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riosma02 on 29 Jan 15

This French website created for native French speakers is full of dictées - dictations. This site is divided into grade levels based on the French school system. (For a brief run-down of the grade levels in France visit the blog from Transparent Language entitled À l'École!: French and American Grade Levels Compared at http://blogs.transparent.com/french/a-lecole/) Since the ladictee.fr website is targeted toward elementary aged children, the language level works well for beginner and intermediate French L2 learners. Even though a dictée isn't what people would call a "communicative" activity, it does serve the purpose of helping students make connections between spoken language and written language, especially since French spelling is not phonemic. The site includes various dictées for each level, along with a PDF of the written text so student's can check their work. Doing dictées can help students improve their spelling, recognize spelling patterns, and learn to listen for cues in spoken speech that indicate whether the person is speaking in the plural or singular (often tricky in the French language). Note: When doing a dictée, students are focused on writing down what is said word for word, and NOT on comprehension. It would NOT be effective to give a student a dictée and then immediately ask them specific comprehension questions about what they just heard.

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">This French website created for native French speakers is full of dictées - dictations. This site is divided into grade levels based on the French school system. (For a brief run-down of the grade levels in France visit the blog from Transparent Language entitled À l'École!: French and American Grade Levels Compared at <a href="http://blogs.transparent.com/french/a-lecole/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://blogs.transparent.com/french/a-lecole/</a>) Since the ladictee.fr website is targeted toward elementary aged children, the language level works well for beginner and intermediate French L2 learners. Even though a dictée isn't what people would call a "communicative" activity, it does serve the purpose of helping students make connections between spoken language and written language, especially since French spelling is not phonemic. The site includes various dictées for each level, along with a PDF of the written text so student's can check their work. Doing dictées can help students improve their spelling, recognize spelling patterns, and learn to listen for cues in spoken speech that indicate whether the person is speaking in the plural or singular (often tricky in the French language). Note: When doing a dictée, students are focused on writing down what is said word for word, and NOT on comprehension. It would NOT be effective to give a student a dictée and then immediately ask them specific comprehension questions about what they just heard.</div>

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