Dogme and the First Day of a New Class

 Recently, after teaching a group of teachers with another teacher, I had some not-so-great feedback:

"The 2nd teacher didn't give us no papers. I didn't learn with her."

Despite that she got a solid 2hr lesson of intense speaking practice with me and her group, three times a week, based on subjects they all chose at the beginning of the course, she was unhappy.   And although the feedback from the other students/group ranging from happy to very happy, it was her feedback which taught me the most.

Because I failed.  

Not in teaching her, but in properly communicating what was actually happening in the classroom.   I learned a very valuable lesson and thought I'd share it with you and that is if you're going to teach with minimal resources then for many students, especially if you're teaching adults,  you do really need to do the following:

1.  On the first day of class, explain what dogme is and tell the students ahead of time why you will not be providing photocopied sheets of paper or why you aren't using a textbook.

Discuss the benefits of a student-centered curriculum.  Talk to them about why you need them to be doing the work - what the reasons are for asking them bringing in the real-life emails and documents they use or need to understand.  

Don't forget that many people, across a wide range of cultures, have grown up with the viewpoint that the classroom is a place to be spoon-fed, so do make sure that they understand that you are going to be treating them like the adults they are!

2.  Do do a very thorough "wants" analysis.  i.e. find out exactly what their needs are before creating your course curriculum around these.  Add dates for on-the-spot flexibility.  Type it up as an outline to ensure they understand your professionalism and hand this out to your students - the more they know that you are on top of things the better. 

The more they know that they are on top of the content of their learning, the better. 

Go back to this sheet/table often during the course - get them to think about where they are at different intervals and ask if they are still happy with the direction they are heading in or if they would like to make any changes to their goals and learning targets.

3. Do a "what are your personal expectations" exercise - i.e. encourage them to write a paragraph about the level of English they expect to have by the end of the course.  

Whenever you are reviewing your outline at various steps, ask them to also review their own expectations at the same time.   Obviously, set aside time for a discussion about this at the end of the course.  (This is what I'd failed to do!)

If not, if they haven't realized by the end of the course, that they have in fact received what they needed and wanted to learn and that they have in fact, significantly improved their speaking and listening skills, that their notebooks are now chock-filled with contextual emergent vocabulary and language... then you may wind up with a few folks in your class who think you were just winging it.

Keeping all adult learners happy isn't an easy task by any means but good communication is one of the tricks to making it a little more so!


Do you have any other tips for the first days/week when running Dogme classes?



Useful links related to this posting: 

• What is Dogme ELT?
• Dogme Blog Challenge 10:  The questions that continue to niggle
• Dogme style tips  
• The sins of assumption: motivation in adult learning 
• also see Mel's comment on Speed Dating as Vocabulary Review - for needs analysis

Best,
Karenne
education

photocredit: Wikimedia Commons, Manjith Kainickara

Beam their errors on to the wall

Type up a list of your students' most common errors into a word or googledoc, project on to the wall and get them to have a gander.

Don't write the names of the author's beside the mistakes, leave them as anonymous...

Stand at the back of the room so that they can't ask you for help.

After a short period has passed, encourage your students to analyze the problems they see and to talk to each other about what they think each correction should be and why...

Switch groups and get them to share their thoughts with their new partners.


Then sit back down in front of computer and get them to call out the corrections to you - your same-time changes should be visible to them.  Discuss any issues that arise at this point.


Finally, you can get them to sit back down and they can either type up their own list or make notes on the errors they found most difficult to correct - or perhaps even the ones they recognize as their own/ that they find themselves making frequently.

That's it!

Karenne

Useful links
What do you do with emergent language?
Use it, don't let them lose it.

Coming soon...

I've decided to do a Ken Wilson on you because as I trawl through my draft posts and glance at the whiteboard near my desk, my heart sinks under the weight of everything that needs to be done ASAP (namely the final week of my Blended Learning project, feedback to 30 students; changes to our (ELTAS) tech-tools day in July and other stuff like that)...

I'm simply not moving fast enough, sorry...

So, here's a quick look see at what's coming as soon as there's time!

• newly recorded version of the History of English poem which I did at the IATEFL Pechua Kucha Night (complete with slides and a webquest activity to do with your students if you'd like to) - Shelly Terrell was an absolute doll and met up with me the other night to do this again.

• the ESL/EFL carnival which looks like I'm going to have to transform this into a Prezi,  because the blog post is just too long (but very much worth the wait).

• a report on the IATEFL LT-SIG day

• a report on the blended learning/dogme project I've been working on for the last 5 months

• a series of e-tivities which worked with my adult BE students on Ning

• an explanation regarding the cost breakdown of coursebooks, written by a major international publisher!!

• an interview with the incredible Nicky Hockly as part of the She-in-ELT series

• a series on edu-blogging in which I will be guest-posting on various other bloggers' blogs rather than my own!

• a summing up of the crowd-wise series plus downloadahle e-book

and there's probably more but can't bring it all to mind right now.


See you soon,

Karenne
p.s. don't forget you can subscribe to my blog via RSS feed or get email versions - see the side bar or ask if you're not sure how -  in the meantime, thanks so much for your patience.

image credit:
Prague Clock by Kainet

New Year, New Look

aaaaagh, 39 hours of programming later, I've finally finished my attempt at making my blog resemble an online magazine!

