Dogme Blog Challenge #8 Myth 3 - Some classrooms are just too "difficult" to dogme

This one

is the most widespread of all the myths...

Somehow, for some very bizarre reason, whenever you talk to teachers who don't get dogme  
(because they couldn't be bothered to research? stand to lose something?  love their textbooks too much to look at the folks in the room?)


the words

"well, dogme works for some classes, I suppose, but it won't work for mine because..."

comes slipping out of their mouths with a sheepish grin...

 "See... the thing is (cough)

"I, er, teach..."    
they'll continue...




"young learners
    and they need order, structure, they won't know what to say

50 students in one class

how can I be expected to organize my classroom into smaller groups?! it's impossible

Chinese students

 a cultural thing, see.. they're not a nation of talkers...

English for Specialized Purposes

all that technical vocabulary, I most surely have to know it all to teach them the jargon they deal with daily.. surely?

on Moodle
people need pop-up instructions to know what to do...

My students want grammar... 

and Dogme teachers never teach grammar

 My students want their textbooks, 

and their workbook, CDrom, DVDrom, i-phone downloadable app, mousepad, pen...

They're doing the TOEFL

they've a lot of words to learn

don't ya know...

 I'm a new teacher..."

Uh, huh...

Go on, Edu-bloggers, this is a special call for you to go on ahead and leave a trail forever:

Explode this myth sky-high!

Tell us how you work with all the above and any other excuses you've also heard:  show us how you  manage to keep your classrooms learner-centered, how you work with emergent language, how you provide scaffolding for all of these impossible classes... how you keep your students conversing despite all these "so-called difficulties" and provide them with quality education.

The Blog Posts Challenge #8

• Dogme with young learners by Sabrina de Vita (also in #3)
• Dogme with young learners by Dave Dodgson
• Not to be taken lightly by Dave Dodgson (also in #4)
• Planting the seeds of Dogme by Dave Dodgson
• Dogme and me or me and my dog by Patrick Jackson 
• An overheard conversation by Evan Frendo 
• Courage by David Warr 
• A problem shared is now ruining someone else's life by Diarmuid Fogarty
• Religious fervour and pedagogical evangelism by Darren Elliot
• It's too difficult!  by Candy von Ost

 
Other Related

• ELTchat, Dogme in school contexts

Read previous Challenge blog posts:

• Challenge #1 (Co-construction) + the list of responding blogs
• Challenge #2 (It's emergent?) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #3 (Scaffolding) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #4 (Materials light) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #5 (Learners' voice) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #6 (Myth 1 - NNEST vs NEST) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #7 (Myth 2 - Technology, none?) + list of responding blogs

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

Note for those new to this challenge: Dogme is not anti-coursebook, please see this video if at all confused: (here)

How to share on Twitter:  use the #dogmeme hashtag

How to share your fellow teachers' blog posts with each other?  Don't forget to add a link to the blog(s) which have been written on the same subject on your own post so they form a ring and your readers can travel on from yours to the other responding blogs.

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

The horse you were riding on

 
Once you 

see the horse 

you were riding on

is dead:

get off.

Dakota tribal wisdom.


Previous posts you might find interesting:
Where are all the horseshoe makers now? 
8 radical technologies that rocked the world...
Blogging, chatting and discussions online

more...Technology in teaching English
Dogme ELT

Laugh a little:
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/p11735-beating_dead_horse_what

Dogme Blog Challenge #7 Myth 2, Dogme ELT = No Technology..?

~ what none?

so what's all this then...

this Dogme 2.0?

  

Explode the myth.


The Blog Posts Challenge #7

• Dave Dodgson Now for something completely different
• Mike Harrison Don't go giving me extremes 
• Sabrina de Vita Invisible Technology 
• Willy Cardoso  To tech or not to tech
• Diarmuid Fogarty We don't need no thought control 
  

Read previous Challenge blog posts:

• Challenge #1 (Co-construction) + the list of responding blogs
• Challenge #2 (It's emergent?) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #3 (Scaffolding) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #4 (Materials light) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #5 (Learners' voice) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #6 (NNEST vs NEST) + list of responding blogs

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

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!

hat tip for this amazing image:  Maricarmen Gamero which was downloaded from: http://www.fondosgratis.com.mx/

yes... really, that's it. 

