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I've just read an article that I really feel will be more of an influence on my future career in TEFL than even Michael Lewis's book-length argument (his The Lexical Approach) has ever been for me (and perhaps could ever be).* HEY, I'm being SERIOUS for once here - I'm actually feeling kind of excited again about teaching, which I haven't been in years!

Check out the article that I read if you don't believe me, and see for yourself (apologies to those of you for whom this may be old hat):
http://www.teaching-unplugged.com/dogmaarticle.html

Now, of course, Thornbury is being a bit extreme there (I say that because as you guys probably already know, I am a big fan of dictionaries and resources generally, and think any self-respecting teacher should be buried under piles of 'em even if they don't take it all into their new "Lacksitall Approach" classes - I think there definitely has to be at least one book involved somewhere, preferably one the teacher has "written"; "data-inspired", as I like to say, not "data-driven" or even "data-informed". I don't like classes where the teacher assumes everybody is at least a false beginner and is of the attitude, "What, me teach?! No, you tell me what you halfway know, come on, try, you can do it, we have all day!"), and he isn't quite clear about what the role of the imagination, roleplay etc would fit into his cell-like classroom set, but if your immediate reaction is to shreik "That won't make for good teaching or learning!", you are rather like the moviegoer who forgets that movies are, beneath all the high concepts and special effects, showing us some people somewhere talking about something (not that I think Dogme movies sound like "great cinema" and couldn't be made into something much greater with the addition of x,y and zee hee hee hee).

I guess I have the ambition of a Jerry Bruckheimer, but I will settle for so-so "actors" and making a "gritty" movie if the script is believably good.

* There is a section in The Lexical Approach (I don't have my copy with me here in Japan) where Lewis is discussing classrooms versus the real world, and defending (if I recall his argument correctly) "artifice". I was never totally satisfied with what he said, though - wasn't the line about not being surpirised that Hamlet gets (doesn't get?) up logically skewy somewhere? - and found it was one of many points in the book that I felt I'd need to return to again and again and again to sort it all out in my head. I reckon Thornbury makes more of an impact, quicker, and more clearly.

If anyone has a copy of The Lexical Approach handy I'd appreciate it if they could find the relevant passage and fill me in again on what Lewis said exactly.

fluffyhamster wrote:I've just read an article that I really feel will be more of an influence on my future career in TEFL than even Michael Lewis's book-length argument (his The Lexical Approach) has ever been for me (and perhaps could ever be).* HEY, I'm being SERIOUS for once here - I'm actually feeling kind of excited again about teaching, which I haven't been in years!

Check out the article that I read if you don't believe me, and see for yourself (apologies to those of you for whom this may be old hat):
http://www.teaching-unplugged.com/dogmaarticle.html

Now, of course, Thornbury is being a bit extreme there (I say that because as you guys probably already know, I am a big fan of dictionaries and resources generally, and think any self-respecting teacher should be buried under piles of 'em even if they don't take it all into their new "Lacksitall Approach" classes - I think there definitely has to be at least one book involved somewhere, preferably one the teacher has "written"; "data-inspired", as I like to say, not "data-driven" or even "data-informed"), and he isn't quite clear about what the role of the imagination, roleplay etc would fit into his cell-like classroom set, but if your immediate reaction is to shreik "That won't make for good teaching or learning!", you are rather like the moviegoer who forgets that movies are, beneath all the high concepts and special effects, showing us some people somewhere talking about something (not that I think Dogme movies sound like "great cinema" and couldn't be made into something much greater with the addition of x,y and zee hee hee hee).

I guess I have the ambition of a Jerry Bruckenheimer, but I will settle for so-so "actors" and making a "gritty" movie if the script is believably good.

* There is a section in The Lexical Approach (I don't have my copy with me here in Japan) where Lewis is discussing classrooms versus the real world, and defending (if I recall his argument correctly) "artifice". I was never totally satisfied with what he said, though - wasn't the line about not being surpirised that Hamlet gets (doesn't get?) up logically skewy somewhere? - and found it was one of many points in the book that I felt I'd need to return to again and again and again to sort it all out in my head. I reckon Thornbury makes more of an impact, quicker, and more clearly.

If anyone has a copy of The Lexical Approach handy I'd appreciate it if they could find the relevant passage and fill me in again on what Lewis said exactly.

Thorbury is not bad. I know the man personally.

Ooh hi metal, I was adding a little more then as you posted. Sorry.

