Grammar Dictation: The Dictogloss Procedure as a Means to Explore and Shift Learners' Hypotheses about Language

Writer(s): 
Ruth Wajnryb

 

Although Dr. Wajnryb was unable to send a summary of her Featured Speaker Workshop, she informed TLT that much of the content would be drawn from a previously published article entitled "The Dictogloss Method of Language Teaching: A Text-Based, Communicative Approach to Grammar" which appeared in the July 1988 issue of English Teaching Forum.

A brief quote and summary from that article will perhaps serve as a good overview of the presentation.

The dictogloss is a teaching procedure that involves the speedy dictation of a short text to a group of language students. The students take notes during the reading of the text and then, working in small groups, proceed to piece together the text as a cooperative endeavor. This is achieved by the pooling of the group's notes and the making of grammatical decisions about the text: specifically about word choice, sentence formation, and cross-sentence connections. Finally, after each group has produced its own version of the text, the whole class reconvenes and the groups' versions are analyzed and corrected.

Let us summarize what happens in the dictogloss method:

  • a short, dense text is read (twice) to the learners at normal speed;
  • as it is being read, the learners jot down familiar words and phrases;
  • working in small groups, the learners pool their "battered texts" and strive to reconstruct a version of the text from their shared resources;
  • each group of students produces their own reconstructed version, aiming at grammatical accuracy and textual cohesion but not at replicating the original text;
  • the various versions are analyzed and compared and learners refine their own texts in the light of the shared scrutiny and discussion. (p. 35)

The article then discusses what kinds of text to use (text of between five to sentences in length which are cohesive across the sentences), how the teacher should dictate the text (as naturally and at as normal a speed as possible), how the students should work together in groups to reconstruct the text, and the procedure for whole-class analysis and correction following the groupwork.

Finally, a discussion of the issues surrounding the use of the dictogloss approach are presented, such as whether it is teaching or testing, support for use of the approach, its aims, objectives, and benefits, and specific procedures for choosing and presenting the texts, and five reasons for the author's succeses using the dictogloss procedure in her own classrooms (it provides for the practice of language and an opportunity to evaluate performance; it is motivating; it offers experiential learning and is text based, challenging, and stimulating; it is communicative; and students are exposed to the text concept, a move away from the sentence-as-unit philosophy towards a use of whole chunks of language which is highly beneficial to the learner's language awareness).

Summary /Paraphrase by Steve McGuire

References

Wajnryb, R. (1988). The Dictogloss method of language teaching: A text-based, communicative approach to grammar. English Teaching Forum.

Ruth Wajnryb's workshop is sponsored by The Australian International Education Foundation.