Dogme: Dogme Teaching Unplugged?


Why use a coursebook?: Why use a coursebook? Proponents of textbooks would say … It provides a systematic approach – language and skills are presented in a logically graded way, practice activities are provided, items are later recycled and consolidated etc etc It provides texts for reading and listening which the T. might have difficulty acquiring It’s useful for inexperienced teachers who may not who how to make the decisions necessary to structure and design a syllabus and course It saves the teacher time Ss expect to have a text book It provides Ss with a record of what they’ve done which they can use for revision


And then along came Dogme …: And then along came Dogme … Thornbury, A Dogma for EFL, IATEFL Issues 153 Feb/March 2000 (Available at : http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/sources.htm) “…..EFL teaching has never been so copiously resourced. Along with the quantity (I hesitate to use the word variety) of coursebooks in print, there is an embarrassment of complementary riches in the form of videos, CD-ROMs, photocopiable resource packs, pull-out word lists, and even web-sites, not to mention the standard workbook, teacher's book, and classroom and home study cassettes. Then there is the vast battery of supplementary materials available, as well as the authentic material easily downloadable from the Internet or illegally photocopied from more conventional sources. There are the best-selling self-study grammar books, personal vocabulary organisers, phrasal verb dictionaries, concordancing software packages - you name it. But where is the story? Where is the inner life of the student in all this? Where is real communication? More often as not, it is buried under an avalanche of photocopies, visual aids, transparencies, MTV clips and cuisennaire rods. Somewhere in there we lost the plot.”


Dogme would argue …: Dogme would argue … “… there is not a lot of research evidence to suggest that grammar mcnuggets are internalised in the order and at the pace they are delivered. Coursebook syllabuses have about as much relation to learning processes as the night sky does to whether you will be healthy, wealthy or wise. Yet coursebook writers make claims that no experienced teacher could possibly take seriously, such as: "By the end of Level 1, students will have learnt to express themselves simply but correctly in the present, past and future…" (4) And pigs will fly.” Thornbury, The Roaring in the Chimney, Modern English Teacher, Vol 10/3, July 2001. Available at http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/sources.htm


Dogme would argue …: Dogme would argue … “If …you take the view that language is an emergent phenomenon, and that the learning of it is a jointly constructed and socially motivated process, contingent on the concerns, interests, desires, and needs of the user, then the argument for coursebooks starts to look a bit thin. Moreover, if you take the view that the teacher's role in language learning is to scaffold these emergent processes, and that the teacher's authority derives from her ability to manage and facilitate the social processes out of which - and for which - language develops, then the coursebook looks positively redundant.” Thornbury, 2001 op cit


Dogme would argue …: Dogme would argue … Coursebook texts are “dead on the page” Coursebook speaking activities are “…in actual fact passivities, serving merely to put words into their mouths rather than as vehicles for the communication of their own meanings.” Students prefer (and learn more from) lessons based on real communication (all quotesThornbury 2001 op cit)


Principles of Dogme: Principles of Dogme 1. Teaching should be done using only the resources that teachers and students bring to the classroom 2. No recorded listening material should be introduced into the classroom 3. The teacher must sit down at all times that the students are seated 4. All the teacher's questions must be "real" questions not "display" questions 5. Slavish adherence to a method is unacceptable. 6. A pre-planned syllabus of pre-selected and graded grammar items is forbidden. Any grammar that is the focus of instruction should emerge from the lesson content, not dictate it. 7. Topics that are generated by the students themselves must be given priority over any other input. 8. Grading of students into different levels is disallowed 9. The criteria and adminstration of any testing procedures must be negotiated with the learners. 10. Teachers themselves will be evaluated according to only one criterion: that they are not boring. Condensed from : Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, It’s for Teachers Feb 2001(Available at : http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/sources.htm


Some objections …: Some objections … Isn’t this just winging it? No. Dogme probably means the teacher is working harder than before – but in the classroom, not in the staff room cutting and pasting.Teacher as manager and facilitator Won’t it be unsystematic? Not necessarily. Concept of the A-posteriori syllabus But I wouldn’t know what to do. Dogme provides various activity types which serve as a framework. See eg Meddings and Thornbury Using the Raw Materials at http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/MET1rawmaterials.htm. See also the resources page of the website