Learning styles and tips (5)

Try a dictation

Dictations are actually a good learning tool for improving your spelling. At school, dictations were often stressful — and usually full of words that were difficult to spell, but no use to you in the real world. You won't find that with our dictations. 

Our dictations are less stressful as you decide how many times you listen to the text, and can spend as much time as you want on checking your answers. Also, we won't shout at you if you get anything wrong.

Try them out: 

Classic dictation 1

These dictations are available to Business Spotlight Premium members:

Classic dictation 2

Classic dictation 3

When you feel more confident, why don't you turn one of our free podcasts into a dictation. Choose a section that you want to concentrate on — don't make it too long. As you play the podcast, type the text into a word document. Don't cheat — turn off the automatic spell-checker in Word before you start typing.  When you've finished, either run the spell-checker or compare your text with the original. 

As you have to focus on the spellings when you are comparing your text with the original, you should remember the spellings better later on. Running the spell-checker might not catch all your mistakes — and is the lazy way to check your text. Choosing the lazy way is never good if you want to improve your English.