Development - The Beauty of Writing | Delta Publishing

The Beauty of Writing

Monday 5 October 2009

I’m doing something radical. Instead of writing this blog entry on my PC, in fact before even turning on my PC, I’ve reached for a decent pen and a piece of pristine paper – sourced, inevitably, from my printer.

This is partly thanks to the inspiration of Umberto Eco, inventor of ecology and author of The Name of the Rose (one of the above is true). Writing in the Guardian, he laments the decline in handwriting among Italian children, fifty per cent of whom can apparently write only in ‘laboured capital letters’. Perhaps their Caps Lock is on – ha! ha… even our jokes are in keyboard.

Rather than taking a swipe at computers and mobiles, Eco dates this decline to the invention of the humble ballpoint pen: humble, but also messy and soulless, in his view. Though he hasn’t seen my efforts with a fountain pen this morning.

He isn’t having a go at text speak, either – no linguistic conservationist, he draws amused parallels between contemporary usage and previous developments in spelling.

What he does lament is the loss of time that mechanical writing entails: the time spent considering what is to be said before it is written down.

We can easily feel under pressure of time in the classroom, especially if we have one eye on the learners and one on the lesson plan. Moments that can provide a change of pace and an injection of calm are often lost because technology allows this, but they can be reclaimed.

For example, the next time you want to look at a text with your class, instead of handing out a photocopy or displaying a prepared slide, write it on the board for them to copy down. The copying process – which begins as they start to read what you are writing – is not time wasted, but a process of engagement with the text.

Would this take too long? Think about using a shorter text. Slow down, and cut down. Better still, use text generated by the learners. There are many examples of activities that use learner-generated texts in Teaching Unplugged, and pen and paper is the dominant technology in the book. (Pace Professor Eco, there is no suggestion that fountain pens are preferable. Ballpoints and pencils are just as good, the messier and more impermanent the better.)

What else do we lose in the translation of thought to fingertips and the baleful blink of the cursor? We lose a little in personality. Music fans and audiophiles talk about ‘presence’ in recordings – a sense of closeness to the performer that can be enhanced by effective microphone placement.

Writing and re-writing in our own hand and frequently exchanging these drafts in class is one way in which presence and personality can be restored to the classroom.

Teaching Unplugged has no bone to pick with technology as such: we say that ‘technology should not be avoided in principle … It is more that it should be used actively.’

But some of the old ways still work well and deserve to be cherished. I will close by joining to Umberto Eco’s the voice of Jonathan Richman, who sang in 1972 (accompanied by the electric guitar that was still relatively new technology then, and by his Modern Lovers): ‘I still love the old world.’

Now, I’d better power up the PC…

. . . . .

References

The Lost Art of handwriting by Umberto Eco, the Guardian, 21.09.09

Old World by Jonathan Richman, from The Modern Lovers, by the Modern Lovers, 1976, Beserkley Records. The track was recorded in 1972.

. . . . .

Next week: Speed up, slow down – conflicting messages in ELT.

Luke Meddings

5 October 2009 16:35

Lindsay, that column (if we’re thinking of the same one, in which case thanks and are the new GU editors reading) was fashioned from pieces of sustainable timber and then – only then – reworked into prose.

Doctors, meanwhile, have to spend at least a year learning how to write badly. Many promising medical students have been failed for having decent handwriting.

No, I think good writing always conveys personality, but it’s easy to forget how effective old technology can be. And the fact that one context – even the broader culture – demands the use of mechanical writing much of the time doesn’t mean that the classroom should always follow.

Lindsay Clandfield

5 October 2009 16:12

Thanks for this interesting and reflective post, Luke. The point about handwriting came up at the IATEFL Hungary conference too in an Open Forum. And yet, even before the ever-present ubiquitous computer I remember my fellow classmates (not to mention teachers, and doctors – especially doctors) having awful handwriting.

But slowing down to write things is a good idea. However, I would disagree that we lose a little of our personality on a typed page or computer screen. There once used to be a great column in the Guardian Weekly written on ELT matters which really showed the author’s personality (and which provoked lots of discussion and arguments online and off). I presume it was typed first. Pity it is no longer there, I wonder where it got to?

Bill Templer

6 October 2009 18:05

What Luke says about writing unplugged is common pedagogy in all Waldorf schools,where learners up into their early teens write their own ‘main lesson books,’ handwritten, with drawings, other art work, copied and self-written poems, Lots of other unplugged multimedia in ensemble: http://tinyurl.com/ybjvtmv Computer work isn’t introduced until late up the ladder in Waldorf pedagogy.

We can explore Waldorf practice for unplugged multimodal aesthetically creative, holistic learning. This fall the number of independent Waldorf schools, mostly in rich economies, with privileged kids, will reach 1,000.

But being totally unresourced and unplugged by poverty is the name of the teaching game in most parts of the planet, the ‘social majorities.’ Where writing the book on the blackboard is the daily regimen. In many schools in Laos, the teacher has the only book, Kids spend their time copying, maybe learning by rote. Those at the back maybe can’t see to copy.

Unplugged teaching for privileged learners in rich economies sure is a different tale from grassroots situation in the least ‘developed’ countries. We all need to shed some of our Eurocentric blinders. One way is to actually learn how to downshift and unplug from the daily realities teachers and learners face in LDCs, like average villages in Nepal.

Imagine the Peace Corps in Cambodia bringing back traditional Khmer pedagogies to try in Kansas, relying much more on oral listening than text reading — instead of the other way round. I’m very much for extensive reading, but maybe extensive direct listening is a more sustainable alternative, borrowing from what folklorists call the ‘fireside media.’ Millions and millions of learners have never seen a graded reader, and can’t afford more than a couple.

THESIS: realworld working-class and rural literacies need more experimenting with plugless grassroots pedagogies, for learner equity, sustainable literacy, Maybe with a touch of Waldorf, for the low-energy future all of the planet is moving toward. –Bill

Gavin Dudeney

6 October 2009 18:28

Luke,

You say “we say that ‘technology should not be avoided in principle – It is more that it should be used actively.’

Yet it’s exactly the ‘principled’ non-use of technology that Scott was arguing for recently on the British Council Teaching English site and on the SEETA Forum. In recent days the word has changed from ‘principled’ to ‘considered’ but I’d still like to know exactly what the dogme party line is on technology.

Best,

Gavin

Karenne Sylvester

6 October 2009 18:50

Oh good lord, let’s take away even more time from speaking skills then.

Time to write on board, time to copy down? Hmmm… why? And where then the emergent language? This argument’s rather flawed.

Because whether writing on keyboard or writing on paper if you’re a reflective writer you will reflect and if you’re a spontaneous writer, you won’t.

Nothing to do with the tool at hand.

Luke Meddings

6 October 2009 21:08

First Karenne’s query. I referred to a change of pace, a moment of calm: not ages spent writing on the board and copying down. How to achieve this balance? Use shorter texts. A different technology implies a different methodology, they are linked.
So, for example, take the first paragraph of a current news story and write it on the board. Then have the learners imagine the gist of the continuation and compare it with what happens next in the original. Equally well, dictate an anecdote (a small-scale use of fireside media, Bill?) and have the learners dictate it back so that the first version of a text that goes onto the board is one created by the class.
Plenty of opportunity for speaking, even in activities where a shared, written text is a central to the flow.

Now for Bill’s posting – thanks for the link to Christopherus. I’m always puzzled by the implication that unplugged teaching is a rich man’s plaything (in fact I’m not sure if you are implying that, but others have*), and I’m never sure if direct comparison with teaching environments where there is no guarantee of electricity to unplug from are meant to validate or invalidate our arguments. After all, many of the reference points for dogme ELT are from those very environments. I would take from your post the idea that unplugged approaches can and should inform, sustain and ultimately validate one another.
*Was anyone reading this present at the presentation Scott and myself gave at IATEFL in April – where a question at the end was on just these lines: a comment to the effect that everyone teaches like this in parts of India anyway. Some people I spoke to afterwards felt this had been a supportive comment, others that it had been a critical one. I still don’t know!

