Fun Dictation

Memorizing new words could be a dull task. How to make it more interesting? There might be a lot of different ways, but here is the one that I did with my students.

There was a traditional way in Chinese schools “dictation”, that helps to check students work on memorizing the new words. Literally, the teacher will call out the words one at a time, and students just put the words that they hear down on paper. It was a good way to test if the students memorize the words, however, it wasn’t fun.

I ask my students to dictate on sticky notes. If they have the right words, they can put the notes on the side; if they get it wrong, they should stick the notes on their faces. In the end, the student who has the least sticky notes on their face wins. For the winner, I usually give them an extra point on their next quiz. We did the fun dictation for several times, and I can tell that it helps the students to memorize the new words and makes everything more interesting.

Teaching Tips 教学小贴士：

It might be helpful to go over the words with students beforehand by using Quizlet or similar tools.