Total Dictation – is an annual educational event designed to attract the attention of the general public to issues of literacy, improving its level and developing a culture of literate writing.
This event has been held annually since 2004 and today covers many countries around the world. It is a voluntary dictation for everyone (there are no age restrictions) to test their knowledge of the Russian language and their level of literacy. Traditionally, it takes place in April, simultaneously – at the same time (adjusted for time zones) in different cities around the world.
In Russia, the project is aimed, first of all, at popularizing the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation and increasing the level of proficiency in language standards of all categories of citizens living in the country. But the goal of Total Dictation – is not only the educational aspect, but also to encourage every Russian to think about how literate he is and instill a desire to improve this literacy. Therefore, participation in dictation – is not an assessment of knowledge in the literal sense of the word, but a reason to find out what is worth working on in terms of literacy. After all, being literate – is not just normal, it is necessary and important for every modern person. By the way, the motto of the Total Dictation is: «Writing competently – is fashionable!».
Also among the tasks of the Total Dictation: popularizing education and spreading the fashion for literacy; attracting the attention of the media and the public to the problem of language knowledge; identifying difficult-to-digest rules of the Russian language in order to reformulate them.
This project dates back to the early 2000s, when the idea of a voluntary mass dictation for everyone was born in the student club of the Faculty of Humanities of Novosibirsk State University «Gloom Club». The first dictation took place within the walls of NSU on March 11, 2004 as part of the event «Days of the Faculty of Humanities of NSU». Since then, it began to be held annually, attracting an average of 200 people, and was a «normal» dictation – people came, wrote, learned grades. The text of the dictation was chosen from Russian classics (for example, from «War and the world» L.N. Tolstoy, «Nevsky Prospekt» N.V. Gogol, stories by V. Bykova «Sotnikov», etc.). It was dictated by teachers from the Faculty of Humanities, but in 2009 the organizers invited singer Psoi Korolenko to read the dictation. That's when the number of participants in the event tripled.
The very next year, other Novosibirsk organizations joined NSU – Total Dictation 2010 was held at 17 sites throughout the city (schools, universities, libraries) and attracted 2,400 participants. Among those who wrote the dictation were representatives of local authorities, business and science, and the text, which was written especially for the action by science fiction writer Boris Strugatsky, was read by well-known showmen in the city, television– and radio presenters, honored teachers. Naturally, the event was widely covered in the media, and Total Dictation itself received the National Public Relations Award «Silver Archer» as the best Russian public project in February 2011. On this wave of interest, enthusiasts from different Russian cities announced their desire to join the action.
To ensure equal conditions for participants from different cities, the Organizing Committee of the Total Dictation in 2011 formulated the principles of unity of time, text, procedure and verification criteria, and free courses were organized to prepare for the dictation. The total dictation 2011 was held in 13 cities, about 5 thousand people took part in it, and another 500 watched the online broadcast. Since 2012, the event has become international – then Total Dictation covered 89 cities in 11 countries, the number of participants reached 14,217 people, another 11,000 watched the online broadcast. In 2014, the number of participants in the Total Dictation increased to 50 thousand people – voluntary dictation in Russian was held in 20 time zones on all six continents (in 350 cities in 45 countries), and even cosmonauts on the ISS and polar explorers took part in it at Russian Antarctic stations. By the way, since 2014 it has become possible to write dictation online.
Total dictation 2015 also attracted new participants – it was written by 84,275 people in 79 regions. The leader in the number of participants (9.3 thousand people) among all cities was Moscow. According to the organizers, the broadcast of the dictation on the official website of the project was watched by 250 thousand people. In total, more than 12 thousand volunteers took part in organizing the event. In 2016, the voluntary dictation in Russian covered 19 time zones on all 6 continents of the planet – 2185 sites (almost twice as many as in 2015) in 732 cities and towns around the world were received by more than 150,000 people wishing to write Total dictation. Abroad, Total Dictation was written in 252 cities (in 2015 – in 153), located in 68 countries. In the world, the most active participants of the action live in the USA, Spain and China. Dictation was also written online.
In 2017, 866 cities from 71 countries wrote the Total Dictation (Lithuania and Iceland wrote the dictation for the first time). Also in 2017, TruD passed the test for foreigners for the second time, which was created on the basis of dictation and is intended for participants whose Russian language skills do not allow them to write the original text in its entirety. In 2018, the event was attended by 227,325 people from 76 countries (1021 cities), in 2019 – 236,284 people from 81 countries (1200 cities).
In 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the dictation was postponed to the fall and took place in an online format. According to the organizers, 271,449 people took part in the action. In 2021, 675,198 people wrote the dictation, of which 90,000 were offline, more than 8,000 took the TruD test, more than half a million people chose the #writing house format and watched an online marathon or wrote the dictation online. In 2022, the project had 780,500 participants from 600 cities in 108 countries, with 569,100 viewers watching the online marathon live.
During its existence, Total Dictation turned into a large-scale international event. Today, this project is developing as a public system of additional education in the field of the Russian language, including: an annual voluntary dictation, courses in preparation for dictation, a conference of experts and organizers, a website with interactive exercises. In online classes, you can get the most accessible explanation of any rules and immediately ask questions about them. The scientific and methodological part of the project is provided by an expert commission, which consists of professional philologists, doctors and candidates of science. Texts for dictations are specially written by famous modern writers, publicists, philosophers, literary scholars, translators, and journalists. Famous representatives of mass culture are invited to dictate texts.
Today, Total Dictation is called the only mass project that allows you to observe the current state of the Russian language, the dynamics of language norms, allows you to monitor new linguistic realities, and identify the main trends in language change. Also, according to experts, this project has the potential of the Russian national language game, uniting all residents of the country, and can become an event that allows citizens of various social categories, beliefs and views to feel like a single community of native speakers of the Russian language.
After all, Total Dictation draws attention to the Russian language, increases the status of proficiency in language skills and extends the « mode to literacy», and thereby motivates a modern adult who is not included in the process of secondary or higher education to voluntarily increase the level of his literacy and general language culture. In addition, the project stimulates the development of the volunteer movement, horizontal interregional ties between students, universities, and active public groups.