I didn't press publish by accident... y'all  know what to do :) :)

Which came first: time or tenses?

In the beginning, there was nothing.

There were no stars, no planets, no humans nor animals, no seas nor birds, no turtles nor grasshoppers.

Nor was there light

nor was there dark

Nor was there a before nor an after.

There was only nothingness.

But in a slice, of a slice of a slice - something we will never understand, all of that nothingness amassed itself and it was so unbearable, for the very nano of a nanosecond, that an inconsequential particle of a particle awoke.  

There was no going back to sleep.   For where there had always been nothing there was now a single something.  A single point of awareness... a single thought created out of a sleep which then swum through the seas of a vast and infinite 

 nowhere,

it searched, blindly, through the terror of the nothingness for somethingness,

anything

which would allow it

to know that it actually existed.



But there was only disappointment awaiting it.

It was the single,

it was the only

it could not be.



How could it go

backwards,
back into the void?


How could it go forwards
into that which was not any longer only void?



Our Something was suddenly

desperate:

would it always be locked in this

infernal now

there must be something there

it thought


for the very first time

as it stretched its new muscles of intelligence.



There

must be a way to

validate existence...


But yet, it pondered, if there was no before,

if there was no after

and only this

infinite nowness

it could not

be

for to exist must

suggest that there was time

a time

She did not exist.

For something, surely can not be created

from nothing...

Oh! To ask someone else

she said glancing at her navel.



Our Something was dismayed

to exist it

is most surely

an undoable curse.



But then, suddenly that nano nano of a

nano particle

turned upon herself

as she had had the very brightest of bright ideas...



She

understood -

in order to find out, to know if she truly existed

she would need to become more than one. She would need her opposite.  The light to her darkness.

So in that moment, in a flashing, flaming friction
Our Something rubbed against all that she was

and all that she
was not.

And as ... she split, a multiplitude of universes were born... and from then on...  moment upon moment...
millenia upon millenia...

something in her
reflected back
on the nothingness
it conversed with the somethingness

and it was content for... all that struggle was good.  It showed her
what it most surely means
to be.



Okay, so there is a point... sort of...


Why do we teach grammar to adults in sequence, in steps?

I asked this a couple of weeks back in the ELTchat and a recent post on Berni's blog reminded me yet again of this age-old question...



Present Simple

then

Present continuous

then

Adverbs of frequency

then

Past simple regular verbs

and then

well, you know the drill...


Those fond of grammar do (and hey I revel in a little grammar too - just the sequence bugs me)

Why do we impose this bubble of now?

Why do we get a slightly panicky feeling when our adult English beginners try to express, dare to try to say something which might be happening to them, temporarily, at a far point in the future...

Who said the chicken has to come before the egg.  Or was it the egg before the chicken - I forget now.

Why do we think that if we teach grammar in step-by-step stages, they will get it?   If who they are is the sum of their pasts, the blend of all actions and experiences, the good, the bad, the ugly...  and if their opportunities rests upon their futures, how come we don't just teach them the words they need? 

Do we speak more in the present?  I suppose we probably do..or do we?  

Who made this system up?  

Who put this grammatical system we use today in place?  When? Why?  What was his intention, his agenda? Is grammar taught like this in all languages?   What do the linguists say about our brains and how we process time?  

Does this step-by-step structural system consolidate in our brains and has this been measured on those electrical thingiemajiggies.... do we have any empirical evidence that this system is supported by the way our brain processes meaning... and no, by the way I don't know the answers -I'm so really not being socratic this time - I just don't know, 

I simply just can't wrap my head around why we do this...

And then there's the whole imposition of time upon cultures...

