Thomas Brock, our resident travelling English teacher shares some advice for anyone learning English right now. This week he tells a story about his time learning French at school.

Read on to hear What advice Thomas has for all English learners!

Vocabulary List

The Dreaded Dictée

This week, I wanted to share a story from my childhood about learning a language. I hope that this anecdote can be helpful to those of you who are currently learning English, and perhaps show you that everyone has their struggles.

Like many people, I have not lived my whole life in one country.

I grew up in the UK, but at the age of eight, my parents decided to move to France. Relocating to the South of France is actually something that a lot of English people do, it’s a sort of cultural phenomenon, just ask the locals on France’s Southern coast.

Moving to a new country as a child was a difficult experience in many ways; I remember being distraught at the idea of losing my friends and at the move in more general terms.

After coming to the realisation that my parents were not going to base their decisions on the wailings of an eight year old, the next biggest challenge I had was language. Luckily we moved to France at the beginning of the summer, giving me a couple of months to learn some basic French before School started in September.

Learning a new language is never easy.

My brother and I had a French teacher called Sabine, who took us through the basics of how to say ‘pencil’ and ‘pencil case’, ‘pencil sharpener’ – I’m sure we learnt more than just pencil-related vocabulary, but that’s what I remember. – As good a teacher as Sabine was, and I’m sure still is, My first day of school in September was daunting, and rightfully so.

I remember not being able to speak much, probably due to a mix of my lack of French ability and my shyness at being in such a strange place.

Much of my experience of school was fun, but at first, I did not fit in. Who can blame a class of eight-year-olds, having been introduced to the ‘new kid’, if they were not all that welcoming? Added to this was the fact that this ‘new kid’ wasn’t even French, and seemed to them, to be quiet, timid, and stupid.

School was hard. Really hard.

The worst part of school was the ‘dictée’. Dictée, or dictation is a rather archaic form of teaching that, as a teacher, I can scarcely believe was still being used in the 21st Century.

This is how it works: The teacher reads a text and the students attempt to write out the text exactly as they hear it being read. Simple enough and perhaps even something that you may have experienced at school or if you are learning English as an adult.

I remember the feeling every time the dictée was announced, the apprehension, the fear, the shame. Just like all the tests in French school, the dictée was marked out of 20, my dictation results never made it past 10, except once. One glorious day, one fine proud moment I recall scoring 12. I think the class average on this particular day was 19.

I don’t remember struggling much anywhere else quite so spectacularly, not that I remember being a great student, I simply remember with great vividness, the dreaded dictée.

Why is this important?

Well, this memory got me thinking about my students. Language learning can be hard, for sure. But what this shows is that we can sometimes struggle with one particular part of our learning experience. Maybe it’s that we find listening difficult or writing just seems too tricky to master, but there is hope; there is always hope.

What I believe you will find, is that if you are struggling with learning a language, or one aspect of language, then perhaps, like me, you simply cannot master one particular method of learning and believe you me, learning methods are about as abundant as English speakers in the world.

It is important to explore these methods, because each learner learns in their own way, and no two teachers are the same.

So the dictée was difficult, but I managed to improve both my listening and my writing, just by using other methods. I improved my listening through conversation and by consuming media. I improved my writing by texting my friends and enjoying the creative writing elements of French at school.

If something is hard then try some alternative methods, be creative, or find a creative teacher. I think dictation is lazy and old-fashioned, and I strive to be creative in my own teaching. This is because I would never wish that feeling on anyone; the impending arrival of some impossible task.

Thomas

What learning methods do you find difficult?

What methods do you find easier?

Would you like to try new learning methods?

Liked it? Take a second to support Thinking in English on Patreon!