An analysis of errors in listening dictation with specific reference to the cause of misperception of English pronunciation

Abstract

Errors revealed in listening dictation were analyzed in terms of cause and source of errors attributed solely to misperception of English pronunciation. This excluded other causes and sources such as syntactics, morphology, and so forth. Even though “the number of published and unpublished descriptions of errors found in corpuses drawn from different teaching situations is very large”, those concerned with dictation or listening dictation are not many (Corder, 1978). Oller (1975) maintains that dictation activates the learner's internalized grammar of expectancy and it is an indication of an internalized competence on the part of the learner. Angelis (1974) proved it to be useful as an elicitation technique for diagnostic data. In the self-disciplined learning process, dictation is effective to activate the student's own system of correction/improvement, and judgement. It is a useful means of feedback to the learner when errors are carefully taken care of.