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Dictation
Pertemuan 4.3
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DICTATION
Advantages :
 It is an intensive activity, which makes students concentrate.
 The teacher can keep good control of the class, so it is a suitable
technique for large classes.
 It helps develop listening as well as writing.
Disadvantages :
 It takes up a lot of time in the class, especially if the dictation is
corrected word by word afterwards.
 It does not really develop writing skills – students do not have to
express ideas in a written form, or find ways of constructing
sentences. The main skill practised is spelling.
 It is an unrealistic activity – listening is “word by word” and at an
unnaturally slow speed.
 It can be done quite mechanically, without real comprehension.
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An alternative to dictation
An activity which develops both listening and writing skills
and focusses on meaning, is for the students to listen to a
text and then try to reconstruct it from Prompts.
An example :
1. Write these prompts on the board:
Giovanni – fishing
friend’s house – bus – river
tree – fishing
a few minutes – Giovanni – small fish
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2. Read the text. Ask students to listen but not to write
anything.
Giovanni decided to spend the day fishing. He went to
his friend’s house and they took a bus to the river.
There, they sat down under a tree and began fishing.
After a few minutes, Giovanni caught a small fish.
3. Ask students to write a version of the text, using the
prompts on the board (it does not have to be exactly the
same as the original).
4. Go through the exercise orally, asking different students
to read out sentences.
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Writing Activities
Pertemuan 4
5
Intro to Writing activities
This technique is for students who are yet not ready to do
completely free writing, so focusses on writing skills at elementary to
intermediate level. It shows techniques for writing activities which
focus students’ attention on meaning and offer them some
challenge, but which are sufficiently controlled to avoid serious
errors.
It deals with :
a. Controlled Writing
b. Dictation
c. Guided Writing
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Guided Writing
Pertemuan 4.4
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Problems of free writing :
1. Many students would probably find it quite difficult, and make
many mistakes. If so, they would find the task frustrating and
probably not learn very much from it.
2. Students would probably approach the task in different ways, and
produce a wide variety of different paragraphs. So the only way to
correct their work would be individually, book by book; this would be
very time-consuming for the teacher.
As soon as they have mastered basic skills of sentence writing,
students need to progress beyond very controlled writing exercises to
freer paragraph writing.
However, students will make this transition more easily and learn more
if we can guide their writing. There are two main ways of doing this :
- By giving a short text as a model.
– By doing oral preparation for the writing
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Writing based on a text
Examples of how a text can be used as a model for writing
- Students read a short text, and perhaps study
particular features of it (e.g. the way sentences are
joined, the use of verb tenses, the use of the passive).
They then write a paragraph which is similar, but
involves some changes.
- Examples of texts that could be used: students read a
paragraph about a student’s day, then write about their
own day; students read a description of a car, then write
descriptions of other cars from notes; students read a
description of a room, then write a description of a
another room shown in a picture
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Discuss what difficulties students might have in doing the
exercises, and what preparation might be necessary:
- The model text might be too limiting, especially if the students’ own
town or village has quite different features. This may lead students
either to follow the text too closely (and so write something which
sounds unnatural) or to move away from it too much ( and so make
many mistakes ). If all the students are writing about the same town,
it would help to go through the exercise orally with the class first,
and ask students to suggest what to include in the description.
- The main problem with this kind of exercise is finding a suitable
text. It is sometimes possible to adapt a text from the textbook – this
can be written on the board before the lesson, or copied onto
worksheets.
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Oral Preparation
Another way of guiding paragraph writing is to do oral
preparation beforehand with the whole class; the students
make suggestions, and the teacher builds up an outline or
a list of key expressions on the board. The students then
use this as a basis for their writing.
Advantages of this approach :
• It is flexible : it can be done in different ways according to the
interests and ability of the class.
• Ideas about what to write come from the students themselves; this
makes the activity much more interesting and involves the class
more
• It does not require specially – prepared texts or other material.
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Controlled Writing Activities
Pertemuan 4.2
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Controlled Writing Activities
A. Gap – filling
Listen to the teacher, then write out the complete sentences.
Paper……………………wood. It ………………….. The Chinese in
…………..
B. Re – ordering words
Write the sentences correctly.
We/six o’clock/and/tea/drink/get up/at.
Then/the patients/wake/go/and/the wards/we/round.
Sometimes/medicines/injections/them/we/or/give.
C. Substitution
Write a true sentence like this about yourself.
Samir enjoys playing football and reading adventure stories.
D. Correct the facts
Re-write the sentences so that they match the picture.
At the market, I saw an old woman sitting in a chair.
She was selling eggs. It was raining.
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