Monday 14 October 2013

go with the flow

The techniques of the DOGME school from Scott Thornbury are very attractive, because it's all about the student:

Teaching should be done using only the resources that teachers and students bring to the classroom - i.e. themselves - and whatever happens to be in the classroom.
A Dogma for EFL

Dogme language teaching is considered to be both a methodology and a movement.[1] Dogme is a communicative approach to language teaching that encourages teaching without published textbooks and focuses instead on conversational communication among learners and teacher. It has its roots in an article by the language education author, Scott Thornbury.[2] 
Dogme language teaching - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But what about listening to the students and see where they'd like the lesson to go?

Example One:
> I suggested to my class that, in order to get to know each other, they should write down any 'not too boring' getting-to-know-you questions (What was the last book you read which you really enjoyed? How long have you been learning English) and put them into a box. Students would then pull out a question and answer it (and it could be one of their own).
> I asked the students if they wanted to do this in pairs (to 'maximize' speaking opportunities) or to do the exercise as a full class (to listen to everyone's answers and to contribute to the to-and-fro of discussion) - and the students all voted for the full class practice - their curiosity proving more powerful. We took 90 minutes to do that - and the conversation flowed.

Example Two:
> I wanted to practice last week's vocabulary - which I had put onto bits of paper (in the form of words or phrases that come up in class) and then put them into a box for 'recycling' later.
> So, I asked the students what they'd like to do with the pieces of paper. One student suggested a different take on what I've done before - which is that students working in pairs or threes each take 2 or 3 pieces from the box and then together as a group construct a story.
> This time, we each (including me the teacher) took one piece of vocab from the box only - then took it in turns to tell a story, each following on from the other and having to keep to the story line of the person before. When it came to each person's turn, we took a new piece from the box. We took 90 minutes to do that - and time flew.
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