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?

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

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.

I’ve had to make some changes, but at least as far as the blog is concerned, I’m back up and running

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.

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

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.

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

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