Did you know that your perceptions of time are cultural?   As I mentioned in a comment a while back on Vicki's blog, there are those of us for whom 400 years ago was yesterday and there are those who see yesterday stretching back thousands and thousands of years and there are others of us for whom the past is an illusion in front of you and the future is behind you (South Seas or something)... and yet there are plenty of others who can only see tomorrow as being something they have influence over: to know they exist.

So...

Musings, ramblings...

thoughts, y'all?

Potentially interesting
Read a book review of The History of English Language Teaching by Alex Case

Legality and the Creative Commons Debate

While there are many website creators and bloggers all over the internet who host content that is not their own, or who merely blog solely out of amusement... something to while away the time before they retire, some of us who do create content, do so

a) to develop professionally
b) to create a large body of work i.e. a work of art
c) to share this art with our colleagues, friends and global collaborators

Either way, whatever we produce on our pages, (even if we're already retired and no longer in the classroom/ creative world)... our writing and designs are usually subject to copyright and in most of our cases, subject to creative commons licensing which means that it is free to use but attribution  for the final or even draft product must be given.   

Some of us really don't mind if this work provides others with an income, others of us really do.   I am one of the ones who does.   Some out there think that if we get upset by having work stolen, we shouldn't because, basically,  in their opinion, blogging isn't real work!

I guess, once upon a time, journalism wasn't real work either.  And didn't Van Gogh die penniless - or was he the guy who cut off his ear?  Nevermind.

While albeit, understandably, admittedly for those who blog solely to promote their company's wares or to advertise their upcoming conference presentations it is indeed very difficult for them to see a problem with material being lifted off our, as artists,  pages...  after all, in their cases if their advertisements are shared with others, they're very happy.

Still, not all blogs or bloggers are the same, nor do we all create under the same motivations.  For some of us, when our hours of energy, time and work is copied, it is an infringement, a violation of our rights.

These past few weeks have seen several very interesting cases crop up in our own field  of ELT, in general education and on the outskirts of it.  I know that I personally believe that not only do we need to respect each others' art, we really must fight together against those who would violate it.

What do you think? 

Have you ever had work lifted?  Were you able to deal with the thieves?

Has anyone ever tried to claim ownership over something you created?  How did it make you feel?

Have you ever contributed to a large body of work for a colleague or a boss and then had them casually forget to give you credit or reference your work?  How did this make you feel?

In this techno-age should our students be taught now not to violate copyright?   Or do you believe that the age of owning the right to have your name on your art  is now over?

Is plagiarism ever flattering?

Useful links related to this posting:

• Understanding Creative Commons (previous post on this theme: Uncommonly Creative)
• Get your Creative Commons official license here.
  

• How to find millions of photographs, music and other forms of media which have been licensed under creative commons:  Search Creative Commons

• Simple Wikipedia

• Wikimedia Commons

• Plagiarism.org

• Idioms in English - excellent initiative by the webheads to create a resource for ELT 

Problems with copyright:

• Nick Jaworski and the case of the unethical contract
• Marisa Constantinides and the case of the stolen articles
• Tom Barrett and the case of the lifted google-doc

If you have also written on this issue or are currently struggling with someone on a copyright issue, please don't hesitate to add your url below.

 Best, Karenne education  

I love hearing from you! Please add your thoughts on this issue if you have suffered or been violated or if you are unsure about the legalities of creative commons / would like to share how you work - don't worry about perfection or agreeing with me: it's always a pleasure to hear from you and know what you think.

Do you know of another excellent source for free creative-commons licenced materials and media to share with students?

And p.s. what a week... eh?

There seriously must have been something out there in the universe - moon, stars and planets, and all that... I honestly feel like I've been dealing with crazies all week...

Dogme Blog Challenge #6 Exploding the Myths 1 "NNESTS can't do dogme"

Teacher, you got it wrong:

by Christina Chang, Taiwan

http://nnest.moussu.net/articles/chang.html

 
Oh, No, Teacher, you got it all wrong.


Oh, No, Teacher, you got it all wrong.





I just realized how we never learned to think in English
and why we could not write in English without fear of making mistakes.

