English Teaching

ELT365 · Day 176 — Transcription tasks: a tool, not a crutch

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Idea — Transcription — writing out what you hear word for word — is powerful for raising phonological awareness, but overused as a main listening task it trains caution, not fluency.

Example — Transcribe 10 seconds of authentic speech: it reveals every gap between written and spoken forms. But a whole lesson of transcription slows listening speed rather than building it.

Try — Use a ten-second transcription task at the end of a listening lesson, not the start. Debrief: where did connected speech fool them? That is the teaching point.

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