Kalinago English: #DBC01

Materials-mediated teaching is the 'scenic' route to learning,

but the direct route

is located in the interactivity between teachers and learners, and between the learners themselves.

Learning is a social and dialogic process,

where knowledge is co-constructed

rather than transmitted or imported

from teacher/coursebook to learner.

Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009.

What does that mean to you?

Answer in the comments below or if you happen to have a blog, do write your own post explaining how this affects you and your work as an English language teacher.

What is the 'scenic' route? Why do Meddings and Thornbury suggest that materials-mediated teaching practice provides this? Is there a subtext to what they're trying to communicate to us?
Why do Meddings and Thornbury suggest that the direct route to learning is, in fact, located in interactivity?
In your opinion, what do you think interactivity is - between teachers and learners? And between learners themselves? How do these differ? Should they differ?
In your opinion is there any such thing as a direct route to language learning? Why, why not?
Do you think that learning is a social and dialogic process? Justify your position or argue against.
Is knowledge co-constructed? What does it mean, exactly, to co-construct knowledge?

How to respond?

(Write a list or tell a story,

compare lessons: dogme and non-dogme,

relate an experience, a contrary opinion,

quote research, your own theory,

submit mere musings, rant...

share an idea, a paragraph, a dictionary's definition

come up with a clever sentence,

a beautiful photograph,
a video-log

an article or draft the bones of an essay,

share examples from your own classroom experience...

In short, be dogmeic: personalize your response!)

Can't wait to read your posts!
Karenne

education

What is this about? Read here
How to share your post on Twitter: Please add the hashtag #~~DBC_01~~ #dogmeme

How to share your fellow teachers' blog posts with each other? Add/link to the blog(s) written on the subject on your post so they form a ring and your readers can travel on from post to post!

URLS which may be useful for your post

Teaching Unplugged: http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/titles/methodology/teaching-unplugged
Scott Thornbury's website + articles: http://www.thornburyscott.com/
Scott Thornbury's blog: http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/
Luke Meddings' blog: http://lukemeddings.wordpress.com/
Luke Meddings' on the Delta blog: http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/author/luke-meddings
Dogme ELT in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_language_teaching