Hate: when you introduced the word 'hate' to me
in English, you were in such a hurry to show me
that it was a verb, a transtive verb but it could also be intranstive
and the past tense looked like 'hated' and
the past participle was also such and such and you moved on
to write on the board the tricky "hatred"-noun of 'hate' -
not to be confused with 'hated' and then the adjective of 'hate'.
And You yourself never did tell us one thing
you hated in your life. Not one thing. There was no time.

It was when I read Seymour Papert, a renowned scholar at MIT,
through the Internet, writing how he grew up
in South Africa . . .

"I grew up in South Africa and one thing
I learned to hate was all forms of segregation . . ."

He went on and on, saying what and why he hated . . .

It was then that I relearned the word 'hate' and
I picked up the word 'segregation' so surely without looking up
in a dictionary. No need to.

I then learned to say . . .

I hate, growing up, being taught English in Taiwan
by teachers, who could not say what they hated and I became
stuttered in English and not knowing why . . .

I hate the segregation of Native and Non-Nativeness;
I hate the blind fear you harbor in yourself secretly and carefully
about using English . . . yeah, not to lose face
I hate that you did not use English to communicate
anything about yourself, about your feelings and thoughts and
We never got to do so and learned how it is to say
"I hate" in English.

You did teach 'Grammar' and "Rules'
as if they were the only guarantees that would save me
against 'losing face' or 'losing out' -- in exams.
But do you see what we might lose in life's journey
Beyond winning exams and saving faces?

I hate that people around me are trying to make me into
someone like you, make me believe that we could only
be someone like you,

Who are willing to judge and be judged by
grammar and rules all throughout their lives of using English
because of the segregation of Native and Non-Nativeness.

Oh, No, Teacher, you got it all wrong.

I've found my voice in English. Have you found yours?
In life's long journey, I know I have won my share of using English
without fear of segregation. 

found in the dogme yahoo group, 2005  

In a world approaching 2 billion English language learners, one third of the planet's population, there are give or take, 4 million TEFL teachers in the world at any one time.   

Unquestionably, most English teachers in the world are actually non-native speakers of English.

 

1. Some critics of the Dogme approach have suggested that only native-speaker teachers can feel fully comfortable in this unplanned teaching mode.  A Dogme approach can sound high risk, involving snap decisions and an intuitive feel for both accuracy and appropriacy - the kinds of skills often associated with (experienced) native-speaker teachers.   Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009.

What do you think?  Are Non Native English Speaking teachers disadvantaged?

2. What role does a knowledge of the home culture play in the creation and execution of dogme in the classroom? 

3. If language is seen through the eyes and voice of the learners, how might this not be transmitted through a Native English Speaking teacher?  If you are a NNEST reading this blog post, what do you bring to your classroom that, in your opinion, a NEST cannot?

4. Is language teaching about creating perfect models of expression?   As a NEST, what are your advantages in approaching your classes Dogmeically that, in your opinion, your NNEST colleagues may not have?

5. Or is there any arrogance in the perceived notions that someone who was not born in a native English speaking country has a somewhat lesser level of English?  Is this a truth?  

Explode the myth.

The Blog Posts Challenge #6

•  Luke Meddings On Dogme and Identity:
•  Henrick Oprea NEST vs NNESTs - what is the big difference?
•  Cecilia Coelho Nothing more... nothing less
•  Sabrina de Vita It all comes down to passion
•  Dave Dodgson A classroom discussion
•  Richard Whiteside Are Native Speaker Models so important?
•  Mike Harrison Do you need to be italian to make pasta?
•  Luke Meddings Teacher people
•  Diarmuid Fogarty Brittania waives the rules
•  David Warr Music
•  Natasa Grojic Raised by NNESTs
•  Thomas Baker We are all born free and equal:unless you're a NNEST
  

Read previous Challenge blog posts:

• Challenge #1 (Co-construction) + the list of responding blogs
• Challenge #2 (It's emergent?) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #3 (Scaffolding) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #4 (Materials light) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #5 (Learners' voice) + list of responding blogs

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

Important Link for NNESTs
TESOL http://nnest.asu.edu/
http://nnesintesol.blogspot.com/

How to share on Twitter:  use the #dogmeme hashtag - if you're not on Twitter, email me your link or add it below :-)

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

Dear Internet Troll

 Dear Internet Troll,

You live in Burbage, Wiltshire.

