Turklish TEFL

Dogme in the Mind of a Teacher – Banking

From time to time I’ve decided to throw up a dogme lesson plan. Like most of what I consider to be dogme lessons, this plan was written after the lesson was completed. It is, in fact, a post-plan. As a teacher, I always come to class with something prepared to do, but quite often I chuck it out the window as something else comes up.

These posts will be an attempt to show how I come up with the lesson as it happens.

Banking

Level: Intermediate
Materials Used: None
Time: About 3 hours

In Turkey, students tend to slowly filter in to class during the first hour as being on time is not much of a concern here. Many of my classes, therefore, start out with general conversations or light activities that people can slip into as they arrive.

About a half hour into class a reasonable number of students had arrived and one of the students was telling a story about a problem they had at the bank the other day. Everyone was pretty interested in the story.

Decision: Do a lesson on banking. I decided on this because 1) a number of the students worked or studied banking & finance, 2) it was clear from the conversation that banking vocabulary was weak or unknown, and 3) the students had brought up the subject and were expressing interest.

I thought a good way to do the lesson would be a role-play as I like drama and real life situations.

First (after the student finished telling their story and questions died out), we brainstormed a number of terms that the students should be using like deposit, withdraw, interest rate, signature, etc.

One student started adding words like stock and share-holder and…

Decision: Stop it there as that would be getting off track of the direction the lesson was taking and complicate things too much, especially since many students wouldn’t know those terms and situations even in Turkish. Also, I wasn’t at all confident with that language or those situations in English either and so I doubted my ability to help create an effective lesson in that direction.

After the brainstorm session, I left all the words and phrases on the board. Students then became bank tellers and customers. The bank tellers pulled their chairs to the front of the class and stood behind them as customers formed lines in front of the tellers.

The activity ran for about 8 minutes. I noticed that the students were using a lot of the language we had come up with, but that their general language was very informal. I wound down the activity and everyone went back to their seats.

Decision: Focus on formal language, particularly things like indirect questions, modals, and if clauses. The students obviously had less experience with this and needed the practice.

We now did a bit of feedback on the first part of the lesson. Students asked questions and we added some more language that they needed to the board. We then discussed the formality of the situation and talked about the language used. The students decided that they needed to use more formal language. We brainstormed again and put up example phrases like “Could you tell me your customer number, please?” “Do you mind waiting a minute while I…“ “I was wondering if you could tell me…“ and “If you could just sign right here…”

Switching tellers and customers, the activity ran again. This time students were using much more appropriate language. Again, I helped out students when they got stuck, pointed out minor errors, or commented when students became a bit too informal.

The activity ran for almost 15 minutes this time. Students that weren’t involved in a transaction chatted in line with their fellow customers.

After this activity, I initiated a feedback session and students discussed what they liked about the activity or didn’t, who did a good job, what was easy or difficult, questions they had, etc. While this was happening, I boarded a lot of language, both good and bad, that had come from the students. We talked about the nature of the language, why certain language was good or bad and we discussed corrections in grammar, vocabulary, and register.

After a break, I thought we could work on complaints at the bank as that is basically what started off the lesson. I started by giving an example of a lot of problems I’d been having with Internet banking lately. My plan was to have some students come up with complaints, others be tellers who would decide on a particular emotion to react with, and others to be managers to be called in to help out.

After I told my story though, a number of other students started complaining about Internet banking as well. Still others didn’t trust it and were very curious about those who used it and whether it was safe or not.

Decision: Scrap the original plan and allow an open class discussion. The students were obviously highly interested in the topic and to stop it and move on to something else would perhaps be de-motivating. The students were still recycling much of the language we had been practicing and they were all actively involved in the discussion.

My job was simply to support students in the language they were using if they got stuck, especially regarding vocabulary, and to get them to self-correct some areas of language that we had been working on lately or that particular students were having problems with.

