What could the story be?

● Read the beginning of the story

● Check any words you don’t know
● With a partner, predict what
happens next
 It was 7.45 in the evening and El Gordo was eating a giant bowl of ramen. He
had been eating the ramen since 7.00 and the bowl was about 85% finished.
There was a crowd of people watching him, and even though the room was hot
and humid, El Gordo was cool as a cucumber; he knew that soon the bowl
would be empty, and he would be the World Ramen Eating Champion.

In the crowd, glaring angrily, stood El Gordo’s biggest enemy, Yasuhiro - the
world Ramen Eating Champion for the last five years. On his shoulder sat an
evil, one-eyed parrot. Yasuhiro loved that parrot more than he loved ramen.

The parrot loved Yasuhiro. And he hated El Gordo.

Here’s the original….
The fat man picked up a delicious piece of pork in his chopsticks, and was just thinking
about his victory speech when the parrot flew off Yasuhiro’s shoulder and swooped
over El Gordo grabbing the piece of pork and flying back to his master. Now El Gordo
had a problem. The rules said that he must eat everything in the bowl, and he mustn’t
leave the table, He knew that Yasuhiro’s parrot would never give him back the
pork...What could he do?

Thinking quickly, he tied his chopsticks together with noodles to make a boomerang
and threw it towards the evil bird. The chopstick picked up the pork and flew swiftly
back, throwing the pork into El Gordo’s open mouth. The crowd roared. Yasuhiro said
terrible words and ran out of the room.

In five minutes it was all over. El Gordo slurped the final noodle, licked the bowl and
lifted it above his head and the people shouted “El Gordo, El Gordo, El Gordo!!!”

At last El Gordo was the Ramen Eating Champion of the World!

Here’s the student-generated text...
Dictogloss - The Four Stages

1. Preparation
2. Dictation
3. Reconstruction
4. Analysis, Correction, Discussion
Dictogloss - The Four Stages
1. Preparation

Introduce the topic, pre-teach vocabulary. You could give the

first part of the text as a reading and ask the students to
predict what follows. Make sure the students understand what
is expected of them and what they will do.
Dictogloss - The Four Stages
1. Dictation
The students have paper and pens, but must not write until you have read
the text twice.

Read the text for the first time at a slightly slower than normal pace.

Remind the students not to write anything, then read the text again at a
similar pace.
Dictogloss - The Four Stages
1. Reconstruction
The students work alone to start with. Tell them to write down anything
they remember - words, phrases, what happened in the story

After three or four minutes, put them into pairs to share their ideas,

After another five minutes or so, put the pairs together into fours...then
have two big groups, then finally everybody working together.

Remind them that the text doesn’t have to be exactly the same as the
original, but must have the same meaning and be in good English.
Dictogloss - The Four Stages
1. Analysis, correction, discussion
When the students are happy with their version, you can give them copies of the
original and, if possible, display their text on the board.

Initially the class will compare the two versions for similarities, differences and
omissions.

Next, the students correct any errors in their text - it’s good to nominate one student
to stand at the board and make the corrections, as far as possible, elicit the
corrections from the students.

Finally, open a discussion about what the class experienced during the Dictogloss.
It’s a crash course in collaborative learning, and peer teaching and correction; they
always have plenty to talk about!