background preloader

On Teaching Unplugged

Facebook Twitter

Dealing with emerging language « languagemoments. One of the many bits of Dogme terminology that perplexed me in the first year of teaching was exactly this, ‘dealing with emerging language’.

Dealing with emerging language « languagemoments

I mean, if you consider that dealing with a problem generally means finding a solution to it, the whole idea seems kind of counter-intuitive if you ask me. Emerging language isn’t a problem, is it? This issue perplexed a number of my colleagues on DELTA during the experimental practice. Keen on trying Dogme, there was some doubt about the language focus even if there was great success in facilitating learner-centred, conversation driven lessons. Interview with Luke Meddings at IATEFL 2011. DOGMEVOLUTION - the unplugged index. Making Student-Centred Dogme Student-Friendly. So it seems that some students have been complaining about their teachers not using the assigned coursebook and the discussion about whether the use of the coursebook should be encouraged/enforced has yet again risen.

Making Student-Centred Dogme Student-Friendly

U knew Dogme before u knew Dogme. “Learning is finding out what you already know.

U knew Dogme before u knew Dogme

Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers” – Richard Bach, Illusions. Reservoir Dogme. Blog Archive » The Unplugged Conference, Barcelona. “Were you there for the first one?”

Blog Archive » The Unplugged Conference, Barcelona

People may well ask in years to come, when the Unplugged Conference has become a regular feature on the ELT conference scene, perhaps even the go-to event of the calendar. Even before I’d touched down in the city where I trained as a teacher and spent the early years of my career, I had a sense that we might be in for something special. Organised by the IATEFL Teacher Development Special Interest Group (TDSIG) and sponsored and hosted by OxfordTEFL, we would start by observing a lesson using real learners of English from the local community, led by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings, authors of the award-winning Teaching Unplugged.

Exploding board pens and notes from an unplugged afternoon — www.mikejharrison.com. I really, really, hate board pens.

Exploding board pens and notes from an unplugged afternoon — www.mikejharrison.com

O is for Open Space. The 8th “vow of Dogme ELT chastity” proclaims: Grading of students into different levels is disallowed: students should be free to join the class that they feel most comfortable in, whether for social reasons, or for reasons of mutual intelligibility, or both.

O is for Open Space

As in other forms of human social interaction, diversity should be accommodated, even welcomed, but not proscribed. (Thornbury, 2001) Emergent Syllabus – a syllabus for dialogic language learning. The challenge A student recently expressed that he wanted greater structure for his Spanish lessons and also wanted to have a clearer sense of what he would be learning when.

Emergent Syllabus – a syllabus for dialogic language learning

He said that he wanted a textbook and practice exercises. I am reluctant to head too far down the coursebook path for various reasons such as the likely greater focus on grammatical forms than on communicative competencies, the lack of individualization (and therefore relevance to students’ lives) and the limited amount of textbook-like resources for Spanish that are available online. The solution To address the student’s concerns, I have developed a kind of syllabus that gives greater structure to the classes and yet is naturally student focused. Teaching Unplugged With A Student Interaction Whiteboard. Posted by Shelly Terrell on Saturday, October 23rd 2010 Jason Renshaw, @EnglishRaven, has challenged educators to complete several “teaching unplugged” tasks.

Teaching Unplugged With A Student Interaction Whiteboard

This refers to the Dogme theory of teaching that supports teaching language in a way that is conversation driven, materials light, and dependent upon emergent language. The power of conversation. S. is a creative and passionate teacher.

The power of conversation

Listening to her team planning, I was surprised that she dismissed the idea of her students using drama to practice second language skills. She was equally unenthusiastic about allowing a group of learners to apply their skills through tech tools, while she worked with those who needed more time and attention. It seems that she likes to have all the kids with her, preferably doing the same task, so that she is in control of the learning. We had a great conversation today about her own two children. She told me that one catches on quickly and is a thinker, while the other is more of an artist, very creative and easily distracted. We talked about scaffolding independent learning experiences. Oh, jazz up that teaching, man! « Authentic Teaching. There’s so much we can learn about teaching simply by looking outside of the teaching world.

Oh, jazz up that teaching, man! « Authentic Teaching

A few minutes ago I was thinking about an orchestra and I started to picture it as a classroom. Where is the teacher? Hmm… the teacher must be the maestro, the conductor. I can explain everything... David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0 posted this morning about photographs - "the fundamental intermediary for context in language teaching" as he writes. While I found myself agreeing totally, I also realised that my main use of photos is entirely different, and the photos I tend to use are also different. Which is one of the joys of a humanistic job, don't you think? No wrong solutions, and lots of right ones. My own photo library - built slowly from magazine cutouts - has a selection of the lexical sets David mentions and includes in his post. However the ones I come back to again and again are all very similar: all cryptic or incomplete, and almost all captured rather than posed.

NB These were cut from magazines, so are not in the public domain. Here's one activity you can use with teens upwards and lower-int upwards. I Can Explain Everything 1. Dogme: Free ESL Materials.com. Dogme Games - Just unplug and play! A couple of weeks ago, games in the language classroom was the topic for ELTchat (see the transcript here) and, as usual, the chat was full of fantastic ideas. One that I shared is something I like to do every so often to give the kids a light lessons - I ask them what classroom games they know and like (can be from English or any other lesson), ask them to explain the how it is played and any special rules to me and cover the language they need to play in English before letting them choose one of the ideas. Doesn’t she know it’s the taking part that counts? I’ve done this with different classes over the last few years but never considered it as a ‘dogme’ style lesson until I got involved in all the recent discussion on Twitter and in the blogosphere about it.

However, now I see that it kind of is an unplugged approach as we share knowledge, focus and expand on emergent language necessary and have a very much student-driven lesson. 1. 2. 3. 4. My Take on the Unplugged/Dogme/Coursebook Debate. After a week or so reading some very interesting posts detailing various people’s stances on the ongoing discussion about the usefulness of coursebooks, the merits of an unplugged/dogme approach (assuming those terms can be used interchangeably) and everything in between, I thought I’d pitch in my two pence with some reflections on what I’ve taken from it all.

Of course, this discussion has been going on for much longer (and will probably continue for a while yet!) But recent posts on the blogosphere have really got me thinking. Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom. If this is your first time here, then read the Teacher's Guide to Using These PagesIf you can think of a good question for any list, please send it to us. Home | Articles | Lessons | Techniques | Questions | Games | Jokes | Things for Teachers | Links | Activities for ESL Students Would you like to help?

If you can think of a good question for any list, please send it to us. If you would like to suggest another topic, please send it and a set of questions to begin the topic. The Road to Teaching Unplugged - Ongoing Archive. Learning Twigs adventures in educational technology and design by learning The Road to Teaching Unplugged - Ongoing Archive This page is set up to provide an accessible ongoing archive of posts and resources I've gathered on this blog relevant to the notion of teaching unplugged (click here for the best summary of what is meant by "teaching unplugged"!).

(Ongoing): Wizard English Grids - a variety of activities from a simple grid, most of which supplement or facilitate unplugged teaching techniques Jan 2011: Teacher as parrot or pivot? Teacher Training Unplugged: simplifying initial language teacher education - Anthony Gaughan & Izzy Orde. Flipcammed: An unplugged lesson with beginner level students. A fairly representative illustration of the extensive and sophisticated physical tools required in an unplugged language classroom... :-)