Yeah, I know Thornbury (albeit only from his article there and a few of his books) isn't bad, and wasn't it obvious that I think he ROCKS!

Anyway, why did you have to tell us you know ST personally, metal?

Reminds me of the scene in Nixon where Hopkins (playing Nixon, engaged in the televised debate with Kennedy immediately prior to the election) rattles off a long list of the foreign dignitaries he has known, ending with, "...and the Shah of Iran." One of his aides behind the scenes exclaims, "Jesus, has he told them how many push-ups he can do yet?!"

Ah Dogme! I'm still a member of the group. Simon Barnes of the much-missed "We hate teaching English" newsgroup discovered it, and claimed it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, since you didn't even need to bother to make photocopies anymore.

Loads of us signed up under false names and posted innocent-looking questions, such as which of two approaches would be the best to get the sixteen-year old we fancied in the sack. Fun while it lasted!

Apart from

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dogme/ a shadow of what it was, the often incredibly puerile Guardian Talk thread, also moribund

http://educationtalk.guardian.co.uk/Web ... @.597a99df

was the only other place where dogme was discussed, or dissed if you prefer.

To try, and fail, to understand what dogme is, or was, you'd have to wade through 7800 posts on the dogme thread. There are also about 740 more posts, many in bad taste, in Guardian Talk.

I'm wary of delving further into the primary "Sources" (that detail the "published" course of Dogme's development, as well as its precursors and influences), let alone the discussion threads, lest Thornbury's main (and to me, striking) point/analogy gets twisted around, modified too much or lost totally for my liking.

Teachers who refuse to see the relevance of what Thornbury said are somehow satisfied with only paying lip-service to "communicative" teaching in doing their "eclectic thing", and are probably not addressing and almost certainly not encouraging entirely natural discourse in their classrooms (by "natural discourse" there, I mean not just as an object of study).

Don't say "What's natural about a classroom?"!!! That, I seem to recall, is where Lewis tripped up. Obviously, there are walls, chairs etc and some people come expecting to be "taught" something. What I am really interested in, however, is how a teacher tries (or even bothers) to expand on a "language point" enough, to the extent that they know how the "script" (schema, frame etc, call it what you will) generally structures itself in natural discourse to include that (and other, necessarily related) language points without obviously trying to do so; that is, this would seem a good way to break down the division between "talking about" (language knowledge) and "talking" (using that knowledge, seeing and hearing it naturally used).

The weak link in all this is, of course, the student, who, if they are a beginner, cannot be expected to assume a role (or to use language that will form valuable input); and even when they should know something, that doesn't mean they will be able to match the "necessary" item with this unfolding context (simply if for no other reason than they don't have the automatic recall/share the "assumptions" of higher-level speakers, even if the context in which they met or used the word before was very similar to now's).

So, some questions for you guys: how do/should teachers get around this problem? I myself am thinking, with beginners, "teach them something first, obviously!", but I hate RSA approaches and think that is where the rot begins; with the "intermediates" (those who know something but not enough i.e. most learners, although I'd argue many who pay good money DO, in fact, know enough to do okay in a conversation and could learn more, and quicker, from a book), I am "obviously" thinking, "Well, the teacher just jumps up and starts lecturing them or playing model dialogues, doesn't he? Then everyone has a second crack at it." But are there less obvious approaches (i.e. can a Dogme-like, non-explicit approach still be maintained if and when it isn't working)? There's a big difference between "echoing" what a student has said back at them with a minor correction unobtrusively inserted, and needing to give them whole phrases to get them on the right tracks functionally and/or discoursally.

I guess teachers who are serious about themselves "knowing the script" will work out what is easy and natural for people in a conversation to assume and do, versus what is harder, and will bear the brunt of the workload themselves. What has to be made explicit at some point, however, is that although everybody is having a nice old chat, what the teacher has been doing is something that the students themselves will have to also do at some point if they ever want to be able to start, maintain and manage conversations themselves; without this being made explicit, I doubt if much "noticing", noting etc will take place (not that I'd wish to raise the "affective filters" too much).

Actually, I followed your Guardian link, JTT, and quite enjoyed working out how to get from the very last post back to the first. I then read the first 30 or so posts, some are quite funny and a few are incisive (generally the more serious/pro-dogme ones), but yup the point started getting a bit lost when the issue of "imperialism" reared its ugly head for some reason.