The first two times you came in at 16:41 and 17:17, your most recent visit was at 20:13.


Please see the picture of your visitations to my blog below.

These are the comments of yours which I deleted:

Dear Troll,

You are using Windows, running Internet Explorer and you searched for me specifically on Google UK.

As I run web analytics by tomorrow morning my stats will include your time-stamped IP address.

Think about this and thank you for not visiting my blog any longer - and by the way if you go back and remove your comment all by yourself, then you will find that I have no need to contact the police in your village to further investigate you and your time-wasting emotional-bashing activities.

You have been warned.  

Karenne Joy Sylvester loves her people, her friends and colleagues very much but as most people already know, bullies: she eats for breakfast.

Clear?

Social Not-working

Twitter, eh?

Love it
Hate it
Love it...


A picture for you of the world on the outskirts of our PLN... and sometimes within:

Pesky Pests

•  DM: Put me on your blog roll, I need you to make me famous!!
•  DM: Retweet my links for me, I need you to make me famous!!!
•  @kalinagoenglish Come and comment on my blog!  You will love it!!!!
•  RT 457 of my 3rd post ever! #edchat #edtech #eltchat #tefl #efl #eltpics #dogmeme #tefl
• Hey EduVIP look at me! Today!  Like you have to know this: I'm your BIGGEST fan, like you know, ever!  Did I tell you how fab all your pictures of food are!!! They make me so hungry I just want to come live with you and curl up in your kitchen.  Did you look at me yet?

Nothing But Narcissism

•  Feeling lonely over here, my blog needs your comments.  Come over and write your thoughts but don't forget to hit the RT button on your way out :-))))
•  I don't have time to comment on other people's blogs and stuff because as you know, I'm busy making a ginormous wiki about grocery shopping in Sainsbury's: I'm going to label everything according to aisle.  I will need all the EduBloggers help on that so don't forget to RT on your way out.
•  Having dinner with VIPx and his darling wife tonight!  We'll be eating mushroom soup.  Have you RTed my dinner plans yet?
•  Just had a cup of coffee, I love my Java.   Especially first thing in the morning.  Have you posted that to Facebook and Stumble Upon yet?  I wanna have 30,000 followers see.  Then I'll be the best.
•  Sitting in a traffic jam.  I'm going to paint my toenails tonight.  I think I'll paint them violet.  Then everyone will acknowledge my truest deepest amazingness.  
•  Arrived in Casablanca, staying at €€€hotel, dontcha wish you was me:  twitpic2078359304 - oh you're so unlucky not to be mee, meee, meeee.

The Truly Tacky

•  Just bought a 4G so now I'm as handsome and as awesome as Steve Jobs!
•  Can you link to our website via your blog?
• Win the chance to win an i-touch by coming to our website and registering your email address with us so we can spam you non-stop about our amazing products we're sure you're passionate to buy!
• Holy smokes!  I've got 500 fans on Twitter! I never knew I was so intelligent!
• Just heading to the loo.   Let's talk about what people do in loos, shall we?
• Just twitted my 1000th thought today.  "I've been very busy and productive today."
• Hey!  We have a product we know you'll love to bits and we want you to feature it on your blog!  RT and spread the word!!!
• How about those lovely balloons of Ms Spears?  Bouncy! 

Useful to think about:

Best, Karenne
education
I love hearing from you!

I remember the last time I did a dry-humour post on social-notworking, Twitter: in the space of 140 characters, a handful of the wonderful people I follow got a wee bit upset and thought I was talking about them.... Lovely folks, if I'm still following you, you don't have to worry.

I'm just doing some clean-up.  And, important disclaimer, obviously I too in my forays into the world of social-media undoubtedly made my own fair share of the above mistakes (and others).