Bill Templer

8 October 2009 15:30

Thanks, Luke. My experience in SE Asia is that virtually no local teachers and teacher trainers ever heard about dogme. In Laos, Thai,and, Malaysia, or Nepal, where I have ties to NELTA. Dogme seems natural for Nepal in most village teaching..

Some teachers in India certainly are aware, and the comment at IATEFL was probaby positive. In Malaysia and other countries, prescribed syllabi that must be covered leave little room for experimentation in state schools. That’s a major constraint that really suffocates innovation. I’m not on dogme list and can’t gauge the input from grassroots global south there.Where I do have exp., most teachers in Laos, Nepal and other LDCs have no access to Internet, nada.
–Bill (U Malaya)

Nick Jaworski

9 October 2009 08:35

I’m siding with Karenne on the questionable nature of taking more time to copy a text down although I think you have some very good suggestions in your response of ways to make this more useful. My students in Turkey copied down thousands of lines of text in their English classes at school. Yet, when they come to my English class, they barely know a word of English. While the teacher might interested in the beauty of words and the purity of writing by hand, the students are bored. I know they don’t engage with the text while writing it, because if I ask them questions, they frantically start looking for answers in it. Students engaging with a text is something we could hope for in a class, but rarely see. In today’s world, students are much more likely to engage with music or video. I don’t think getting back to the basics is helping any here.

There are many aspects of dogme that I agree with and use in my class. There’s a lot to be said for it. But, I have problems with it as well and one of them is the spirit of this post. I think Gavin Dudeney mentioned in his Warcraft post (http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=327) the Zen-like desire to get back to some kind of mythical “pure teaching.” Posts like this one bring that to mind. The idea of slowing things down in the classroom from time to time is a good one, but it’s often the philosophy that lies behind posts like this I find problematic.

I like stories and one is appropriate here. Back in university when I was studying religion, I spent a year studying Buddhism. I quickly got sick of the fact that there never was an answer to anything. The journey was always more important than the destination. I moved over to Western religion and met a professor with similar sentiments. As a child of the 60′s he decided he wanted to become a Buddhist monk. He traveled to Tibet and got accepted into a monastery. For a month he endured hours of pure meditation and eating only vegetables, all the while freezing in a thin saffron robe. Finally, fed up, he approached one of the monks and said, “we’re freezing here, we need some warmer clothes.” The monk held up a finger and moved into the snow. He sat down and began to meditate. All around the monk, the snow began to melt in an ever widening circle and when my professor went to touch his bald head it was extremely hot. The monk stood up as if to say, “See, it’s all in your mind.” My professor responded, “Well, if you can do that, why don’t you heat the damn place up!?” He left the monastery the next week.

Two points can be gleaned from this story. The first is that the path to enlightenment is taken by only a very few. Most of us are not prone to sit around and meditate all day for the benefit of our souls or minds. The second is that practicality has many benefits over spiritual dogmatism. Our students are in our class for practical reasons; they want a chance at a good job, they want to travel, they deal with foreign clients, etc. They only want to learn English, the end result is much more important than the path taken. They have no desire to meditate on a text or sit and reflect by sticking to pen and paper. They want the teacher to engage them and get them to the goal by the fastest route.

Don’t be a monk disconnected from your students’ real world interests and concerns. Don’t reject the world you live in. Our classrooms are not monasteries high on mountains disconnected from the rest of the world. Don’t let spiritual ideals cloud your ability to engage with and help your students like happened to my professor. Live in the world with your students and connect with them on their level. Make the language come alive by making it interesting and meaningful, not by contemplating the process of writing.

I’ll end with a Zen koan:

How do we teach English without teaching English?

Scott

9 October 2009 08:50

An anecdote: This week I gave two workshops in an international school in the Swiss Alps. Ostensibly about grammar teaching, including the use of short texts, they were also supposed to be demonstrations of “unplugged” teaching. There was no projector nor OHP in the room (although I could have ordered the former if I’d wished). As part of a sequence of activities involving short texts, I had an example of a piece of student writing that I wanted to share. Rather than photocopy it, I decided simply to read it aloud. Because the only copy I had was on my laptop (and I didn’t really want to bring that in just to read one text) I copied it out by hand the night before. This is a text I have used a lot: it’s on various ppt presentations and even predates the powerpoint era, in the form of an OHP transparency. However, it was only when I came to copy it out by hand that I discovered features of it that I had never noticed before, e.g. that the student uses the rather sophisticated “not only … but also…” formula extremely effectively. Copying it out by hand: great idea!
I also used dictogloss in this presentation to introduce a short text. Again, a text I have used a lot. But every time I do, the workshop participants seem to find new things to say about it. (Just words written on paper). We got it up on the board (more copying) and then did a disappearing story out of it (Mario Rinvolucri’s idea), successively erasing one word, or two, or three adjacent words, while still retaining coherence.

Both workshops lasted 90 minutes, and engaged all four skills, including reading and writing. But the only paper that was brought into the room was that which the participants brought with them, and the only technology the light bulbs.

Diarmuid

9 October 2009 14:15

Nick’s story seems to fall prey to some common misconceptions that beset dogme. Firstly, there is an assumption that dogme is a deviation from the norm; secondly, that it is ideologically-based; thirdly, that it is depriving students of something better (a quicker way to the product).

Dogme is not a deviation from the norm – and in fact has been criticised (I think you’ll find, Luke) precisely because of that. Dogme is the norm for thousands -millions?- of teachers in both wealthy countries and poorer countries.

Secondly, dogme is not ideologically based – although many people who feel attracted to dogme may have ideological reasons for this. Dogme says that it just is not necessary to supplement language learning with lots of technological extras. Blogs, CD-ROMs, DVDs etc have not been proven to improve the chances of language acquisition. In fact, they may have a deleterious effect. We do know that people learn language through using it/needing to use it. We know that people often use language to talk about themselves, their thoughts and their feelings. We know that they need to use language in order to mediate their realities. Therefore, dogme is a pedagogy of efficiency rather than a pedagogy of ideology.

Thirdly, dogme is not depriving students of any necessity. Unless the argument that technologically-supported teaching is superior to technologicaly-lite teaching, has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, it strikes me that its advancement is purely ideologically-based.

Luke Meddings

9 October 2009 15:51

Thanks, Bill, for the update from from grassroots global south.

Thanks Scott also for the description of the workshops with its focus on noticing.

Nick, I am rather less monastic than you might imagine. Teaching Unplugged is full of practical suggestions and very far from being a path to enlightenment.

I did read Gavin’s lengthy parable, which seems to be based on a similar misapprehension. If I (as someone who fits the bill of his rather pointed characterisation in some respects) walked into a class like that, I would of course explore the learners’ motivations and interests, as would anyone who had actually read, and was persuaded by, the arguments in our book. ‘Jorge’s Wedding’ is one activity in the book that outlines how you can go with the flow in terms of allowing the immediate interests of the people in the room to become the substance of the lesson.

Yes, we talk about ‘another way of teaching’. But under this very heading on page 21 of our book we suggest three ways in which to achieve this: through lessons that are conversation-driven, materials-light and focused on emergent language. There is nothing mystical about that, nor in any of the bullet points that follow, whose recommendations include:
- taking advantage of conversation as it occurs incidentally
- orienting lessons to the learmers’ needs and interests
- foregrounding the learners’ topics and texts
- using learner language to inform lesson and course planning

A hammer to crack a nut, perhaps, but Gavin’s post, to which you have drawn our attention, draws a cartoon so extreme in its distortions of dogme that it might easily be characterised, without clear evidence to the contrary, as malicious. And I am not so enlightened as to be unwilling to stand up for myself.