I think to really "follow" a thread like that (when you haven't been involved in it) you've gotta make a list of all the characters and their quirks to stand any chance of understanding "Whodunnit" (i.e. caused a breakdown in communication).

Anyway, I think I saw a JTT on there too, JTT, so any chance of some thoughts on Dogme, or even a summary of your experiences of it? And is what I'm saying* and interested in an offshoot that developed from discussions of Dogme anywhere? If so, please direct me to it!

* We teachers need high-quality, input-enriched, purposeful scripts - not that conversation is always purposeful! - with the teacher's role written in large, giving the teacher the lion's share of the lines, and the student's contributions sketchy and ad-libbed; actual lines for them will generally be formed from corrections of their improvs, not supplied in advance...although I would also do explicit teaching/study too, perhaps one lesson studying, and the next talking using that kind of language generally, or vice-versa if students were always looking like they were retrieving stuff from overburdened memories (but they can look overburdened when their minds are a blank, with no useful expressions stored, too ). Creating the demand for linguistic goods seems better than merely distributing them "for free"; then again, conversations proceed more smoothly if one can say what one wants to!

Hi again guys, as you've all been aware of if not actively involved with the Dogme debate for far longer than I have (I got my first PC only this year, which kind of coincides with the date I became a member of Dave's ), I don't mind if you sit this one out.

I'd just like to add one more little something that I just thought of (whilst putting my dirty laundry into the washing machine ). Whilst there may be too many random, crappy materials floating in classrooms, getting in the way of "real learning" (through just talking?!), let's not forget that successful language learners in the past weren't strangers to materials (glossaries, dictionaries, the "odd" textbook etc) and would've probably walked out of your average Doggone lesson (to go back home and learn something themselves, especially if they weren't up to the job of conversing, as Woodcutter suspects might've been the case. How much higher the average level is must now be, seeing that all of our students can talk and say whatever, if only they would try! . See the recent "J-F Champollion" thread:)
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... php?t=2286

Our job as modern, "progressive" teachers is to find better ways of doing things (Lewis, again!), to do more of the work and thinking for the learner (or, at least lead them to the kind of answers - and sometimes, of course, questions - we think they might need to consider).

Stephen Jones wrote:Loads of us signed up under false names and posted innocent-looking questions, such as which of two approaches would be the best to get the sixteen-year old we fancied in the sack. Fun while it lasted!

Is that an innocent-looking question? Maybe...if you haven't ever bedded any of your more luscious sixteen-year old students (you dirty old man).

Or did you mean innocent-looking as in 'ultimately dismissive (of the worth of discussing the "issues" being discussed by other, more "serious" individuals), but in a peurile, indirect and non-confrontational way'?

Many would say if that was the "younger" you, then you haven't mellowed in your "old age" here on Dave's, SJ!:lol:

fluffyhamster wrote:Anyway, why did you have to tell us you know ST personally, metal?

Because often his theory and his practice are quite different.

metal56 wrote:

fluffyhamster wrote:Anyway, why did you have to tell us you know ST personally, metal?

Because often his theory and his practice are quite different.

Ah, go on, you said it 'cos you wanted me to gasp in admiration and barely-concealed envy at the exalted company you keep, metal, so that my face would go something like this: .



But seriously, you're making him sound like an interesting "man of contrasts" (aren't we all) now, metal. Do you just mean that he says things with his tongue often firmly in his cheek (that's what "supporters" have said on the Guardian website), that he is a "beard and sandals woman" trapped in a "traditional, reactionary EFL male teacher's" body (or vice versa?), or something like that?

If so, fair enough, I too have "dark thoughts" about "responsibility" and the like, but I still think he was making some very good points in that "seminal" article he wrote, and I was imagining his practice to have fallen more in line with his espoused theories.

So, what exactly do you mean here (and, I guess, when you said "Thornbury is not bad"), metal. Come on, type, h e l o v e s d r i l l i n g h a m s t e r s or whatever else is true about him. You can do it (type I mean), you owe us the truth, the real deal, the dirt, warts and all. Crucify the guy for his contradictions.

I read a bit of the Guardian discussions after reading an article written by Metal's best mate a while back - it seemed people were confusing this Dogme stuff with marijuana most of the time.

Dogme sounds like what expertly executed Avalon/Callan method teaching tries to do in the later stages. Shoot fast, shoot natural.

Again, beware!

I see that Thornbury's been a busy boy:
http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/ ... 0521891167