Please add your thoughts if you enjoyed this piece and you feel like there's something you would like to question, add or say about it - don't worry about perfection or agreeing with me as it's always a pleasure to hear from you and know your own opinions.

What bothers you about Twitter and EduSocialMedia?

And by the way, have you already written about this specific subject or something similar? Do please add your link as I welcome the opportunity to participate in your conversations too! :-)

Check on your TweetPsych

• http://tweetpsych.com/
• review of tweetpsych
• learn about your klout

Recommended reading 

• Why Narcissistic Personality Disorder loves Twitter, Social Media RockStar
• Does twitter breed narcissism? by Social Media Today
  
• Short outbursts on twitter, New York Times
• Zen and the art of Twitter, Mashable
• The 46 stages of Twitter, Diary of a country wife
• Twitter as 100 people, Mashable
• Twitter spammers, Mashable
• 20 reasons people unfollow you on Twitter, Small Biz Trends
  

Advice on using Twitter as a teacher, as a conversation medium

• Posts I've written previously about Twitter 
• Posts Sue Lyon Jones has written previously about Twitter
• The English Language Teachers' guide to Twitter
• Connect to the world by Shelly Terrell (excellent presentation)
• Best resources for learning about Twitter by Larry Ferlazzo
• Best apps for using Twitter by Ozge Karaoglu

Advice on using Twitter if you'd doing so as an educational company

• 50 ideas on using Twitter for business, Chris Brogan
• The content/engagment balance by Forrest Kobayashi
• We decide if you're influential, not you by The Social Customer

Hat tip
Russell Stannard for his Teacher Training video How to MakeBeliefscomix

Dogme Blog Challenge #5 Speak, Voice

Providing space for the learners' voice means 

accepting that the learners'

beliefs

knowledge

experiences

concerns

& desires

are valid content in the language learning classroom.

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

Although this essential theme has come up and written about already in the 40 + blog posts written so far in this dogme blog challenge, it is so incredibly important - it is, in my humble opinion, it is the very core of dogme... so we're going to hone in

on this

one

incredible word:

Voice.

Whenever we refer to someone as having a voice what do we actually mean?  

• David R Hall says that students know what their own needs and interests are.  Do they?  How do we or they provide/ utilize materials to encourage their voices to come out, to tell us this?  How do we build meaning together, while we're supporting the sound of it... how do we listen to the stories of 'the people in the room?'  

• In your opinion, how can we create an environment where a degree of equality between participants blurs questions of status and social distance?  How can we ensure that all of our students are actually heard? By whom?  Do you think this is, actually, really possible?  Have you been in situations where this would prove impossible?  In your opinion, are people in general really interested in hearing about each other or only themselves?  

• Do you think emotional intelligence plays any kind of role in cultivating voice in our classrooms?

• Are their English voices ever different from their L1 voices?  If you yourself speak an L2, are you the same person when you're communicating in this other language - in what way do you think you change? 

Best,

Karenne

-p.s  If you're a blogger reading my page... how did you discover your writing voice?  Was it a conscious development or did it simply emerge?

-p.p.s a special huge thank you to the global bloggers who have already taken part in this incredible challenge: I am learning so much from all of you and at our halfway point I just really wanted to let you  know that it has been just incredible how you have opened up your classroom doors and let us all in, to see, to learn:  you've not only shared time and energy with us, your random readers, but you have given us the gift of your experience and you have imparted on us your invaluable knowledge.

I know that I personally have been challenged by this amazing community of teaching practioners: I have been tickled, provoked, delighted, interested, absorbed, excited to try out the new things I've read on your pages - in short, entranced by your voices.

And we've still got five more to go!!!  Coming up: NNEST and dogme; the so-called-difficult classes; dogme&technology; critical pedagogy/critical thinking...

