Page 210 - Beyond Methods

198 Activating intuitive heuristics
text dictated by the teacher, taking notes, reconstructing the text, and identifying the gap between the reconstructed and the original text in addition to all the negotiated interaction that goes with the process. The following microstrategy reflects the general thrust of a dictogloss task.
8.2.1 Select (or write) a short but dense text (just a short paragraph will do) dealing with any topic that is being discussed in class. It should include grammatical features just introduced or about to be intro- duced. Make sure that the linguistic level of the text is at or slightly above the current level of your students.
8.2.2 In class, give clear directions as to what you expect the learn- ers to do. At this stage of the task, they need to listen to your dictation carefully and take notes as fast, and as much, as they can. Read the text twice at normal speed, which should prevent them from taking down the text verbatim.
8.2.3 Have them work together in small groups and reconstruct the text as accurately as possible, putting together notes from all the mem- bers of the group. Ask them to think aloud and talk about the content as well as the grammatical features of the text they just heard. As a group, they have to arrive at a consensus version of the text.
8.2.4 Write the short text on the board (or project it on the OHP screen). Ask your learners, once again in their groups, to analyze and compare their version with the original version, in terms of content as well as grammar.
8.2.5 Ask each group to report back to class. Let them first focus on the message as well as the grammatical features they got right.
8.2.6 Do 8.2.5 again, this time focusing on the message they missed as well as the grammatical features they did not get right.
8.2.7 In class discussion, first focus on the message of the text and help them understand it. Do it inductively or deductively as you deem appropriate given the response of your students.
8.2.8 Now, focus on the grammatical features. Highlight what you need to highlight, that is, their success or failure in noticing what they are supposed to notice.
8.2.9 Finally, ask the learners what they were able to learn from the process of doing the dictogloss task. By asking leading questions, try to find out whether the task achieved its purpose of raising their language awareness, of helping them notice the gap, etc.