Dogme Blog Challenge #3 The Scaffolding

The teacher's primary function, 

apart from promoting the kind of classroom dynamic 

conducive to a dialogic and emergent pedagogy 

is to optimize language learning affordances,

by directing attention to features of the emergent language;

learning can be mediated through talk, 

especially talk that is shaped and supported 

(i.e. scaffolded) by the teacher.

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

Who coined the term "scaffolding" to describe the co-construction of learning between learners and teachers?  What was he trying to say through this?   

In your opinion, what do you think  it means to optimize language learning affordances?

Michael Long encourages us to focus on form, (1991) to draw our students' attention to linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in communication, to redress the weaknesses our language learners make and to help them to notice these - which requires the teacher to do more than simply provide the conditions of language to emerge: their language must be scrutinised, manipulated, personalised and practised; Nick Ellis suggests that 'by making the underlying patterns more salient' (1997) acquisition can be facilitated.

That is to say, if learners are having trouble identifying and abstracting patterns, seeing or understanding form, then their attention can be purposefully directed at them.

How?  Why is this different from teaching with grammar McNuggets?

What strategies do you generally apply in your language teaching classrooms to keep your own students focused on their own particular areas of individual concern?   What techniques work best?

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.

And by the way, have really enjoyed travelling through the 'sphere, reading the posts and converations so far and am very much looking forward to learning from and sharing even more with you!

Karenne


The Blog Posts Challenge #3

•  Dogme in the mind of a teacher by Nick Jaworski
•  How do you scaffold by Mike Harrison
•  For those who don't know by David Warr, Language Garden
•   Affordance by Willy C. Cardoso 
•  Whether on a scaffold high by Diarmuid Fogarty 
•  Dogme with young learners by Sabrina de Vita 
•  Scaffolding by Rick Oprea 
•  Scaffolding, maps and possible routes by Cecilia Coelho 
• Dogme teaching strategies by Anna Rolinska
  

Read previous Challenge blog posts:

• Challenge #1 Co-construction + the list of responding blogs
• Challenge #2 It's emergent? + list of responding blogs

Read Next in the Challenge series

• Challenge 4 Being Light
• Challenge 5 The Learner's voice
  
• Challenge 6 NNESTs vs NESTs
  

What is all this about? 
The Dogme Blog Challenge + links to the blogs discussing Dogme
The dogma of Dogme - background info & links
Dogme ELT - other stuff I've written on Dogme
S is for Scaffolding by Scott Thornbury

How to share on Twitter:  use the #dogmeme hashtag

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!

How to respond?

Comment below with short thoughts

Go to your nearest yahoo!group and share your opinions

with like-minded teaching colleagues

Blog it:

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!)

Important URLs to quote/link to in your post (if necessary):

• 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

Dogme Blog Challenge #2 It's Emergent?

If learners are supplied with optimal conditions for language use, 

and are motivated to take advantage of these opportunities, 

their inherent learning capacities will be activated, 

and language - rather than being acquired - will emerge.

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

What does this sentence mean to you?  Do you understand what it means for language to be emergent?   Can something come out of nothing?

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 by answering any of the questions or something entirely of your own creation...

• In your own experience, what are the optimal conditions for language use?   Does your classroom look like that?  Why/why not?

• What are some of the psychological factors which tend to motivate the general population?   Do you ever apply these needs to your language teaching practice?  Which and how?

• Critics of a dogme approach are quick to seize on its apparent lack of structure or methodological rigour.  In your own personal opinion, how can it qualify as sound practice if so much is left up to chance?

• Do you believe that we humans have an inherent capacity to learn? And to learn languages? Can you give any examples of something you or your students learned by themselves - stuff which had nothing to do with the materials you were using, your classroom (or the teachers before you)?  Why did you/they learn?  Or conversely, can you show how the materials you've been using are directly key to the language ability they now have today?

• Read these quotes:  Any attempt to control the selection and sequencing of syllabus items would be most likely to interfere with learning, since, given the state of our knowlede, it could only be appropriate by chance (Allwright, 1979).  Speech cannot be taught directly but "emerges" on its own as a result of building competence via comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985).  And, not finally,  Paulo Freire said: the class is not a class in the traditonal sense but a meeting-place where knowledge is sought and not where it is transmitted.   

How do you teach at the moment?  Do you think that it is necessary to provide your learners with all the language they need to communicate in English or can you enable them to discover any/all the words they need themselves?   How?  If you disagree, why?  If you are using a course book at the moment do you think that there is a way to create "appropriate" opportunities for language use?  How?

Looking forward to learning and sharing with you!

Karenne


The Blog Posts Challenge #2

• Sometimes a prop is really the best thing, by Mike Harrison
• Fear of the unknown, by Sabrina de Vita
• Emergence by Willy C Cardosa
• An emergent curriculum by Nick Jaworski 
• Nature emerges naturally, does learning? by Cecilia Coelho
• What does it mean to say that language emerges? by Candy Von Ost
• Dogme Schmoge by Anne Hodgson
• Unanswered questions that continue to dogme by Sue Lyon Jones
• Does language emerge? by Rick Oprea 
• Activate all inherent learning by Diarmuid Fogarty
• Unplugged moments by Michelle Worgan

Read previous Challenge blog posts:

• Challenge #1 Co-construction + the list of responding blogs

Read Next in the Challenge series

• Challenge 3 Scaffolding
• Challenge 4 Being Light
  
• Challenge 5 The Learner's voice
  
• Challenge 6 NNESTs vs NESTs
  

What is all this about? 
The Dogme Blog Challenge + links to the blogs discussing Dogme
The dogma of Dogme

How to share on Twitter:  use the #dogmeme hashtag

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!

How to respond?

Comment below with short thoughts

Go to your nearest yahoo!group and share your opinions

with like-minded teaching colleagues

Blog it:

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!)

Important URLs to quote/link to in your post if necessary:

• 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