Diktat

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
My son is in Grade 2 in the local Swiss school. Please could anyone who knows explain what Diktat is to me.

From what I have seen they have to learn a piece of text and write it down when it is dictated.

However my son has Diktat tomorrow and hasnt brought the text home. He brought it home last weekend but we havent seen it since. So unless he is practising in school how can he learn the text. And if he doesnt have the text to learn at home why would it be written in him homework diary that he has a diktat tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

2
You have it right. Diktat is where the text is read out and he has to write it down. He should have the paper with the text on it if he has to do it tomorrow, if he is anything like my son he will have lost it . Diktat will continue all the way through primary school.

3
Diktat, the horror of my school years.

4
A Diktat is a spell test. They read a text to you very, very slowly, and you're supposed to copy it down.

When I was in school, a very long time ago, they never gave us the text beforehand. No practice, they wanted to see if you know how to spell words you should know how to spell.

5
That's how I remember it, too.

6
It is not quite the same as a spelling test. It is also tests comprehension, punctuation and listening skills. In KT ZH it is normal to have the text to practice with before hand though occasionally there is a surprise one.

7
Yep - dictation.

Unfortunately in German, the learning process will also include knowing when multi-word (in English) are written as single words (in German) and correct use of capitals ...... oh, and not forgetting umlauts.

8
Same for me.

It is why, 38 years on, my French is still so good.

(I spent a year at 15-16 with a French family who had me do one EVERY night!)

Tom

9
Ah, happy memories

I think I first did these aged about 8 in England in the late 1960s, then did endless ones in French and German at secondary school. Never got any text to study before the dictation started though, it would have destroyed the point of the exercise.

10
Sometimes it's done as a 'walking dictation', which means the kids place the piece of paper with the sentences away from their desk, and then go and look at it, one sentence at a time, coming back to their desks to write it down.

My daughter is also tested on these as well, so perhaps that's what will happen tomorrow for your son.

11
Correct.

Back when I went to primary school there were two types of "Diktat": "vorbereitet" where you received the text beforehand and "unvorbereitet" where you didn't. My guess is that your son will have an "unvorbereitetes Diktat" tomorrow.

12
It is only in the lower grades that the students get the text of the dictation beforehand, because they are not yet expected to know the spelling of every word. If they prepare the text of the dictation they learn the correct spelling of the words. As they get older they no longer get the text to prepare as they are expected to know how things are spelled and the dictation really is just a spelling test.