Nick Jaworski

9 October 2009 19:39

Thanks for the reply Luke. Like I said, there are elements of dogme that I really like and that I use constantly in my class, notably the ones you bullet pointed.

However, I don’t know if you or anyone else out there agrees with me, but there does seem to be a very dogmatic mindset to many of the people on the net who support dogme. I think dogme has a lot to offer, but these posts where the method comes across as almost spiritual are best left aside. I guess what I would like to see is more of the practical side of dogme like you offered in your replies to Karenne’s and my post.

I like the Buddhist theme in my response because it seemed to fit the nature of your post, but really my point is the focus should be the students and how best to help them learn, not the value of an attitude, approach, or methodology in and of itself.

Perhaps the problem is not so much with dogme, but with the ELT community drawing lines and digging in trenches. I wonder if there isn’t a lot of distortion occurring on both sides. Sometimes I feel like people are becoming more concerned with the actual method than they are about its practical implications for our students.

I guess I just see this as a worrying trend, but I also think I can read too much into a simple blog post . I support much of what you’re trying to do, but I did want to comment on this issue that I’ve seen more than a few times now.

Karenne Sylvester

9 October 2009 19:57

‘I still love the old world.’

Sometimes I think it’s this type of statement, above all else, that causes me running to defend the use of technology far beyond my actual classroom use of it.

When black laid down, white answers.

But still, Luke, thanks for clarifying the point on the use of written texts – and re your last comment – no, I think you are over magnifying the point of Gavin Dudeney’s post by calling it malicious.

He was simply taking the white to “your” black.

But na ja, that’s not why I’m back to your post.

I’m back re this wonderful old world thing.

The old world was not a good place, softened though it might be seem through a glance backward.

When teachers hark back, they are not harking back to better methodologies,

They are not harking back to the days when learning happened around a campfire – the world was not a better place back then.

Our students didn’t learn to be better communicators, or quite frankly, a lot of us teachers wouldn’t still have jobs with 40 – 65 year olds… which we do.

The teachers who do do this are doing nothing more than longing for the days of their own youth – somehow forgetting the hours of preparation, somehow forgetting the years of learning that actually got them to the place where they are now today and are able to be dogme – because of the knowledge they’ve now acquired…

It’s nothing more than the same emotions that those who look backwards on the music from yesterday and the century before that and think it better. Think it grander, more complex, more real or more telling in its emotion.

That it was classier somehow.

It’s a trick of the mind.

Illusions brought about by images created to soothe one into a feeling of security: when Mother was there to take away the stresses of life and kiss the knees.

The parents who do this – who put their kids in Swiss village schools and think they are serving their families – well, anyone can pass judgments so I will: we are of this world today and we live in it. Running to the past doesn’t and hasn’t ever solved anything.

Holding on to the past will not make the world feel safer.

I’ll personally continue moving with the times, actively participating in my today, no matter my age – and I will happily enjoy what Akon, Ne-Yo and Milow have to sing – and if I hear a track from Madonna when she was just a girl or Michael Jackson or even Air Supply then I might smile and remember my teenage years walking down a beach… but I don’t need that time to come back.

And as the language of youtube is more useful to me, to them, than a sonnet from Shakespeare we’ll use that – I can probably just as easily get them to copy out a text from there as I can by writing on the board and in its imagery and sound I can probably reach a variety of intelligences rather than focus on just those who learn from words.

Karenne

Diarmuid

9 October 2009 21:17

I’d be interested to see some of the spiritual dogme posts. None spring to mind at the moment, but perhaps I’m suffering from selective amnesia. The bulk of dogme postings (that are worth calling dogme postings) are either practical posts or theoretical discussions. Have I missed something over the last eight years?

THere;’s something insidious (not purposefully so, I’m sure) in painting dogme as a teary-eyed old romantic fool that harks back to a golden era that never was. This overlooks the fairly weighty discussion that has advanced dogme over the years. It also serves to create a false dichotomy of Dogme V Technology.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but dogme sprang up in response to a learning environment that was stuffed full of extra materials that lacked any justification whatsoever other than to distinguish them from the other blandities on the market. The need to shift job lots of books created a situation where meaningful communication was at serious risk of extinction.

Along came dogme and said, “Enough!” Let’s move away from the pedagogically bankrupt materials and get back to using language to talk about our own lives, experiences, thoughts, values etc. Let’s look at the difficulties that are encountered and explore ways around them. If we do that, then there is every reason to believe that language learning will take place. It’s cheaper, it’s more efficient and it’s more democratic.

Now that we are living in The World v.2.0, Dogme may need to reexamine what a poor pedagogy means. Does it mean Second Life, YouTube, Blogs, etc? Or are these yet more distractions that may well complement the language learning process, but a a cost that is not really worth paying? Until some criteria are established, I am not sure how we can resolve this question.

My initial thoughts are that World v. 2.0 comes at a very high cost. Ecologically, there is a huge bill to pay, but as our race seems quite incapable of reacting until the very last minute, I do not expect that argument to carry much weight.Socially, World v.2.0 seems to require more time to be spent away from “real-world” social settings. People spend more time at work and more time working at home. Economically, World v.2.0 would appear to copperfasten the current inequities that rule the world.

But these are mighty concerns – and of little immediate relevance to the teacher who is planning to use a YouTube video with Class 3B. After all, for this teacher, technology is a friend; incapable of hurting, only there to help. And technology is everywhere. People who are suspicious of technology are weird. If something is everywhere, how can it be baaad?It must be good. And if it is good and there are people opposed to it, then they must be baaaaad. And if they are baaaad, maybe there ideas are baaaaad. So, let’s belittle their ideas and let’s marginalise them by painting them as out-of-touch hippies who are trying to stop the juggernaut of human progress. And if we are successful, then we need never fear that people will object to millions of dollars per year being poured in to the military industrial machine whilst we close hospitals and underfund education.

Karenne Sylvester

10 October 2009 08:46

Diarmuid

re:
There;’s something insidious (not purposefully so, I’m sure) in painting dogme as a teary-eyed old romantic fool that harks back to a golden era that never was.

That was pretty much what I was talking about in my comment and I’m not really sure if your comment was ‘really’ after mine and you’re answering it or if it was just okay’d at the same time – anyway

My problem specifically was that the blog posting itself points back towards a golden era that never was and I really don’t like to think of dogme or dogmeists in this way… hence my return to the blog to point this out.

With regard to your comment – why make the use of technology good or bad? It simply is.

I seriously, seriously, don’t get this good/bad divide thing and quite honestly, after months and months of seeing this discussion raised again and again and again – am increasingly bored by it and wonder if it isn’t all just marketing buzz… I mean is anyone out there discussing the merits of the tape recorder?

What is the criteria for discussing the use of paper?

I would like to see more practical dogme related postings, more real advice for and from real teachers really teaching in a dogme way and not just more “hot air.”

Befuddled.
Karenne

Nick Jaworski

10 October 2009 14:06

I’m just posting back to provide some links. Diarmuid and a few Twitter mates referred to comments without citations and rightly so. I didn’t foresee this sparking a debate or being read by many, so I wasn’t too concerned. I think much of this debate has already happened, and, since I’m just coming into it, am unaware of the underlying tensions. Anyway, I’ve included a number of links below. Now scan these links for parallels drawn to religion and words such as radical, revolutionary, dogmeist, followers, faith, commandment, state of grace, movement, pure, codify, and vows. Then connect it to the theme of the above post.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/dogme-a-teachers-view

http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org/2009/09/21/technology-with-or-without-you/

http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2009/05/dogma-of-dogme.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/mar/26/tefl.lukemeddings

http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/development/dogme-in-transition

http://www.thornburyscott.com/assets/dogma.pdf

Is there not a trend there? I’m not saying it’s all dogme is; I made that clear in my comments. I’m not sure I should be faulted for making this connection, though.