Lost some bits and pieces of code along the way... the pictures stretch when viewed in IE... had to redo a number of widgets which broke during the transfer and LinkWithin disappeared :-(...

Added a few extra features like the BELTfree Master Feed to the bottom and totally revised my blog roll to help you find other great ELT bloggers. 


Lemme see, what else - hopefully, I have made it easier for you to navigate your way around the blog through the new menu bars. 

If you, by any chance, find any typos, silly mistakes or there's any other issue that's confusing - please, please do let me know as I completely depend on your eyes and fingers for feedback!

Click on HOME to see the full effect :-)

Enjoy!
Karenne

EFL Teacher Progress Check: adult language learners

Somewhere, in one of the training manuals I read a long time ago, I found the steps teachers go through on their way to becoming great instructors and I've got this posted up on my wall for reflection.

1. The unconscious incompetent
We do not know that we do not know. We're doing a crap job yet when the students don't learn, we blame them.

They simply aren't interested, we cry.
They have too many other obligations, we excuse.
It's not my fault.



2. The conscious incompetent

We know that what's occurring in our classes isn't working -that our students aren't getting it and that it probably has to do something with the way we're teaching... but we're not entirely sure how to fix the problems.

3. The unconscious competent

The students are learning! Whoohoo, the magic is occurring - they're reusing the vocabulary in context, their fluency is fantastic... but... er, how on earth did we get here??

Why this class and not the one after this one?

We're not able to put a finger on what it is that is, exactly, that's working so well.


4. The conscious competent

Through self-reflection and awareness of what and how we are teaching, we achieve a level of mastery in our teaching practice.

We know what works, what doesn't for each (or most) of our students and we're able to provide them with the keys to successful language learning.

- . -

While reaching no.4 is the goal of any great teacher, it also contains the added danger of slipping right on back down to step 1, especially if we're not actively involved in our professional development: conscientiously reading the latest methodology books and articles - attending workshops, taking part in webinars and going to conferences.

However, don't worry, this post isn't about lecturing you... my blog's not really about that - is simply my public journey into becoming a better language teacher and teacher trainer and sharing the stuff I learn with you along the way.

In fact, today, I'm going to show you that I am not The Perfect Teacher and despite 15 years on the job, still have areas to work on.

I chose one of my smaller groups, made up of two students who're not easy for me to teach - although we get on well - to give me feedback on my training and our lessons and I asked if we could film it.

I asked them if they'd not only be okay with us recording the session (cutting them out of the frame) but also if they'd be comfortable being completely honest.

They were.

These are my usual questions to language learners at the end of one course/ 'renew' start:

1. What was your overall impression of the course?
2. Did you think the course was appropriately designed for your needs?
3. In your opinion, how flexible or structured were our training sessions?
4. What were some of the lessons you learned most from?
5. Can you think of a lesson in particular that you really enjoyed ?
6. What key areas should we spend more time on improving in the next course?
7. What should I, as your language teacher, work on improving?
8. Do you have anything extra you would like to add?

How often do you get feedback on your progress as a teacher? How do you make sure you're meeting your students' needs? Do you have a standard set of questions you always ask? What are they?

How well do you handle criticism?

Are you embarrassed by praise?

Do you ask your students to reflect on the good stuff they learned and highlight particular things that you need to now focus on doing?

And finally, would you like to give me feedback on the way I ask for feedback, how could this be improved?


Useful links related to this posting:

• Learning to learn: vocabulary mind-mapping (the task M and V mentioned in the vid)
  

• BESIG conference
• IATEFL conference sponsorships available

• Tony Watt's very interesting discussion on the IATEFL forum list on teaching methods vs. teaching principles.
  

Best,
Karenne

My new template!

Hey, is this the Kalinago English blog?

Yup!

Just in case this is a repeat visit for you and you're feeling a bit confused, I've been slogging throughout the Easter break and hopefully have come up with something that's both pleasing to the eye and much more organized!


Unfortunately I lost some of the formatting in some of the posts due to the slightly different size of the 'main box' and will work on fixing these during the coming week.

Thanks so much for sending in your feedback to me throughout the last month -via the comments, email and Facebook - it was very much appreciated and helped me to create this new design.

If you like/hate it, don't hesitate to let me know!

Best,
Karenne

p.s. If you're a fellow blogger - I got the basic template (free!) to work with from http://www.ourblogtemplates.com/
Thanks OBT - I love it ;-)

p.p.s Special thank you has to go to Az who sent me 'pages' of feedback -dude, eternally grateful.

How am I doing?

Hi guys,

Thanks very much for all your visits to my blog. Each time I notice in the back-pages that I have more visitors and an increase in repeat visitors, plus the time you spend in the blog and on the pages you make me continue working!

I am now at my 6 months point and at the moment, I'm preparing drafts of the changes I want to make on both sites, (this one and the one for students) - basically in terms of their overall structure and layout (adding a sitemap etc) so I would love to know your thoughts.

If you're a regular visitor or you're just newly here it'd be great to get feedback from you - you're my audience. ;-).

Obviously, you don't have to respond using your name and can remain anonymous - just hit the comments button. If you'd like to give me feedback which will only be seen by me, simply say this in your comment and I won't print it!

So here are my questions:

• Do you enjoy your visits? What do you enjoy most? What do you enjoy least?
• Is there anything I should be doing more of or less of?
• Do you have any requests?
• Any frustrations you'd like to share with me?

I'm really looking forward to hearing back from you, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Best,
Karenne