now:

shop-now-amazon

Have your say about ESL Dictation, a Listening and Writing Activity

What are your thoughts about dictation? Is it a winner or do you have another writing or listening ESL activity that you’d like to recommend to us. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Also be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. It’ll help other busy English teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.

dictation-practice

Dictation practice ESL activity

Last update on 2022-07-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

About Jackie

Jackie Bolen has been teaching English for more than 15 years to students in South Korea and Canada. She's taught all ages, levels and kinds of TEFL classes. She holds an MA degree, along with the Celta and Delta English teaching certifications.

Jackie is the author of more than 60 books for English teachers and English learners, including Business English Vocabulary Builder and 39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities for Teenagers and Adults. She loves to share her ESL games, activities, teaching tips, and more with other teachers throughout the world.

You can find her on social media at:
YouTube
Facebook
Pinterest
TikTok
LinkedIn
Instagram

« A to Z Game: A Quick ESL Warm-Up Activity | ESL Vocabulary Game
Conversation Questions for ESL: 67 Topics x 15 Questions »
Great Debates for ESL/EFL: 39 Important Debating Topics for English Learners (Teaching ESL Speaking...
Great Debates for ESL/EFL: 39 Important Debating Topics for English Learners (Teaching ESL Speaking...
Check Price on Amazon
103 Fun ESL Games & Activities for the Classroom : Interactive, Minimal Prep TEFL Ideas for All Ages
103 Fun ESL Games & Activities for the Classroom : Interactive, Minimal Prep TEFL Ideas for All Ages
Check Price on Amazon
67 ESL Conversation Topics with Questions, Vocabulary, Writing Prompts & More: For English Teachers...
67 ESL Conversation Topics with Questions, Vocabulary, Writing Prompts & More: For English Teachers...
Check Price on Amazon
Sale 1001 English Expressions and Phrases: Common Sentences and Dialogues Used by Native English Speakers...
1001 English Expressions and Phrases: Common Sentences and Dialogues Used by Native English Speakers...
Check Price on Amazon

Search this site

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. What does this mean? I recommend products (only ones that I like) and if you purchase a product through that link, I earn some money.

Sale 39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults
39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults
Check Price on Amazon
Sale 39 Task-Based Language Teaching and Learning Activities: A Very Practical Guide to Using TBL in the...
39 Task-Based Language Teaching and Learning Activities: A Very Practical Guide to Using TBL in the...
Check Price on Amazon
line up game questions

Line Up Game for ESL/EFL Classes | Line Up Game Questions

daily-routines-esl

Daily Routines ESL Activities, Games, Lesson Plans & Worksheets

esl-kindergarten-games-activities

ESL Activities for Kindergarten: Fun ESL Kindergarten Activities

best-games-to-play-in-class

Fun Classroom Games: Best Class Games to Play with Students

last day of school games

Last Day of School Ideas for Games, Activities & More

Sale 101 ESL Activities: For Teenagers and Adults
101 ESL Activities: For Teenagers and Adults
Check Price on Amazon
  • About + Contact
  • Privacy Policy

Top Selling ESL Activity Book

39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults (Teaching ESL Conversation and...
39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults (Teaching ESL Conversation and...
Check Price on Amazon

Search

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

More ESL Activities and Games

imperative-esl

Imperatives ESL Activities, Worksheets, Lesson Plans & More

teach months of the year

Teaching Months of the Year ESL (Games, Activities, Lesson Plans)

esl-holiday-travel

Travel & Holidays ESL Games, Worksheets | ESL Travel Activities

requesting-games-esl

Requesting Games & Asking for Help Activities for ESL

About, Contact, Privacy Policy

Best-selling author and English teacher Jackie Bolen has been talking ESL activities and games since 2015. The goal is to bring you the best ideas, lesson plans, and activity recommendations for your TEFL classes.

Get in touch: About + Contact

Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Email: [email protected]

Pinterest

Facebook

TikTok

YouTube

LinkedIn

Address: 2436 Kelly Ave, Port Coquitlam, Canada

Copyright © 2023 Jackie Bolen + ESL Activities. All rights reserved.