Flipping "dictados"

Spanish section of dictation notebook

English section of dictation notebook

If you ask any teacher what is one of his or her biggest challenges, I would bet a large majority would say it's time. It seems as though there is never enough time to accomplish all of the skills we want our students to have before they leave us, never enough time to teach the curriculum that our district wants us to teach and of course never enough time to allow our students to apply the skills we have tried to teach them during their time with us. With this challenge in mind, my teaching partner, Kris Carey and I, came up with a solution to give us more time. In our Dual Language classrooms, we use a strategy to help students develop language called, "dictados" or dictations. My first attempt at giving dictations with fidelity was in 2014 and I will admit it was a huge failure. I was to give 15 dictations in each language (Spanish and English) throughout the school year, so a total of 30. Well, the process took so long and I had to repeat the dictation out loud multiple times in order for all students to have a fair chance at writing down what I was dictating to them that each attempt took over 30 minutes! I did not have that kind of time and so the dictation was always put on the back burner. I would say of the 30 I was suppose to give that year, I probably made the time to give 5 or 6! So, the following year, during our days of planning prior to the start of classes, Kris and I came up with a way to streamline this process. We flipped the dictations and pushed them out to our students through Google Classroom. Each week students received a new video clip from us. We took some time that first week of school to set up the procedures around our expectations regarding these dictations. Each day they would have something to do with the dictation of the week. We alternated languages week after week. They also have a spiral notebook dedicated solely to dictations.

Video clips range from 30 seconds to 1:20

1. Monday: Listen to the video clip and write down what you hear in your "dictation notebook".
2. Tuesday: Receive the typed dictation script and compare it to what you wrote yesterday making corrections where necessary. (Today students also receive the mini-lesson highlighting the teaching points from the language in the video and an explanation of grammar rules and patterns to follow.)
3. Wednesday: Practice your dictation for a second time but this time you will read it to a partner and then they will read it to you. You will both write down what you hear your partner saying to you in your dictation notebook. 
4. Thursday: Correct the partner dictation from yesterday and practice once again using the video in Google Classroom. Make sure to correct this final dictation paying attention to any errors before tomorrow's final dictation, that is graded.
5. Friday: Final graded dictation. Use the video from Google Classroom, and write down the final dictation on a separate piece of lined paper to turn in when completed. 

Bank of videos clips and the dictation scripts 

By the end of that school year we had our bank of 30 videos (15 in English and 15 in Spanish). We had to adjust our procedures here and there. Because this process allows for so much student autonomy we realized quickly that we needed to check in with students, some daily while others just once before the final dictation. At the end of the school year we could also say with conviction that when students followed the process and completed all parts correctly, most times,  their final dictation was at or above grade level expectations. 

First attempt in dictation notebook 

Final dictation 

So, when do students complete this process? During independent work time. It also depends on the student. I have many students that are in groups and/or receiving interventions therefore they are able to bring this work home and complete it there, because they do not have the same amount of independent work time as others. Like they say, practice makes perfect and we have found a way to embed student practice into independent work time, making these lessons accessible to all students, regardless of time.