Wow! I've just restarted following Nick's blogs, and as usual, I've got to know one more tool to apply to education. This time, listen and write. How about listening to this telephone call and writing down the whole message, part of the message or just a few words? There are three choices.
Let's give it a try by clicking
here.
I maintained for many years that dictations were not a good idea, mainly if applied to teaching Business English. I wonder how many times, in a real work situation, people dictated something to others. However, I do believe this tool makes my views change completely.
Supporters of dictations say that dictations are useful and that they are part of real like. Of course, they are. I usually dictate a supermarket list to my son while he is at the PC either working, chatting or aimlessly looking for an interesting site and I do it because I am myself doing something somewhere else far from the reach of a pen and paper. And the same happens in the real working world. Many times I've seen and heard my students dictating figures on the phone to colleagues abrod, e-mail addresses and phone numbers to workmates on another floor, parts of an e-mail to a secretary whose draft needed correction.
I guess there must be plenty of examples why we should favour dictations that resemble real working life practices. My colleagues, surely, will find others and I do hope they will share their views on this topic.