I’m no expert on dogme, but in my own defense, I think religious tendencies are very much a part of people’s perceptions of dogme online. Dogme has a strong practical side that is clearly evident as well, but in my comment I wished to highlight the rather interesting religious parallels that are always drawn to dogme or the religious language that is used. Is there a single link above that doesn’t include some kind of religious language? Do we ever equate religious language with other teaching methodologies?

I also feel a need to apologize. I didn’t want to put salt in old wounds. I simply linked to Gavin’s post because of the religious perception that he also seems to have about the dogme movement. I did not wish to imply I fully supported his critique of dogme (although he does make some excellent points about the importance of technology in our students’ lives).

I think Karenne hit the nail on the head with her critique of returning to the “old world” or “a state of grace” in teaching. Many aspects of dogme are great, but doesn’t there seem to be an unnecessary amount of “harking back to the golden days” that we could just leave out of the discussion entirely? Luke’s original post certainly gives that impression as do comments made by Scott (reference links above). That was basically the point of my first comment, but I had an hour to kill and decided to run with the religious allegory. Luke and Scott have so much more to say than that. I’m not trying to make this a black or white argument. It’s simply a facet I wanted to highlight that I didn’t agree with. It was not my intention to rekindle the technology in dogme debate or that dogme was all one thing or all something else. I agree with Diarmuid that it is a false dichotomy. Almost everything I’ve read on dogme includes a bit about how technology should be used in the classroom.

In the end, I think Karenne and I (and she can correct me if I’m wrong) are on the same page in that we’d simply like to focus on the practical side of things. Let’s make a new start from there.

Nick Jaworski

10 October 2009 15:45

This is a 2nd attempt to comment, I hope this doesn’t appear twice. It probably got marked as spam cause I included a bunch of links.

I’m just posting back to provide some links. Diarmuid and a few Twitter mates referred to comments without citations and rightly so. I didn’t foresee this sparking a debate or being read by many, so I wasn’t too concerned. I thought it would get blocked if I linked too much. I think much of this debate has already happened, and, since I’m just coming into it, am unaware of the underlying tensions. Anyway, I’ve included a number of links below. Now scan these links for parallels drawn to religion and words such as radical, revolutionary, dogmeist, followers, faith, commandment, state of grace, movement, pure, codify, and vows. Then connect it to the theme of the above post.

This is the re-post without the links. Sorry, but I don’t know a better way to do this so it doesn’t get marked as spam.

teachingenglishdotorgdotukslashthinkslasharticlesslashdogme-a-teachers-view

marisaconstantinidesdotedublogsdotorgslash2009slash09slash21slashtechnology-with-or-without-you/

kalinagodotblogspotdotcomslash2009slash05slashdogma-of-dogmedothtml

guardiandotcodotukslasheducationslash2004slashmarslsh26slashtefldotlukemeddings

deltapublishingdotcodotukslashdevelopmentslashdogme-in-transition

thornburyscottdotcomslashassetsslashdogmadotpdf

Is there not a trend there? I’m not saying it’s all dogme is; I made that clear in my comments. I’m not sure I should be faulted for making this connection, though.

I think Karenne hit the nail on the head with her critique of returning to the “old world” or “a state of grace” in teaching. Many aspects of dogme are great, but doesn’t there seem to be an unnecessary amount of “harking back to the golden days” that we could just leave out of the discussion entirely? Luke’s original post certainly gives an impression of a ‘golden age’ as do comments made by Scott (reference links above). That was basically the point of my first comment, but I had an hour to kill and decided to run with the religious allegory. Luke and Scott have so much more to say than that. I’m not trying to make this a black or white argument. It’s simply a facet I wanted to highlight that I didn’t agree with. It was not my intention to rekindle the technology in dogme debate or that dogme was all one thing or all something else. I agree with Diarmuid that it is a false dichotomy. Almost everything I’ve read on dogme includes a bit about how technology should be used in the classroom.

In the end, I think Karenne and I (and she can correct me if I’m wrong) are on the same page in that we’d simply like to focus on the practical side of things.

Gavin Dudeney

10 October 2009 15:55

Hi,

I don’t know if my second attempt at posting here will pass muster, but I’ll give it a go…

Those using technology have bceome a little sensitive recently in the light of discussions on the dogme mailing list which have variously categorised them as ‘saddos’, people with ‘no lives’, ‘beam me up Scotty’ and a few other choice expressions.

This to me suggests a less than zen-like attitude to life.

There are also those on the dogme list who bemoan the ecological effects of computer technologies and do so in the form of electronic postings via computer. This is a very confusing message for some.

Indeed, the confusion runs deeper. Earlier this year Scott welcomed the investigation of Dogme 2.0, with a combination of technologies. In recent months this has been tempered with a description of teachers choosing not to engage with technologies as a ‘matter of principle’, and onwards to the call for a ‘principled use’ of technologies, and – more recently – a ‘considered’ use of technologies.

I’m confused

My original blog posting, so closely examined here, relies solely on views of dogmeists and dogme founders from a variety of courses (see my blog for more on that) and is a composite of dogmeist views. Nothing there undocumented and I’ll be happy to provide references if people can’t be bothered to look through the various fora.

Diarmuid’s rebuttal, on the other hand – whilst well-written and humorous – relies on a more stereotypical view of technology users and is reference free. I wonder why?

So, Luke – exactly what would you do when faced with the four learners in my story? How would you address their needs and desires? And what does ‘Jorge’s Wedding’ have to do with them and their desire to use a computer game to improve their Korean? I for one would like to understand this.

I don’t think my story was malicious – it was a putative scenario based on kids I have talked to (and some research featured in books by Prensky, Gee and others) and a summary of some attitudes from recent dogme v technology discussions in other fora.

I’ll copy this posting to my own blog (which is, mercifully, free for anyone to comment on) just in case this second comment of mine also disappears ino the ether.

Best,

Gavin

Gavin Dudeney

10 October 2009 15:56

Looks like either moderation was turned off, or I got singularly unlucky the first time. In which case I humbly apologise and look forward to a response.

Best,

Gavin

Gavin Dudeney

10 October 2009 17:11

Ah no, sorry – I see I’m awaiting moderation, as per last time. Please feel free to delete this posting and the short one directly before it. Wouldn’t mind getting some answers to the longer one with the content in it, though…

Karenne Sylvester

10 October 2009 17:47

Yes, Nick – I’m on the same page as you… and I should confess that my usage of the religious theme regarding dogme in my blog postings is simply a lack of imagination: dogme means dogma (Danish) and well… I’m a bit of a storyteller and like using themes in my postings… you work with what you’ve got… Sorry if it caused offense of raised queries regarding the practice (oops, there I go again).

Karenne

Marisa Constantinides

10 October 2009 18:18

Luke, I have no problem with the occasional or not so occasional departure from any of the accoutrements of a contemporary classroom. Variety is a key issue and such lessons are often highly successful – I have taught enough myself. But the idea that you can negotiate a syllabus or lesson topic/content with every type of learner and learning context is highly unrealistic.

Age also matters in this equation. Any teacher who has to teach English to young and very young pupils will tell you the same. The idea that you can go into a classroom like that “materials light” and work on “emergent language” is just not true or viable. I wonder if you or Scott have experience of teaching this age group – I would really like to know.

Or, I can think of classes of unruly, moody and unwilling teenagers who are SMS-ing or connecting with their friends in Facebook under their desks. How long can this “bare bones” approach engage them is something I would truly like a little bit more evidence of – not research evidence, but shared experiences of teachers who have consistently and exclusively used it with such groups.

Scott, I can recollect doing workshops like yours 20 years ago – they weren’t called dogme, they were called “I ain’t got no technology to play with” and they were addressed to groups of teachers who had to work in the direst of classroom setups. There is no doubt that your workshop is based on sound pedagogy but to be quite honest, I think if that is all I were to do today for every single session, say on a CELTA or DELTA course, I would be doing my trainees a huge disservice.

