Two dictations "of the year 2010"

Dictation doesn't have to be necessarily something boring. There are two dictations that I particularly like and I'm sure your students are going to love! The first one is called "RUNNING DICTATION". You need to prepare in advance some small texts with the content that is being studied. Your group should be divided in small teams or in pairs so you'll have to prepare as many texts as the numbers of teams or pairs you have. The second step is to put all these texts outside your classroom. They can be placed on a wall, for example. And don't let your students read them!! So after dividing your group in small teams ask them to choose someone to be the "writer". Explain that after you say "ready!" the one who is supposed to be the "writer" has to stay sitting in class waiting for the others from her/his team to run outside, read the text, come back and dictate the text to the writer by parts. The first team to finish is the winner. Remember they should write everything correctly! The second dictation "of the year 2010" is the "PICTURE DICTATION". You only need some pictures. Tell your students that you're not going to say a word, you'll just show them the pictures and they have to write the corresponding word for that. Piece of cake!