Dogme ELT: Teaching Unplugged 

i think he wrote Mondays is a good idea

I’m afraid I can’t recall Bob what I wrote as it’s going back around eight years. Apologies but Claudia’s guess is quite a good one.

Ha I've noticed Brian Gunn in the ELT online world before

Hi Begmurad. Thank you for the comment. I was fortunate to have two observers in the classroom at the time. For me to assess whether the students have learnt anything afterwards is to plan a lesson to review any emergent language. I also had the observers confirm that the lesson was also more immediate for the learners and they found more educational. It also informed me where I wanted to focus with my dissertation. With young learners, I have found that it can be used much not so much with adult learners. One time, I prepared a really engaging activity for the young 10 year old kids I was teaching and when I got in the classroom, they had these sea animal trump cards and I ditched the lesson and we focused on comparatives and superlatives: faster/fastest, etc. We then looked at question tags. They learnt a lot more in 60 minutes than they did in 6 weeks. It was interesting and they were highly engaged throughout. I think you should try it out and remember not to focus on material too much. Shall I do another video talking about planning for a Dogme ELT lesson, things to consider, etc? Would this be useful?

I understood what you ment, thank you a lot for responding. If you will have a chance i think it would be a good idea for the improvement of the education.

Hey, if you could do a video on DOGME preparation and follow-up work or activities (for example as related to this video) it would lovely!

That is a wonderful idea. I shall have a think about it and will definitely discuss about how else you could exploit a conversation driven, emergent language environment as a language teacher with some ideas as what else you could do with follow up activities or worksheets.

Just wanted to add to the chorus of appreciation of this video. It's excellent and I'd love to see more in this vein! :)

Geordioca During the lesson, I just played devil's advocate and put up various sentences to prompt a debate. It was an interesting experience. For one-on-one lessons, it requires a little more preparation and development. You could liaise with the student over what they would like to cover during the lesson, the vocabulary that they wish to develop and also you could react to the discussion between the learner and yourself. Keep on practising and you will do well.

Ok! Thanks for responding. I've tried a few Dogme style lessons (I can't say that they have been purely Dogme, but they were more Dogme than Communicative!) and my students have enjoyed them but I do have to be a lot more prepared to deal with language produced. It certainly keeps me on my toes!

You can find out a bit more about my Dogme ELT thesis which I wrote up as part of action research on my website: eltexperiences.com/2012/03/03/dogme-elt-dissertation-university-of-sussex/ - just click the link to download a copy.

Thank you!

ELT Experiences Hi Martin - the link to your thesis doesn't work! Just tried it, no joy. Another link perhaps?

Thanks for the comment. The more practise you can get, the easier it becomes.

+Fiona Perry Also do you know of any other samples?

The feedback which I received from this lesson was very positive. In fact I passed the course with Merit. It was useful for all observers and it was incredibly intensive. I found the feedback process was invaluable. The trainer was very sympathetic and I had a lot of resources available in case things didn't go as planned. In fact, prior to the lesson I had to write a lesson plan but for a Dogme ELT approach it was a bit difficult predicting what would be covered. I suggested that in a future Dogme ELT lesson, a lesson plan could be written after the lesson to see what was planned and what was covered in the end. That received a few nods of interest. Unfortunately, I don't know of any other sample lessons but I am planning to record some lessons in the future and put them together with a focus (classroom management, games, listening lesson, etc.). Hope that helps.

Awesome. Good luck and thanks for the reply!

It was very free for students to wander around and share their opinions and support each other. I found it quite intense listening to student output, making a note of it and then using to scaffold language. I’m unsure if I ended up drilling language but I did elicit key language in the end. Thanks for your comment. 🙏

Gethyn Rees Some examples: 1. Lady Gaga is better than Justin Bieber. 2. Smoking is better than drinking. etc I put up debatable sentences on the whiteboard and then just monitored during the lesson and provided feedback during at the end.

Ok, thanks!

Howdy - I tend to use this approach with one-to-one classes a lot actually. Never really had seen it done in a group though. I usually have the individual student think of other points of view that may differ from his/her and ask them to justify why this person might think differently to him/her. Basically: Start the class with an engaging and provocative student-centered/controlled speaking activity Use his/her production for after-the-fact correction again if possible the student corrects and you drill these; also expand vocabulary as you see fit at this point. Have the student take note of these items and if they have any questions to address them at this time. Finally - another speaking activity or debate in which you ask the student to focus on any of the items you pointed out (I have even redone the first task to give them a chance to redo but using better or correct language. Hope this helps - not a perfect recipe but it has worked for me.

Suhail Al-Taha the students were upper intermediate. I’ve refined a more flexible approach with lower levels.

@@ELTExperiences I'm not sure if there is a way to "search" the comments so forgive me if I am being redundant. How have you done this with lower levels - I find this approach useful for students who are pre-intermediate and above but lower levels I have struggled to adopt this in my teaching.

@@dkwteacher I have the same question.