The discussion ran for a good 30 minutes. This time I dictated a number of sentences back to them where they used vocabulary that was too general or structures that were a bit too simple. They copied the sentences down and then had to work in pairs to find ways of improving the sentences using more specific vocabulary we’d covered that day or by making the language more structurally complex. Changes were then discussed as a class.

Including the rather open ended chat in the beginning and breaks, the entire lesson took a little over 3 hours.

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So what do you think of the lesson outcome, decisions made, etc? Is this similar to how you run a dogme lesson or different? What would you change or have done differently? If you’re not familiar with dogme, does this lesson help you understand the approach better?

Dogme in the Mind of a Teacher: Memory Techniques

Unplugged Lesson Plans

D is for Dogme

The Dogme of Dogme

Sources for Teaching Unplugged

Further Dogme Links

Tags: Dogme, Lesson Plan

Lesson Ideas, Teaching Strategies | turklis1 | May 26, 2010 11:35 am

10 Comments

By Scott Thornbury, May 26, 2010 @ 1:12 pm

Nice lesson, Nick – sounds extremely productive and learner-driven. One question: when you put them into the bank-teller and customer role play, did you set them any task? I would be concerned that – without a task (e.g. open a new account, negotiate a loan, complain about a faulty cashcard etc etc) some of the students might have found the task a bit unmotivating. Or not?
By turklis1, May 26, 2010 @ 1:31 pm

Hi Scott, actually I didn’t set a task. This particular class was pretty creative and a number of transactions that could be done at a bank were included in the vocabulary we brainstormed at the beginning. In the lesson, the transactions the students picked ended up being quite varied, so it worked out, especially as the bank tellers had to deal with different language and situations.

To be 100% honest, it didn’t occur to me to set a task. I kind of run lessons in a more or less open fashion, especially with Int & Up classes, and then backtrack if the students need more support. So in this case, if the students had faltered when they got to the teller I would probably have had them sit down, then quickly write down which transaction they were coming for. I would then quickly check them to make sure not too many people were going up for the same thing and restart the role-play. In hindsight, this would only take about a minute and would have been a good idea just to ensure the activity ran smoothly.

I think the students found this task motivating because we were already on the subject and everyone was quite interested and more than half the class worked or studied finance. With a different make-up of students or on a different day I could see this being a pretty uninteresting lesson. I think this is one of the advantages of dogme though. Had I walked in and started a lesson on banking, it would probably have come across as pretty boring. I mean, who likes going to the bank? But because the students initiated it and it tailored to their professions, it was a good fit.

Another aspect of motivation is challenge I think. The vocabulary was knew and the formal register was a bit difficult, so no one was bored. I’ve found that if you set tasks that students find easy, they often get de-motivated quickly, so I’m sure the challenge element was a factor in the success of this particular lesson, tool
By Michelle Worgan, May 26, 2010 @ 1:57 pm

Hello Nick

To tell the truth I haven’t really read much about Dogme as I generally find most theoretical and academic articles a bit of a chore to read (although I’m sure Scott’s book is very interesting and well written). However, I find that when I do read about different methodologies that I actually use some of them without realising that there were theories behind them. Reading your post has made me realise that I do sometimes incorporate dogme into my lessons! Like you, with certain classes I have a more relaxed approach and often completely change what I was going to do and sometimes even start a lesson without any handouts or visual materials (one of my classes doesn’t have a course book). Luckily, the “library” is in my classroom and during the lesson when something comes up I can just pick up a book and find something appropriate to illustrate what we are talking about. My lessons may not be completely dogme as I do normally use some kind of materials, generally because my students are more comfortable having something to look at.

It sounds like the lesson you have outlined here was a great success. The way you describe it makes me want to take this approach more often, I just fear that many of my learners will not take too kindly to it since they generally prefer a more stuctured lesson.

Do you ever have problems with your students rejecting this type of lesson?