I would be transmitting the message that the classroom is a place of negotiation for every type of learner, and this is simply not true.

I would also be doing a very bad job, because teaching with a variety of published or unpublished materials – including Web 2.0 tools – is now in every syllabus – barring your own of course.

So, why would I want to prepare teachers for a world where everyone else is now beginning to use these tools?

The argument regarding “emergent language” is not highly convincing either.

And permit me to say, as a teacher educator of both native and non-native speaker teachers, there are a lot of teachers out there who do not have the linguistic confidence to handle any type of “emergent” language.
You might well say, well, these teachers should not teach. OK.

But who should then? Where is the world going to find a sufficient number of highly erudite, linguistically confident and competent native or near native speakers of English who would be able to pick up ANY “emergent” point and exploit it appropriately, sensitively and sensibly?

And on the question of “feeling the text through my pen”, well really, I cannot see myself wasting students’ or trainees’ time dictating my sessions or getting them to copy my handouts from the board waiting for the language to emerge.

I will echo Karenne here. This whole method – which you don’t call a method – feels like it belongs to another era, of genteel people with a lot of time on their hands who have the luxury to wait for language to emerge…

Scott

10 October 2009 19:38

Marisa,

Thanks for your thoughtful and measured comment. I cant answer for Luke, but I will freely admit (in answer to your question) that I have very limited experience teaching teenage learners, so I’m not in a postion to rule on this one, and I totally accept your reservations with regard to the viability of a dogme approach with this type of learner. All I can say is that, in the limited experience I did have teaching this age-group, the classes involving technology (such as the trip to the so-called Internet Room, or showing them a video in class) were never as successful as the activity they loved most – a game I call sentence pictionary – which required nothing but pen and paper, or the standard Community Language Teaching procedure (which admittedly did involve the use of a Sony Walkman). Nor did I use a coursebook with these students, if I could help it.

But what works for me and what works for you have equal validity and it really is a waste of breath arguing the toss. Dogme is a choice. No one is saying you have to, or you should, or you had better, or you must, adopt a dogme approach. No one is saying that a dogme approach is any more or any less effective than any other approach. All we (Luke and I, at least) are saying is that – if you want to try it, feel free. You’re not alone. There are good grounds (but no hard evidence) for suggesting it is as valid an approach as any other. That’s all.

Isn’t it good, after all, to have other choices available, rather than have to rely solely on the methodology represented by the current fashion of coursebooks? Imagine if we all taught the H***way way, or the Inside O** way! Imagine if all lessons were mediated by mobile phones or Twitter!

It baffles me why people get so exercised by dogme, as if it were a threat to their very existence. It isn’t. It’s something that some people like doing – like vegetarianism. Or skateboarding. But it’s not the end of civilization as we know it. In the ten years that dogme has been around, how many ELT publishers have pulled down their shutters and closed shop? How many manufacturers of interactive whiteboards have gone out of business?

If dogme feels like it belongs to another era, and if that is your reason for dismissing it, then it is clearly not for you. Slow food, real ale and handmade paper also belong to another era. Writing letters by hand, walking to the corner store, and making your own yoghurt – these are also old-fashioned customs. But some people (sad types like me) still like doing them. Just as some people (sad types like me) like walking into a classroom and working with the raw material: the language that emerges out of the shared concerns, needs, interests and desires, of the people in the room.

Not a luxury. A job. And a purpose. And an inspiration.

Lindsay Clandfield

10 October 2009 19:53

Hi everyone

Just a quick comment to apologize that Gavin Dudeney’s comment had not appeared earlier. The situation has been rectified now to allow the conversation to continue with no further glitches (I hope!). To clarify also that there was no conscious decision to block his contribution by Luke Meddings or Delta.

Apologies once more, and hope this confusion doesn’t happen again.

Chia Suan Chong

10 October 2009 20:00

I find it very hard to agree that Dogme belongs to another era. I’ve been using mainly Dogme in my classes for the last two years, and I see it more as improvised principle eclecticism. It is drawing upon all the techniques and knowledge of language acquisitions and language input we teachers have learnt over the years and pulling them out as and when it seems fit, depending on the language the learners produce, their needs, their lacks and most of all, their areas of interest.

I can’t say that I have taught children, but teenagers, I have had many. Surprisingly, Dogme works wonders with them because the teacher is not presuming what they would like to do or talk about in the classroom. The teacher is simply working with whatever motivates them. If football is what these boys want to talk about, then let’s talk about football! A teengage boy recently said to me, ‘I had lost all my motivation for learning English but this is great! I can talk about what I want to talk about.’ And not only that, the language input actually sticks!

Technology does not have to be excluded is the process as well. This is where I probably differ in opinions from Scott (May I call you that?). We have the luxury of having an IWB and access to the internet in our classroom, and when needed, I have used it to deal with emergent language (e.g. some students were perplexed when we were talking about eating nuts…what are nuts?…Google image, here I come…), and to motivate some of my learners to use English on Facebook and Twitter.

Ultimately, Dogme to me, is using all the methodologies and activities I have under my belt to deal with emergent language. This may include mini-PPPs, on-the-spot TBLs, behaviourist-style drilling, putting up emerging collocations on the board, etc. It’s as cutting edge as it can be.

After all, why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Dogme is the perfect way of incorporating everything we have learnt about language teaching and SLA, while remaining relevant and motivating for the learners.

Diarmuid

10 October 2009 20:23

I should clarify my stance: I am not anti-technology by any means. But, I think like The Scottfather, I am dubious about the insistence that we have to embrace it. We are told that it has to be used because it IS. Those who are more sceptical about acceptance of new technology in the classroom are often dismissed as hippies, utopians etc. Very frequently there is an implication that we are failing our students and doing a bad job. And yet more often than not, the arguments that are put in our mouths are straw men.

As I have written elsewhere, (no small) part of my doubts regarding the Technolofied Classroom comes from my ignorance about the capacities of technology. The more I learn, the more I am amazed.

I see that the virtual world makes elements of the Real World available 24/7, as the yoof say. If language is acquired through (guided) use, then this is a good thing about technology. But there is a price to pay. Surely it behoves any critically-minded person to consider whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? This means that we need to consider whether “it” [shorthand for "the uses to which it is put"] is good or bad. Who benefits? Who loses? The blanket denial of either camp to consider either the pros or the cons is what I find most frustrating.

Diarmuid
Reference free since 1970

Valentina Dodge

10 October 2009 21:01

Without wanting to repeat what has been said before by Karenne, Nick or Marisa let me just add that what is “tiring” about this Dogme discussion is not only the continual “other era” aspect it is the focus on either /or rather than the and + and. I agree we do need more pros and cons, more discussion and my two cents worth is this.

Isn’t a more balanced approach to simply merge eras, methods and systems, to be neither too “lite” nor too “heavy”? And pour our energy into training teachers to do so in a multitude of ways, to reflect on lessons with or without materials, with or without mobile phones, to discuss benefits with their learners? The focus – even for those using technology, Scott, is very much on the learners and their shared concerns, needs, interests and desires. And if those learner desires are related to something the teacher has never seen or done with her pencil and paper, wouldn’t you agree that it is useful for us teachers to swap notes, lesson tips and learn how to use some of these tools in order to allow even more language to emerge? Teachers who are involved in sharing views via podcasts, expressing opinions on blogs, re-writing texts on wikis and connecting and supporting peers via nings or glogsters have allowed new room for emergent language, have been able to extend “emerging” way beyond the confines of one single classroom and one single lesson. These teachers I work with juggle boisterous teenagers , exam classes, business coaching, etc … and boy do they build … build together, confidence, independence, reflection, new connections.

Personally, I believe you have to see, expereince it to believe it.
The technology-enhanced learning I see, do and help trainees understand embraces shared ownership of the learning space, powerful personalization and completely focuses on the people in the room (sometimes they might be thousands of kilometers away) or they might all be bunched round a screen or in a semi-circle round a bonfire…it promotes uncovering, communicating and processes rather than products.

