Dictogloss ESL Listening Game

Are you looking for an ESL activity that hits almost all the skills at the same time? Sure, what English teacher doesn’t want that, right? Then you’ll want to keep on reading to learn more about Dictogloss. It’s the ultimate ESL activity. Let’s get into all the details you need to know about dicto gloss.

What is Dictogloss?

Dictogloss is a challenging classroom dictation game that requires learners to reconstruct a text by listening, taking note of key words and then trying to replicate the text, in a group either by speaking or writing. It covers multiple skills in a single activity which is why it can be quite useful to do with students.

Dictogloss 4-Skills ESL Activity Introduction

Skills: Listening, Speaking and/or Writing, listening
Materials Required: A short story, pen and paper for students

Dictogloss is a challenging ESL listening and speaking activity for advanced level students that helps them practice substituting vocabulary words if the original word is no longer accessible to them. It’s also possible to do this activity for lower-level students, but you’ll need to choose something very simple and it becomes more of a memorization activity that anything else.

You have to find a short, but interesting story or make up one yourself. You can use things ranging from children’s stories to a story about something you did last night. There are often short stories in textbooks that work well too and if you use this, it can be a nice warm-up or review of the material you’re going to cover or have covered.

I find that it works particularly well for introducing or reviewing prepositions of place or you could include several examples of something like prefixes or reflexive pronouns to use by way of review.

Trust me, your students will like this one.

Procedure for Dicto Gloss:

1. Prepare a short story. The length of the story depends on the level of the students.

2. Put students in groups of two or three and read the story to them, slowly, emphasizing the key words and the main points. How much emphasis depends on the level of the students.

3. Students remember the details of the story and compare it with their group. I usually only allow them to do this by speaking, but you could also let them take some notes as they listen.

4. Read the story again and have students attempt to recreate the story adding more details, again by speaking. They could also take some notes, but again, this is optional.

5. Read the story again (depending on level and difficulty of the story) and the students again attempt to recreate it. This time, it should come very close to the original version.

6. Finding by eliciting a couple of teams to tell their re-creation to the class (in a small class). Or, put two teams together and they can tell their stories to each other (in a larger class). You could make this activity into a writing one at this point by having students write out their final version.

7. Read the story one final time for students to compare with what they have.

Did you Like this ESL Dictoglos Activity?

If you like Dictogloss, then you’re going to LOVE this book: 101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults. There are dozens of top-quality ESL/EFL games and activities that’ll keep your student entertained and happy while learning English at the same time.

It’s lesson planning made easy, guaranteed.

The book is well-organized into various sections: reading, writing, speaking, listening, 4-skills, vocabulary and warm-ups/icebreakers. Whether you want a quick filler, or a more detailed speaking activity to round out a unit, you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for quickly and easily.

101 ESL Activities: For Teenagers and Adults is available on Amazon in both print and digital formats. The (cheaper!) digital copy can be easily read on any device by downloading the free Kindle reading app. It’s easier than ever to have your go-to lesson planning resource at your fingertips anywhere that you plan your lessons.

You can check out the book for yourself over on Amazon, but only if you want some ESL awesome in your life.

—>101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults<—

Learn more about Student-Centered Language Teaching

Dictogloss is one of my favourite student-centred ESL activities. It’s so great because the students are doing all the work, not you! You can learn more about this style of teaching English abroad here:

What do you think about Dicto Gloss? 

Have you tried out this ESL listening activity with your students? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts. 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 students, like yourself find this useful teaching resource.

Last update on 2021-01-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API