Are you struggling to improve your English skills
and you're thinking about using dictation to improve your level
of English? Hey there, my name is Adriana,
from englishteacheradriana.com
and today I'll be teaching you
how to improve your English skills with dictation.
Together we'll look at exactly what dictation
is, how will dictation improve your English skills,
how to start with regular dictation practice
and finally, I'll share with you some tips to help you
improving your English skill with dictation.
By completing regular dictation exercises
over the next few weeks, with audio material
that you love, that you love, you will
see drastic improvement in your level od English.
Now, you're probably wondering, what exactly
is dictation? Dictation is when you listen.
You listen to an audio and you dictate.
You basically write down everything the speaker
interesting or appealing to do on a regular basis,
but this technique is very powerful.
It does have many benefits for you
to improve your English skills. How exactly
will dictation improve your English skills?
First of all, it will improve your English listening skills.
By consistently listening to audio materials
in English, it will become easier for you to better
understand English speakers. By you dictating,
writing down everything the speaker is saying, your brain's
doing a lot. It's doing a lot of work
trying to process. First of all, you have to listen
to the audio, you have to understand what is being said, and you have to
write it down on a piece of paper. By doing
this regularly, you will see that
understanding English speakers, natural conversation,
will get a lot easier in a short amount of time.
Not only are you listening, listening to
audios in English, but you are also
processing information. You're using your brain,
you're thinking, you're thinking about what you've heard,
so that you can write it down, and this will improve
your ability to think faster in English.
It will also improve your ability to understand
different English accents. Provided that you are
using different audio materials, and that you are
listening to different English accents.
As you already know, you need to be exposing yourself to
why not do this through dictation, so that
you can think, process and better understand
different accents in the long term.
Dictation will also improve your listening comprehension
skills. Friends, for you to be able to write
something down that you've heard on a piece of paper,
you have to understand what's being said,
to some extent. Regular dictation practice
will improve your ability to understand
to process that information a lot faster
and in time, you will see improvement
in your listening comprehension skills. Friends,
need I remind you not, this is also a requirement
for IELTS or TOEFL, any proficiency exam,
and it will help you score higher
on IELTS, TOEFL, or any proficiency exam.
Dictation also improves your ability to write
faster in English. Friends, when you are dictating,
you are listening, and you're also
writing. You have to write down really fast
before you forget what that speaker said,
will improve in English. As you are writing
your spelling skills will also improve.
Dictation is a great exercise to help
you reduce your spelling mistakes.
Provided that you are checking and correcting
any mistakes that you've made. Finally, dictation
is a way for you to immerse yourself, to surround yourself
with the English language. As you know, it can
be difficult to understand complex grammatical
structures, and to also expand your
vocabulary. By completing regular dictation tasks,
you will see that your ability to understand complex
grammatical structures, and also
expand your vocabulary improve, in time, that is.
Okay, so, you get it, there are heaps of benefits
to completing regular dictation exercises
but how can you start with regular dictation
practice today? To begin with,
you need to find an audio. Find an audio,
something you love listening to, to use
for this dictation exercise. Then you
need to find a pen and paper. I always recommend
to my students to use a pen and paper, and
not to use a computer or a tablet,
because of spellcheck. To get the maximum result
from dictation practice, try to keep
it old school. Use a pen and paper.
You've got your audio, you've got your pen and paper, now
it's time to hit play. Listen to the audio
but only for 10 seconds. Look guys, you're not
going to remember a minute's worth of conversation,
start small. Hit pause at 10 seconds
intervals, and write down everything
you hear. Once you've written down everything
you've heard, repeat this process.
Friends, repeat this process for a maximum of 8 minutes.
Don't worry if you haven't listened to the whole audio. Time yourself.
Dedicate about 8 minutes a day to
complete regular dictation practice. Once
you've done this for 8 minutes, it's time to compare.
Compare what you've wrote down to a transcript.
of that audio and check. Check what you've got wrong,
what you've got right, check any mistakes,
any improvement you need to look for in the future.
Look, friends, that's basically it. It's pretty simple,
you listen to an audio, you hit play, you press
pause at 10 second intervals, you write down
what you hear, and then you check.
But, I know it can be boring and a little dull,
So let's go through some tips you can use to help you stay
motivated and consistent completing
regular dictation exercises. My first
tips is to only choose audio materials
that you genuinely love. Choose something
that you're interested in. Find a topic
you love, be that cooking, movies,
spots, I don't know what you like, think about
your interests, find an audio on that topic,
and use that topic. As I mentioned
a few times in this video, it can be a little bit dry
and boring. For this reason, only choose audio
tip is only choose an audio with a transcript.
Look, guys, you want to check to see your progress
to see your mistakes, what you're doing good, what you're doing
bad, and you can only do this with a transcript.
Make sure when you are choosing
an audio material that it does have a transcript.
Previously in the video, I did mention
that you should be dedicating about 8 minutes a day
to complete regular dictation practice.
I really and truly only mean 8 minutes.
If you do this for a longer period of time, you will get
bored. Aim for a minimum of 4-5 minutes,
and a maximum of 8 minutes of regular
dictation, regular daily dictation practice.
In order to see maximum results, maximum benefits
using the dictation exercises, it's important
to be consistent. For this reason
I only say dedicate about 8 minutes maximum
for one day, for two days, for seven days and you give up,
you will not see results. Consistency
is key. Give yourself about one to two
months of regular dictation exercise
practice, and you will see improvement.
Finally friends, it's important to be positive.
Look, it will be hard. You may not understand everything,
you may miss a word, just skip
that word, skip that sentence if you do miss it,
but be positive. Look at what you did yesterday,
look at your dictation exercises from a week ago,
and give yourself a pat on the back if
you are being consistent, if you are doing it regularly,
because it will take you about
3 to 6 weeks to see improvement,
completing this dictation exercises.
There you have it, friends, I hope that you will consider using
dictation to improve your English skills. But remember,
be consistent, and only choose audio
materials that you love. Friends, I do understand
that dictation is not for everybody. Personally, I
had a lot of great success using dictation, as
it means to improve my Croatian skills. Join
the discussion in the comments bellow this video, and tell me
what are you doing to improve your English skills?
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thanks for watching, and I look forward to