Learning multiword items through dictation and dictogloss: How task performance predicts learning outcomes

Abstract

This article reports a quasi-experimental study which compared the effectiveness for multiword item learning of three listening-based activities: dictation, dictogloss, and answering text comprehension questions. In a dictation, students write down segments of text immediately after listening to them, whereas in dictogloss students try to reconstruct the text from memory. Chinese learners of English (N = 142) first engaged in one of the three activities, then received the transcript of the text and used a different colour to make corrections to what they had written. The learners were given an unannounced immediate and a two-week delayed posttest concerning 10 expressions from the text. Both dictation and dictogloss led to better scores than answering comprehension questions in the immediate posttest, but the advantage diminished in the delayed test, and this most markedly so for the dictation activity. Items that were successfully retrieved during the text-reconstruction stage of the dictogloss activity rather than rectified by the students afterwards with the aid of the transcript stood the best chance of being recalled in the posttests. This suggests that dictogloss could be made more effective if it were implemented in ways that promote accurate retrieval at the text-reconstruction stage.