My plan for the two weeks before Spring Break was to practice dictation in preparation for the midterm. To do this, we paused the weekly new vocabulary and free-talk sessions. We agreed to postpone learning the household goods vocabulary until after Spring break. The dictation practice was as difficult as I anticipated. Half way through the practice article, I had to tell her that it was too much. It took 45 minutes just to do half the article. After some conversation about the difficulty level we agreed to use the practice article for the midterm as well. Only half of the half we practiced will be on the midterm, but I will not know which half. The second week was spent just for midterm testing. I improved immensely from the practice session to the midterm, but I think the length for dictation was still too difficult.
My Language partner and I agreed to continue dictation practice for the next two weeks, but with much shorter paragraphs. We agreed on 5 sentences every lesson. I think this will be much more manageable. If my dictation skills improve, this number will be amended. Additionally, for the next two week we will continue with reading practice using news articles. We will also try to find some northern dialect video clips to practice my listening skills.
Overall, there wasn't a lot of new things the two weeks before Spring break because just one week was spent on testing. However, I think it was good to spend one week on dictation practice. It was an exercise I was most reluctant to start because I knew writing is my weakest language skill. Having it on the midterm forced me to practice it seriously.
Comments
Hi Mae,
I admire your dedication to getting dictation right. I share the struggle of reading an article in your non-dominant language, especially if you're thinking about both dictation and comprehension. I personally find that the less I comprehend a sentence or paragraph, my dictation falters. But I imagine that only gets better with practice over time, so keep up the good work!