Dictation is not only a testing method, but also an effective learning method to improve learners' listening level and other multi-faceted language knowledge or skills (Valette, 1964; Pappas, 1977; Morris, 1983; Rahimi, 2008), such as improving phonetic knowledge, incidentally acquiring vocabulary knowledge, and assisting in improving oral proficiency, etc. Dictation training is highly praised and favored by many people. This method is the founding purpose of the Put English Listening website, and is also the essence of the "reverse English learning method" pioneered by Professor Zhong Daolong, the inventor of the repeater machine. Dictation requires the dictator to be highly concentrated and use both analysis and synthesis methods of understanding. It is a method that enables the dictator to coordinate and cooperate with multiple sense organs (tongue, ears, hands, eyes, and brain) to understand, think, and express. the most effective way.
Dictation training is roughly divided into the following five steps:
1 Overall understanding
First listen to the listening material from beginning to end, and try to grasp the theme and center of the material Thought. This link is in line with the broadcasting characteristics of the listening part of various English test chapters, and can also prevent students from missing the forest for the trees during dictation training.
2 Repeat Reading and Dictation
China’s mainstream English education model and English learning environment have resulted in the vast majority of English learners mainly using their eyes to obtain language signals and working hard to establish the form and meaning of language. They ignore the strengthening of the connection between the sounds and shapes, sounds and meanings of the language, resulting in their extremely slow response to English sound signals. Rereading is an effective means to overcome this shortcoming. For example, when a listening practitioner selects a listening sentence and uses appropriate instruments to automatically repeat the sentence, he can focus on gradually building and strengthening the meaning of the sentence in several, dozen, or even dozens of repeated broadcasts. The connection between sounds and their corresponding shapes and meanings.
Professor Zhong Daolong emphasized the importance of writing in dictation training: "From the perspective of English learning, beginners must listen and write at the same time in the initial stage. If they only listen but do not write, they may have problems. There are two situations: First, some words that you don’t understand are missed, and you lose the opportunity to learn and improve; second, when you have words that you don’t understand, if you just listen but don’t write, you often can’t do it no matter how many times you listen. You may still not understand it, but if you write down the parts you understand on paper, connect the previous and previous contents together, and then listen after thinking about it, you may understand some other contents. Repeat this until you understand everything.” . Professor Zhong’s explanation implies that for Chinese English learners, “form” is a bridge for them to establish the connection between sound and meaning. In addition, writing is also the basis for the implementation of the last two steps of dictation training (checking, summarizing and improving), and these two steps are the key steps for truly improving English listening level and overall level.
2.1 Dictation method
Repeat dictation in sentences or clauses. Repeat each dictation unit approximately 3 to 5 times, and write down everything you understand while listening. . For words that you still don’t understand after rereading them 3 to 5 times, you can temporarily leave them aside and return to solve them when you have a deeper understanding of the context of the material; for words that you can understand the pronunciation but cannot spell, you can proceed according to the pronunciation rules. To try spelling, you can also use the "Online Oxford English Dictionary" or "Tingyin Dictionary" to check the spelling of the word, and then use the "English-Chinese Dictionary" or "English Dictionary" to find out the part of speech and meaning of the word, and put it into the text Check for context. For students with weak listening skills, you can choose to repeat a single sentence slowly, pause the playback after each sentence is repeated, and quickly record what you heard.
2.2 Rereading Tools
Existing replaying tools include tape repeaters, electronic repeaters (including MP3, MP4, and digital learning machines with repeat functions) and those available in Repeater software used on computers. The specific type of repetition tool to use depends on the media type of the listening material and personal conditions. For English learners who are convenient to use computers, here are three highly acclaimed English repeater software recommended to you: Saner Computer Visual Digital Repeater, Q99 Multifunctional Language Repeater and SitMan PC Repeater. Saner computer visual digital repeater and Q99 multi-functional language repeater can intelligently segment sentences and support multiple repeat control methods. The Q99 multifunctional language repeater has the function of variable speed and constant pitch playback. The SitMan PC repeater can only manually set the start and end points of the repeat and can fine-tune the start and end points; click the "Next Paragraph" button, and the audio will start playing from the end point of the current repeat sentence, so just select Set an end point and then repeat the next sentence. All three repeater softwares provide a dictation recording window, and can set the number of repeats and the pause time after repeating.
In addition, MP3 players are currently a resource owned by most students and are easy to carry. However, due to the weak repeat function of MP3 players, it is not conducive for English learners to practice repeat dictation. One improvement method is to use a Saner computer visual digital repeater or a Q99 multifunctional language repeater to automatically decompose a sound file and generate an MP3 sentence library (for specific methods, please refer to the instructions for use of the two repeater software). As long as you copy this sentence library to your MP3 player, it will become a very practical sentence-by-sentence repeater.
3 Overall inspection
After the full text rereading and dictation is completed, listen to the listening material from beginning to end again and check for any gaps. This link is the end of the listening part of various English test chapters and can train students' ability to self-discover and correct errors. Since the entire re-reading and dictation has been completed, especially some unresolved questions in the previous article may be successfully solved at this time, which greatly increases the dictator's sense of accomplishment and confidence.
4 Comparison and modification
Check and modify your dictation content word by word and sentence by sentence with reference to the standard text. It is recommended to use a pen of another color to modify the dictation script. This can clearly reflect the errors in the dictation manuscript and facilitate subsequent analysis and summary of these errors. In addition, since both self-modification and comparative modification require page space, it is recommended to write one line and leave one blank when repeating dictation.
5 Summary and improvement
Checking out the errors in the dictation script is not the ultimate goal, but to analyze and summarize the dictationists' basic knowledge of English language that these errors imply ( pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar) and find ways to make up for and improve them.
(1) The phonetic problems that the dictation script can reflect mainly include: not adapting to phonetic phenomena such as continuous reading, weak reading, swallowing, and assimilation of sounds; not familiar with a certain accent (British, American) , Australian style).
(2) Vocabulary problems that can be reflected in the dictation script mainly include: lack of vocabulary; incorrect spelling of words; non-standard pronunciation of words.
(3) The grammatical problems that can be reflected in the dictation script are diverse, but they must all be accompanied by some defects in phonetic knowledge of the dictator (except for the choice of homophones such as two or to which are purely Except for grammatical issues). In this case, if the dictator has perfect grammatical knowledge, he can make up for the lack of phonetic knowledge to a certain extent and directly improve the phonetic knowledge and promote the understanding of the listening article during the repeated dictation process. Otherwise, he can only discover the shortcomings in his phonetic knowledge by referring to standard texts.
Language knowledge, whether it is pronunciation, vocabulary or grammar problems, must be repaired in a targeted manner after being found, or pronunciation reading, or accumulating vocabulary, practicing spelling, or learning grammar.
In order to better digest the dictation content, and English learners who have room for learning and want to comprehensively improve their English proficiency, after completing the above five steps, you can also use the "Putt Three-Step Dictation Method" The third step of the translation and memorization method, the specific steps are: translate the dictation script into Chinese; translate the Chinese translation back into English; after comparing the English original and the English translation, translate and memorize again and again, that is, look at the Chinese and speak English; read English aloud and pursue fluency.
For English learners with higher English proficiency, dictation training no longer means accurate recording of the original recorded text, but training in refining, summarizing information and expressing in writing while listening to English. comprehensive ability. This exercise is suitable for preparing for the last three long sentence questions of compound dictation in the CET-4 and CET-6 exams and the note-taking and filling-in-the-blank questions of the CET-8 professional English exam. It is also suitable for preparing for the listening and translation questions in the intermediate and advanced oral interpretation exams.