The Use of the Dictée in the French Language Classroom

T HE dict6e, while employed in varying degrees in language classes taught in the United States, holds an established position in French education. From the earliest grades, spelling tests are never lists of isolated words, but rather selected passages by well-known authors. Thus the student, while developing an ear for the harmonies of French prose, is examined on his knowledge of orthography and his understanding of grammatical agreements. In the case of the non-native speaker, the dict6e introduces two additional factors: discrimination of sounds and general comprehension. The beginning student must learn, for example, to distinguish between le and les, between tu and tout. Moreover, on correctly hearing the phonetic word [parle], the student must grasp the meaning of the sentence in order to