Drawing dictation

Drawing dictation is an activity adapted from Christopher Sion’s excellent: Recipes for Tired Teachers.

Download the plan here

Download the key here.

Aim: To introduce and recycle simple lexis related to geometry in a project.
Level: Pre-int and higher.
Materials: The plan and key.
Time: For all stages, allow 180 minutes depending on how you exploit opportunities for recycling.

The students will draw a diagram based on a dictation. In the diagram they will make free hand drawings and use these drawings as a basis for making predictions and as personality analysis tool.

This is one activity that never fails! It is based on an activity found in Sion’s “Recipes for Tired Teachers”.

As it stands, this activity is for pre-intermediate and above although the activity is very adaptable. The drawing to be dictated can really be anything that you choose, but I especially like this one on the left, because it uses, with lots of opportunities for recycling, vocabulary related to elementary geometry, and also because it does not make many demands on the artistic abilities of learners. A final good point of this activity is that you need no materials - only the picture - which you can simply make up on the spare of the moment if needs be.

1. The first task is to dictate the picture to the learners:

“On an A4 sheet of paper, draw a rectangle as large as you possibly can.”

- at this point, wait and check that all the learners are up to speed. I often write up the target vocabulary on the board as we go along. My target vocabulary for this class is coloured.

“In the rectangle, draw a vertical line that divides the rectangle into two equal halves.”

- another waiting and checking point. Allow learners to help each other.

“Draw two more vertical lines so that you divide the rectangle into four equal sized quarters.”

…and so on until the learners have drawn the picture.

The important thing for the learners is that you get it right and repeat the target vocabulary many times.

2. When the learners have finished, tell them to make small drawings in each of the cells. Each drawing must be independent of the others and must incorporate the shapes that you have dictated that they draw.

3. When the drawings are complete, tell the learners that it is believed by some psychologists that what we draw and how we use shapes can tell us about our personality. As such, they are now going to do a personality analysis based on their drawings. There are always lots of groans at this point :). One important thing to bear in mind is that one does need to be sensitive to group dynamics when pairing learners for this part of the activity…

5. Have the learners exchange pictures. And now they will need to understand how to analyse the drawing, so…

6. Dictate (or give) a copy of the analysis key to the learners. Ask them to choose only some of the cells for analysis, time depending. Here are some ideas for criteria that can be used to analyse the drawings in each of the cells:

How you see yourself - How others see you - How you see the world
Your future job - Your future family - Your future interests
Your last year. - What you could do before and can’t now. - What you did before and don’t do now
How your hair was in the past. - How you looked like when you were a baby - What your parents did before you were born

7. Have fun reporting back. Don’t forget to now draw the learners’ attention to the vocabulary.

Follow up: perhaps you could have the learners write a summary of the dictation, using the target vocabulary. Why not put the finished drawings on the wall as a display?

Happy teaching!

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