Now I adore home-made yoghurt too Scott so let’s exchange recipes… @vale24

Gavin Dudeney

10 October 2009 22:00

Scott,

I think people get ‘so exercised’ by dogme because part of the dogme dogma insists in varying degrees that other approaches are flawed. Technology is a notable area: as I said, I’ve watched the shift in some dogmeists’ description of technology, from ‘non use out of principle’ through ‘principled’ use to ‘considered use’.

I’ve read you calling for evidence and research that it works at the same time that you freely admit there’s precious little of that to back up dogme. I’ve heard you dismiss it for all the ‘faffing’ when thousands of people use it every day without any faffing and now we’re back to the ‘noble savage’ bit of making your own yoghurt.

No such calls for dogme to justify itself, no calls for dogme to prove that it’s ‘better’ and ‘more efficient’. It seems like there’s one rule for the (technologically) rich and another for the (materials) poor.

I think of you and others were consistent in the criteria you apply to tools and approaches, if you were less aggressive towards technologies and technology users and spent more time telling us of the wonders of dogme rather than the dangers of things which don’t fit into the dogme way then people would be less ‘exercised’.

As it is, the more time dogme acolytes spend ‘adapting’ their attitudes to technology, criticising it, calling for empirical proof and reducing the knocks to absurd claims that it’s all about people ‘faffing’, the more some people may start believing that the emperor’s new clothes are not altogether finished.

At least that’s why I get ‘exercised’. I suppose instead of doing my work I could spend all day criticising dogme, but I have – as you know – some sympathy with the idea. I just don’t the way it has to attack and belittle technology and talk of ‘faffing’ when they could quite happily co-exist if you and others, as you intimated when you did a talk in Second Life not so long ago, could consider the possibility that dogme is getting slightly rusty around the edges, was put together before the more creative side of learning technologies came into being and might actually work with good, pedagogical use of technologies.

But this argument is now so polarised and the camps so deeply entrenched that there seems little possibility of that happening.

Best,

Gavin

Valentina Dodge

10 October 2009 22:31

I’d vote for a positive balanced move forward with some concrete examples and exchanges from teachers in both camps and the overlapping ones (let’s avoid this polarisation, black and white categorisation and add some mix and colour here). How about a dogme digital story telling project with groups of learners in different contexts?

It wouldn’t be long before it was clear that the ten non-rocket science “strategies” (page 20 of Teaching Unplugged) are greatly enhanced by the web-tools we now available for use. It’s a question of becoming confident in using the tools that are so often the “props” our learners bring to lessons, sometimes they are the means by which we deliver the lesson and it’s no longer “whatever happens to be in the classroom” it is wherever the classroom happens to be.

Marisa Constantinides

10 October 2009 22:53

Scott,

Thanks for responding at such great length. I haven’t got at all exercised about dogme. To me it’s an interesting discussion – whichever discussion involves choices is of interest to me.

Drawing analogies between making your own yoghurt and language teaching is rather sweet and homely, but just as inappropriate as people thinking that what drove Pavlov’s dogs into instant salivation and Skinner’s pigeon’s into walking figures of 8, would be a good method for language teaching.

I don’t think it is just a question of “each to his own” although that is what a lot of people like to do and call it informed eclecticism (not a comment directed at you, I hasten to add).

I don’t belong to any camp. I am just taking part in a discussion and I do agree with you that some things are indeed best when done very slowly!

What I see as the benefits of a dogme approach to teaching or even dogme-like, has not much to do with the materials light argument, with the avoidance of technology or other criteria/principles outlined earlier but rather with other, more personal and humanistic factors that are evident in an approach having the learner as its main focus.

But this is not the exclusive domain of the dogme teacher.

Scott

11 October 2009 08:08

Gavin wrote: “I think people get ’so exercised’ by dogme because part of the dogme dogma insists in varying degrees that other approaches are flawed.”

The only approach (if it IS an approach) that dogme dogma insists is flawed is an over-dependence on materials at the expense of a focus on the learner. As Diarmuid puts it (above): “Along came dogme and said, “Enough!” Let’s move away from the pedagogically bankrupt materials and get back to using language to talk about our own lives, experiences, thoughts, values etc.” There is nothing very controversial, nor threatening, nor even original, about this stance. So the fact that it should continue to bother people is, as I said, baffling.

As for technology (often, but not necessarily, in the service of these bankrupt materials), let me echo Diarmuid (again): “I am not anti-technology by any means. But … I am dubious about the insistence that we have to embrace it”.

Or that, not to do so, is “a tad rude”.

Gavin Dudeney

11 October 2009 09:09

Scott,

I know we all selectively answer each other’s postings, but I’d still like to know why technology has to prove itself to be better, bigger, faster, stronger when no such demands are put on dogme when you write about it.

What is it about technology that means it has to prove itself, and why doesn’t this apply to other approaches (or methods, state of minds, etc.)? Or, to put it another way, it’s not fair (and yes, I DO know life’s not fair and all that – but seriously…)

Just as you find it baffling that some people are bothered by dogme, I find dogme people who spend more time dissing technology than writing about dogme equally baffling. It makes me wonder if technology isn’t a thorn in the side of dogme…

For you, technology seems to be all about kids in the nineties going to an ‘Internet Room’ and looking at porn (as if they didn’t do that in class in other ways before technology came along…), and you spending loads of time ‘faffing’. For many people such as myself it’s generally technology that works fine out of the box and leads to some creative practice when the teacher knows what they’re doing and the learners want to do it.

So yes, I’m baffled. Baffled as to why technology causes such reactions from some people, and why it needs to prove itself more than dogme does. I’m baffled as to why we need to look back to the nineties (pre the collaborative side of technology) to justify reactions to technology. I’m baffled as to why dogme and technology can’t co-exist (as you suggested months agon in Second Life). I’m just baffled.

This conversation has gone on for months now. As I pointed out, I don’t spend most of my time knocking dogme because it’s a neat idea, and it’s a very ‘human’ idea and in some situations it can and does work fine. I’ve read enough of the dogme list to see that, and have (pre-dogme) had classes like that on many occasions. Dogme is as old as the hills – perhaps that’s why it has such an uncomfortable time with technology?

I’ve also had many successful classes based around a very ‘human’ use of technology, allowing learners to collaborate creatively globally, etc. The fact that (as you said in SL) dogme developed over a period when technology was in flux, and Teaching Unplugged was written at that time, is surely more of an opportunity (as you intimated) to see how new creative, collaborative technologies might be applied in the service of dogme, rather than simply dismissing them as ‘unproven’ and ‘just too much faffing’?

At the moment both dogme and technologies in classrooms remain ideas and values that people espouse. Dogme is a teacher’s decision to adopt an approach (state of mind, etc.) in their teaching, and is, to an extent, top down. The use of technology (where it is available) can be a learner driven need and desire IF the teacher knows what they’re doing and knows their job. This video amply demonstrates how that might be the case:

wwwDOTyoutubeDOTcom/watch?v=ZokqjjIy77Y

There’s no evidence that either works, despite your views that there is a suspicion that dogme ‘should’ work, so why don’t we just assume that those people exploring either way of teaching are perfectly at liberty to do so, and should be encouraged in their work rather than criticised or told shouldn’t be ‘faffing’ when there are plenty of lovely people in class to talk to?

Even better, why don’t we encourage the work of people like Karenne, Graham Stanley, etc, who are making daily attempts to get the best out of dogme and technology. In the end, they’re probably more reasonable than either of our extreme ends of the spectrum. Plus, they’re in the classroom on a daily basis, so probably have a much better idea of what actually works.

I’d like to propose a bit of ‘pax’, but I don’t see this one dying any time soon.

Have a good Sunday – the sun’s shining where you and I are, so looks like lunch outside and a decent bottle of wine.