Thanks for an interesting post

Michelle
By turklis1, May 26, 2010 @ 4:09 pm

Hi Michelle, I feel the same about most methodology books, but I think I can speak for most people reading here when I say Scott’s books (among some other author’s as well) are very accessible.

I’m the same as you. I was doing stuff for a long time and then I was able to get a hold of some methodology books and found out that much of what I was doing was validated, especially by people like Thornbury and Harmer. I was doing dogme long before I knew what it was. When I first came across dogme, there were definitely some things I didn’t agree with, but as I read up on it more, I found out that a large part of it was what I was already doing and what I believed in. It’s a nice feeling to know that what you are doing is the class is supported by some well-respected theory and people.

I think just picking things out from the library is perfect. I often do the same. The students will start getting into a topic and I’ll have the perfect article or video in mind. Either I’ll duck out of class for two minutes to print it off, get it on break, or march the whole class down to the computer lab to watch the video or find the article. It often works a treat and gives the learners something to build on or jump off of.

Honestly, outside maybe the first week or two, I never get complaints from learners. I think there are a lot of reasons for that 1) I talk with them about the methodology and we discuss it’s ups and downs 2) I pull out useful language and draw their attention to the language that emerged from the lesson so they can fully see and understand the unfolding plan and 3) I mix the style up and incorporate more structured lessons as called for by the class or topic. In the end learner’s actually begin to demand this style of teaching in my experience and the complaints come rolling in when they get a teacher with a more structured approach.
By Leslie Burns, May 28, 2010 @ 4:31 am

Heya, Nick

This is a really nice example of really good teaching! Responding to the students’ needs, getting them to “do stuff,” supporting them in that, getting them to reflect on their work, feeding in relevant language, etc. There’s a lot to learn from this post.

The way you’ve stopped to point out each “Decision” is fantastic. It really breaks it down, I think, for folks who might not be familiar with this approach – or who understand the principles, but aren’t sure where the “hinges” are in the lesson/process.

Nice one.

Hope you’re well, by the way! (Sounds like you’re back on the horse! )

Leslie
By adam, May 30, 2010 @ 2:13 pm

Being a bit pedantic, but is something this planned actually dogme at all? I know you decided what you were going to do next ‘on the spot’ at particular stages, but did you already have those stages in mind beforehand?

My main concern with dogme is that is basically just good, experienced teaching couched as ‘the new methodology’ and that you have all these possible stages and directions in which the lesson could go in your mind and you’re pulling from your experience pool, rather than truly going with the flow. In other words, I don’t believe dogme practitioners are ever truly practicing dogme, in the same way that dogme film makers have rarely if ever made a dogme film (I don’t consider shooting hundreds of hours of improvised film, taking it away and editing it to be that much different to regular film making).

Basically, could it have been done better by not adopting dogme principles?

I’d like to read more about how you throw in the more traditional lesson model from time to time and, in particular, how the students respond after having been exposed to both.
By turklis1, May 31, 2010 @ 5:09 pm

Sorry for the last reply Leslie, I’ve been a bit busy. I’m glad you liked the inclusion of the decisions. I thought that was rather clever myself Actually, we often talk about teaching being a series of decisions, but we rarely reflect on this in actual training nor talk about it in most methodology books. I thought it was a nice format to look at that and to either agree, disagree, or propose alternatives and alterations.

I’ve had to make some changes, but at least as far as the blog is concerned, I’m back up and running
By turklis1, May 31, 2010 @ 5:24 pm

Hi Adam, I would say it is being pedantic here. Would you then say “true” dogme is about pure randomness? Doesn’t seem to fly.

I would say that the way you described dogme is basically what you said, but that you are also going with the flow. Good teachers pull from their knowledge pools and then apply it to the class in ways most appropriate for the learners at any given time. For me, this is the definition of flow.

