Welcome to Coffee Break, a new video series by Let's Love Teeline Together for when you only have five minutes or so for Teeline shorthand revision.

You can find our Introductory video here on YouTube.

The idea behind it is simple:

Two “blocks” of Teeline shorthand are separately dictated three times in succession.

Then both “blocks” are strung together and again, dictated three times.

There are a few ways to utilise this as practice.

The first time through, grab your steno pad and, without relying on the printed Teeline, treat it as a short dictation drill before going back to check your outlines. Consider this a “pre-test” of your knowledge.  Pre-testing is a valuable way to gauge what you know…and what you don’t.

The second time through, follow the printed Teeline as the dictation is being read to see if we’ve written anything differently from how you have.  While you are free to discard what doesn’t work for you, it might also present a good opportunity for some revision work.

Finally, after running through it twice, try turning to a fresh page in your steno pad and writing out both blocks from memory as quickly as you can.

No doubt you’ve heard the old joke, “A drill is for boring holes and shorthand students.” Nevertheless, these “facility drills” (facility meaning skillful) are highly useful to your learning. Don’t ignore them.