Best,

Gavin

Gavin Dudeney

11 October 2009 09:19

Scott,

Sorry – forgot the last point. My ‘tad rude’ comment about teachers ignoring technology was, of course, based on certain quite logical premises:

1) There is technology available
2) Learners actively want to use it

In that sense ‘tad rude’ means exactly that – if we bang on about listening to our learners, responding to their needs and acknowledging their wishes and desires then should those include tha active use of technologies in their learning, it’s rude not to go down that route.

If teachers are constantly told that technology is all ‘faffing’ and ‘porn’ and ‘unproven’ as a teaching tool then they won’t seek to get the skills they need to respond to certain learner needs.

As such, although not actively being rude (since it’s not their fault, directly) they will be ignoring a major part of the relationship between teacher / facilitator and student / learner (delete as appropriate). And that is what I most certainly do find a tad rude.

Gavin

Nick Bilbrough

11 October 2009 13:20

Gavin,

You seem to be suggesting that a principal part of dogme is giving learners what they want.

I don’t really see it in this way and I’m doubtful if there are many others who do.

If I asked my seven year old what he’d like to do today, he might say watch telly and eat crisps. Am I failing him as a parent because I’m going to meet a friend with some kids and we’re all going swimming, rather than going with his suggestion.

Actually maybe I am failing him as a parent becuase I’m locked away in my office, staring at the computer screen while he fights with his little brother down stairs waiting for me to take him out.

It isn’t actually my experience that learners are crying out for more technology in their classes anyway. A cry for a more real use of language is one that I hear more often.

Its a shame that lots of voices from teachers and learners will never be heard in this discussion because this isn’t a medium which they tend to communicate in. But as you know there are lots of people like this out there.

And now I hear a cry to get away from this computer and out of the house.

Nick

Gary O'Connor

11 October 2009 14:14

Our students use mobile phones, use facebook, Twitter etc,they are what we call digital natives. The best dogme lesson, indeed the best lesson I’ve ever, delivered used nothing except an IWB and my learners ideas. If you want a lesson your learners can relate to, engage with, learn from then use technology, if you want to bypass your learners effective filters, use technoloogy, if you want a world of resources at your fingertips to respond to your learners questions and thoughts… Use technology. Change is good, fight it and you’re swimming up stream to stay in the same place. Just my tuppeny.

Gavin Dudeney

11 October 2009 14:38

Nick,

Giving learners what they want / need / desire – and, of course, within reason, with balance, with experience and skill – should be part of any approach (or state of mind), from dogme to technology and anything else inbetween.

Letting kids eat crisps as their primary diet is obviously not a good idea, nor is watching telly all day every day. and that’s what I’ve been talking about all along (see loads of past blog postings on my blog) – it’s a matter of balance. Have a few crisps each day, as long as you’re also getting other food types. Use a computer each day, as long as you also talk to people f2f and go outside for a bit. Balance…

But the problem with some of the ‘question the use of technology’ brigade (since we’re not longer allowed to call them anti-tech) is that what they’re saying in this debate is a combination of ‘no proof’, ‘it’s all porn’, ‘it never works’, etc., etc. ad nauseam.

Effectively that may lead plenty of people thinking about using technology to the conclusion that it really is a very bad thing indeed. What I’m saying is that since there’s no proof that either dogme or teaching with technology realyl work (beyond the ‘I tried this and it worked really well’ / ‘I tried this and it didn’t') let’s go for that balance.

The reason learners may not be crying out for more technology in their classroom may be connected with the agenda of teachers, and especially teachers who enter classrooms with no tech (where it is available) and with a negative ‘faffing, porn, inconclusive’ viewpoint plastered over their faces as they have everyone turn off their iPods and mobile phones and settle down for a decent chat about ‘stuff’. If we don’t ask, we may never find out – learners are generally not overly encouraged by education systems to walk up to teachers and say “How about using our iPods?’. It’s simply not the done thing.

Might be worth everyone asking, sometime soon.

Similarly I have no great recollection of learners crying out for ‘more real use of language’. So obviously we’ll have to agree to disagree on that. I suspect that both of us are only hearing what we want / expect to hear and that we would do well to ask about the other. But I can’t prove that, obviously.

Enjoy the outside world. People who go there tell me it can be quite fun…

Gavin

Luke Meddings

12 October 2009 15:43

Oh! A few responses, then… Thanks everyone for getting involved and here are a few thoughts, ahead of the next ‘official’ post.
I was offline over the weekend and would doubtless have commented on occasion had I not been. But the great thing about blogs when they come to life is that people tend to make the points you might have made, only better. So Gavin, to paraphrase Chia, I would work with whatever motivated your four learners, in whatever way was helpful.
Diarmiud I agree that dogme was initially a reaction against an excess of materials. It’s the use of prepared materials, not the delivery method, that was and in my view remains the issue. So it would not at all surprise me if you were right, Valentina, in saying that the ten strategies on page 20 of TU can be enhanced with web tools. I am pleased incidentally that you add another R (‘non-Rocket science’) to the list of strategies starting with R. And your suggestion that ‘it’s no longer “whatever happens to be in the classroom” it is wherever the classroom happens to be’ is one I shall be exploring in Brighton on Saturday afternoon. Not on the off chance, but at the Brighton English Language Training Event (BELTE).
Marisa, when you observe that ‘some things are indeed best when done very slowly’ I can only agree, and would only caution that the conditions have to be right or one can all too easily feel rushed.
Thanks Chia for a great post which manages to sum up how I feel about dogme very nicely: ‘Ultimately, Dogme to me, is using all the methodologies and activities I have under my belt to deal with emergent language. This may include mini-PPPs, on-the-spot TBLs, behaviourist-style drilling, putting up emerging collocations on the board, etc. It’s as cutting edge as it can be.’
Or needs to be.

Gavin Dudeney

12 October 2009 16:06

Luke,

“So Gavin, to paraphrase Chia, I would work with whatever motivated your four learners, in whatever way was helpful.”

Marvellous! I look forward to a future posting from a confirmed dogmeist who met a bunch of young people who were into WoW where s/he explores their use of the game in class…

And doesn’t claim all technology is ‘faffing’, ‘porn’ or simply non-communicative (in an ‘I remember the one time I took a group of learners to the Internet Room in the mind-nineties and it wasn’t very succesful’ kind of way).

Dogme 2.0 lives, it would seem…

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13341

Scott

12 October 2009 17:39

Gavin writes: “I remember the one time I took a group of learners to the Internet Room in the mind-nineties and it wasn’t very succesful”. Funny – I had exactly the same experience. Could it have been the same internet room?

Gavin Dudeney

12 October 2009 20:49

Scott,

That was me paraphrasing you, you see?

While you were with your learners in the (yes, very same) Internet Room and they were all looking for pron (to quote your recent tweet), mine were engaged in a multicultural project with Poland involving synchronous text chat and a variety of discovery tasks designed to help them get an idea of how people their age lived in another country, or they were writing to their penpals in the States (penpals their age).

This second group produced some amazing writing, but also put together a real life package of video, photographic, etc. samples of their lives and of Catalan culture which was exchanged for a similar one with the school in West Virginia.

So whilst your learners were looking at pictures of naked people mine were engaged in quite productive language work on a multi-cultural level. I’d say that says more about the teacher’s attitude and approach than it does about the good/bad/ugly of technology.

