Preparing a Dictee

[Teamedup]

I was useless at this and reckon I still would be. My pronounciations are too iffy to have ever helped my children with this essential preparation.

So what do you do and what is your child's average score. In primary it never usually goes below zero, but in college some prof will quite happily give quite a big negative result.

[A_Redman]

That posting really terrified me. It is close to coming to with a wooden head in Objeck and discovering you accepted the offer of a 12 year commission in the Foreign Legion as a quartermaster. As Mazan pointed out I cannot tell the difference between an invoice and a postman. The idea of having to transcribe dictation in the language in which you are being taught, and is meant to be the first language of the school, is very scary. How often does it come up in the school week ? I can remember it as part of most lessons in every language I ever learnt but never in English at school.

The only things I can suggest is the old Linguaphone business course which was spoken very clearly and very slowly and did come with a translation. BBC World Service French language programmes were both well pronounced and sufficiently slow that you stood a sporting chance with them. FFL CD roms in most of the supermarkets seem worth try or even the standard French CD roms for schools children ?

[Maggiemay]

My son aged 8 gets a list of words to learn, 5 a night then 20 before Dictee day which ironically is play day, jeu-di. Firstly we have to work out what all the words mean. Then he reads through the words a few times, writes them out once, 3 times if I'm lucky, and that takes most of the evening. Any other homework goes out of the window. At the end of it - if we get there - we are both frazzled. I think he gets one or two right out of the 20, which is discouraging. Maths however he gets regularly dix sur dix and is very proud.
It would be great to hear about other ways to help prepare them for this ordeal, it is not going to get easier!
My daughter, aged 10, does her homework by herself, and has sorted out her own method, and is quietly confident. Just as well as I dont have time in the evening for the both of them!

[Lebrouillac]

>>So what do you do and
>what is your child's average
>score. In primary it never
>usually goes below zero, but
>in college some prof will
>quite happily give quite a
>big negative result.


Alexandra's score so far this year has been quite high - lots of t.b's and on average, about 2 errors a month, which she has to write out again 20 times. 2 dictees a week - Tuesday is spelling and Friday is a whole paragraph containing Tuesday's words - all from the weekly exercise which forms the basis of the week's homework.

She does the preparation herself, our pronounciation is so bad she's given up asking us to test her!!

Clare