For me, two of the keys to dogme is community and meaningful communication. I really do feel that if this lesson had come in in an organized fashion, the students wouldn’t have been nearly as interested in it and therefore wouldn’t remember or retain nearly as much. And why try to artificially create meaningful communication with a well-planned lesson when the students are already doing it on their own? Sure, I could have done banking later, but the lesson would probably have been fairly similar and I would have had to manufacture interest and desire to communicate. Seems better to me to do it this way, even if things might be a bit rougher around the edges.

Another benefit is that students see what they need and then those gaps are provided for them. If the gaps are predicted, students don’t quite know what to do with the knowledge before they need it. Or, at least, it sinks in faster and stays longer when they respond to things that are immediately relevant.

On the traditional model, hmmm. Define the traditional model. If you just mean basically pre-planning a lesson and then carrying it out, I’d say students respond equally well to both. Often, engagement has more to do with the teacher than the method In my classes, I can’t say I see much difference in response and attitudes to dogme vs. pre-planned, but I do see huge differences between responses to my teaching and coursebook driven teaching. As my students often say, “we can do the coursebook at home.” It’s a good question though and I’ll start paying closer attention to reactions between the various styles of teaching I use in the class.
By adam, May 31, 2010 @ 7:55 pm

It did sound like a beyond awesome lesson and I’m not against dogme by any means, I just think it needs to be more clearly defined, for me at least. It’s rather like the way that a lot of lessons that a teacher may consider to be TBL are little more than modified PPP. Where’s the line between going with the flow and having it all there in your head waiting to come out in a way that you know will form a coherent and effective lesson?

If ELT dogme is, as is claimed, derived from the film genre’s ‘Dogme vow of chastity’* then a lot of what people think is dome really isn’t: it’s quite purely and simply good teaching borne of experience. That being the case, how should we go about bring new teachers to a point that they can appraoch their teaching in this way?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95
By turklis1, June 1, 2010 @ 11:32 am

As it’s generally argued that dogme is more an attitude than a methodology, I don’t think rigorous definitions are all that necessary. For me at least, dogme shouldn’t be dogmatic and many people have different ideas about what it is and how to incorporate it in the class. That’s why I titled the post “Dogme in the Mind of a Teacher” because it’s what dogme means to me. With the same attitude, other teachers may implement dogme in a different way. When I first came across dogme is seemed a bit too prescriptive, but after talking to people and I think after some time being exposed to lots of ideas, it’s really opened up and become quite flexible. That’s one thing I really like about it. I find TBL and especially PPP to be a bit too inflexible at times, which doesn’t reflect the real time needs of classrooms and language learning.

I definitely see your point about how a lack of strong definitions or boundaries might see it used incorrectly, but, as you pointed out with TBL, which does have a pretty strong set of guidelines, teachers still don’t use it “right.” I think we need to get beyond the right or wrong use of a methodology and simply see any given methodology as a possible useful tool to use in the classroom when it’s appropriate. Maybe what a teacher thinks is TBL isn’t, but if it’s working for the class, who really cares? If it’s not, of course then advice can be given on how some things could be improved and whatnot.

I would also agree that what’s called dogme is very often simply just good teaching, but by giving it a shape, a community, publications, etc. it gives this brand of good teaching legitimacy. It also provides a useful framework to work inside of. Before, maybe I taught this way and it worked really well, but it wasn’t PPP, so I would have failed my TEFL course or this or that school would reprimand me. Now, I think, I have a respectable set of guidelines to fall back on, but ones that remain quite open and aren’t as prescriptive as some other methodologies.

I truly believe that most learning occurs through doing. The only other thing I think is useful is some kind of mentor, and the online community helps me out with that much of the time. I think I’ve become a pretty good teacher trainer because I’ve done a lot of it now and have learned a great deal from my experiences. Had I sat through an MA on it or something I don’t think I would be anywhere near as good. I do often hear this idea that you have to be experienced to really take up dogme in the class, but I don’t believe it. If you start off teaching this way, you will get better and better at it. Teachers that come from years of slogging through backwater language schools often have a much harder time adapting to a more organic way of teaching in my experience.

What do you think about all this?