If you can do it, it can be incredibly successful. But of course you have to be able to do it, and also have strategies for getting round the ‘they’re so bored with my ‘nouny’ old technology class that they’re surfing for porn’ scenario…

Of course that was ten years ago – imagine what they could be doing today with the affordacnes of web 2.0 sites and broadband, if only they weren’t all (putatively) sitting down having a chat with old farts like me and you…

Gavin

Gavin Dudeney

12 October 2009 21:36

Scott,

I suspect that rather than trying to engage with my argument that even back then some of us were doing interesting things with technology whilst others were simply allowing their kids to run riot on Internet nakedness whilst they read their own email, you may well concentrate on my rather unfortunate use of ‘pron’ when I meant ‘porn’ (see paragraph 2, above). This is, of course, highly amusing for all we ELT people…

But let’s assume we’ve had that joke and it was all jolly amusing and that will leave you free to think about why my kids were doing these international, cultural, creative projects (admittedly only text based, but that was the limit then – today it could be voice, video…) and yours were surfing the skin sites…

It’s just more of the same: you faff, plenty of people don’t. Technology doesn’t work for you, for plenty of people it does. Your kids surf for porn, plenty of teachers have their kids doing something creative, constructive and rewarding. You can’t find reliable data on the benefits of technology, I can’t find any on the benfits of dogme. And so we go on…

Gavin

Scott

12 October 2009 23:36

That was me paraphrasing you, you see?

Oops. Attempt at humour fail.

Chia Suan Chong

13 October 2009 00:05

In and amongst this whole discussion about using technology versus Dogme, I find it amusing that none of us has actually defined what ‘using technology’ actually means.

Are we talking about putting our learners in front of individual PCs and giving them tasks to do on them?
Are we talking about using the IWB to simple find an image to explain the meaning of the word?
Are we talking about using the internet in the classroom to show the learners that they can use concordances to find out if native speakers actually use the collocation ‘to boost my English grammar’?
Are we talking about turning on the lights in the classroom? (Ok, I’m going a bit far here, but you know what I mean.)

I once got my learners to pull out their mobile phones in an on-the-spot Dogme-style lesson to compare the features and applications they had on them and practised the structures ‘not as+adj+as’. Is that ‘using’ technology?

I think perhaps the whole point of Dogme is to not let materials (or technology, for that matter) take over what is important in the English classroom, i.e. the learners.

Yes, Gavin, Dogme is perhaps as old as the hills…a colleague of mine has been using a similar methodology for the last 20 years and calls it ‘Authentic Participation’. But that’s exactly what it is. The learners are the richest resource we can find, and that’s what this is all about.

As for Nick’s comment about how we cannot always cater to our students needs and wants, I have to agree with Gavin on this one. Within reason. with balance and sensitivity, and even by explicitly telling students why we are doing what we do, we can still cater to what motivates them most. Personally, if I may, I would like to suggest a re-writing of the last vow of chastity…that all teachers should be evaluated on one criteria…that they are curious about their students.

At the end of the day, would we prefer to order a meal from a set menu or have the chef (who knows our taste personally) prepare it a la carte specially for us? And if the chef is going to need some new-fangled gadget to make the preparation of our meal tastier and more efficient, then why not? As long as our chef isn’t all caught up with his new gadget and forgetting what is important…our stomachs…
(OK, that was a terrible analogy…sorry…)

Gavin Dudeney

13 October 2009 05:25

Chia,

A great posting – thanks. I liked the mobile phone activity a lot.

As I suspected, Scott, you failed to acknowledge that whilst your kids were surfing for porn in the late nineties some of us were doing something useful with technology. If you’d like to find out more about those projects you can read them in the first edition of The Internet in the Language Classroom, published way back in the dark ages in 2000, pre-dogme…

And if I can be of any help with your ‘faffing’ problem or with helping your learners get beyond online porn to something truly creative and communicative, you know where to find me.

Best,

Gavin

Scott

13 October 2009 07:41

Sorry, Gavin. I did forget to acknowledge that fact. Good teaching, with or without technology, pre-dates Dogme. Thanks for clarifying that one. And thanks for reminding me of your book (published in the series that I edit). Score: Dudeney 2 – Thornbury 0. Now, can we move on?

Scott

13 October 2009 07:54

Chia Suan Chong,

Nice post. I agree that we talk about technology as if it were a single monolithic entity, thereby obscuring the fact that a) all teaching aids are, in a (very broad) sense, forms of technology and b) there are some technological aids that are “better” than others, where “better” stands for anything from cheaper, more reliable, more accessible, more versatile, more pedagogically effective, less obtrusive, less likely to interfere in the teaching/learning process, less fallible, more ecological, more manageable, less likely to become obsolescent etc etc.

As for your mobile phone activity, neat as it is, this doesn’t to me constitute “using technology”, so much as simply “talking about technology”. If the students then went on to make calls to local businesses in order to compare prices or place orders, or if they composed and sent SMS messages to their nearest and dearest, and then shared and compared replies, that would be using technology – in the technical sense!

darridge

13 October 2009 22:38

I dont understand, I don’t see anyone and haven’t read anything that says dogme and technology are mutually exclusive – yet that seems to be the way the conversation has gone.
So far you all seem to be saying the same thing – get learners to engage YOU with what engages them – technology or no. That can be as simple as a mobile phone (that was a cool activity Chia with a cool extension Scott) or as complex as a wiki – it’s up to them to decide, and the teacher to then structure and enable – to manipulate if you like.
I like most Scott’s point about everything a teacher uses being technology: paper, pen, IWB, wiki, twitter…
Dogme (correct me if i’m wrong) merely puts the learner in control of the technology. Not everyone has a facebook page or is interested in blogging.

Gavin Dudeney

14 October 2009 00:50

Scott,

Happy to move on if you’ll drop this ridiculous ‘it’s all faffing and porn’ thing. I think we’d all be happy to move on, frankly. But not when it means glossing over absurd generalisations about technology in the late nineties.

Greetings from Bangkok, where it is impossibly early and I’m impossibly tired.

Gavin

Chia Suan Chong

13 October 2009 23:54

Hi Scott and Gavin,

I suppose I was being a bit facetious when I talked about my mobile phone activity. But if you don’t mind me saying, in the acedemic sense, we all shouldn’t be allowed to get away with making generic statements about things like ‘using technology’.

The fact is I find this debate about technology versus Dogme slightly bizarre. I’ve been, in some people’s words, a Dogme-ist for the last two years and have seen the mind-blowing results of motivating students through focusing on what truly matters, the interests and lives of the students.

But in the end, it’s like as you once said, Scott, it’s about not letting the tail wag the dog. I don’t necessarily think that technology is ‘better’ or that we should get too obsessed about trying to use it,as such. In fact, I hardly use it unless it proves to be the most convenient or motivating way ahead.

Take this for example, I once had a Dogme lesson where my students were talking about going to musicals in London, and it turned into a task where they were planning a class trip to a musical. I got them to use their mobiles to call the short-listed theatres to get information about show times and prices, and availability of seats, and the students were totally elated by having just spoken to native speakers and having understood them. In your definition, Scott, that’s using technology. Nevertheless, I believe it totally followed Dogme principles and was consistent with keeping the learners’ needs at the core of the lesson.

In another instance, I got students to use the recording device they all seemed to have on their mobile phones to record themselves speaking in groups, so as to become aware of how they sound to others in English. It turned into a lesson about phonological chunking and prominence, and was totally a revelation for the learners.

I think technology is simply too broad a term and we can’t be dogmatic about things and categorically say that all use of technology would interfere with Dogme-style teaching and the authentic participation of our learners. And the term ‘technology’ is getting broader and broader exponentially as we speak. At which point does technology become part of what’s normal in the classroom like those lights that we switch on?

Ironically, Dogme is one of the most undogmatic methods I’ve ever known and the reason why I’ve embraced it is because it allows the teacher to truly be there for the students. To a teacher who is new to Dogme and experimenting with it, I’d say ‘Walk into the classroom with nothing but a marker and see by how much your students could be a resource to you. Feel empowered by the freedom from materials and technology.’

But to say that all technology is at loggerheads with Dogme…just seems…too dogmatic…

Luke Meddings

14 October 2009 10:01

Another welcome post from Chia.

I have sent another blog posting which I hope will be of interest to readers.

Luke

Luke Meddings

14 October 2009 10:01

… when it appears.