The Blog Posts Challenge #5

• Mike Harrison's guest post on here, Objects in the Rear View Mirror
• Paul Braddock's Barefoot Teaching Challenge/Poll
• Paul Braddock's Response to challenge 5
• David Warr It's all about them 
• Diarmuid Fogarty You only sing when you're winning 
• Candy von Ost What is talking for anymore? 
• Leahn Stanhope Can you hear me?
• Sabrina de Vita Unheard voices
• Natasa Grojic: Where I stand on dogme 
• Sue Lyon Jones Dogme, hard with vengence

Read previous Challenge blog posts:

• Challenge #1 (Co-construction) + the list of responding blogs
• Challenge #2 (It's emergent?) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #3 (Scaffolding) + list of responding blogs
• Challenge #4 (Materials light) + list of responding blogs

Read next in the challenge

• 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

How to share on Twitter:  use the #dogmeme hashtag

How to share your fellow teachers' blog posts with each other?  Please don't forget to add/link to the other blog(s) written on the subject on your own post so that they can form a ring and your readers can travel on from your post to the next one!

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
• Luke Meddings' on Dogme and Identity: http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/development/dogme-and-identity
• Dogme ELT in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_language_teaching

Pinboards and Timelines - talking our way through their lives

The other day I promised Jason to take part in his meeting of the boards' challenge for English language teachers all over the world to share their white/black boards but in fact, while browsing through my photograph albums, found this one  of pinboards instead and as it's a real favourite for getting students talking and talking, thought I'd post it for you.  It's called ... the wonderous Pinboards & Timelines game.  And by the way, this is one of those games that really works whether you're dogme with virtually no materials or if you're a let's step out of that-coursebook-for-a-bit-shall-we teacher...on the hunt for a speaking activity to supplement the coursebook's review of the pasts or futures.

Step 1
Grab some coloured paper and write a set of dates or time periods on it (you can decide how many and which you want based on the mean age of your group).

Put these up on the pinboard* in order.

Step 2
Ask your students to write down bullet points or one-word answers to the things they've done or anticipate doing in their lives, using matching coloured card.

Step 3
Get them to pin their own cards up on the board.

Step 4
Once it's  full, encourage them to circulate around the room finding pairs or working in small groups to tell each other about their lives.  You circulate listening, correcting, providing feedback and encouraging them to focus on form and structures.

Step 5

thank you Andrew Wright for teaching me 
to draw stick figures :) in error correction

Once they are re-seated, then ask four or five random students: what was the most interesting thing you heard about one of your colleagues?  

Feedback consciously and emotionally (i.e. wow, that is interesting) and ask further questions or challenge them to say why it was shocking/interesting/just like them.


Write a list of the most common errors and elicit / provide correction.

That's it! Easy as pie...

Best,
Karenne
education

p.s. **An alternative when working with very large groups is instead of using a pinboard you can use blu-tak to temporarily stick the coloured cards to the walls - encourage the students to start at different points of the timeline...and circulate.


Interesting articles related to this posting:  

• Cecilia Coelho, What comes out of unsuspecting students
  
• Michelle Worgan, Babbling Blackboards
• Shelly Terrell, Unplugged student-interaction whiteboards
• Emma Herrod, All aboard the board-train
• Mike Harrison, How do you scaffold?
• Luciana Podschun,  The wanderous whiteboard
• Dave Dodgson, Additon to a board meeting

I love hearing from you! Please add your thoughts if you enjoyed this piece or you feel like there's something you would like to question, add or say about it - don't worry about perfection or agreeing with me: it's always a pleasure to hear from you and know your own opinions.

October 2010 summary of blog posts

T'was a very busy month, it was... (Do you ever get sick of me telling you that? Sorry!)

Anyway, we're now fully into autumn here with the once yellowing leaves now falling, soon leaving the trees bare and lonely.   From next week on I'll be back in intensive classes - this time six weeks in a row straight of 8hr classes (argh...) so am busy trying to draft out posts for the coming weeks - things I can finish up in the evenings.  

I'm really quite excited to be going to both BESIG and TESOL France this year (yes, in between the classes - planes and trains carefully scheduled) as I'll be presenting in both on edu-blogging with adult learners.

Really looking forward to both events and if you're going too and we've not yet met  (or even if we have)  do be sure to come up and say hey, don't be shy - it's always a real treat to meet my readers in person!  Although I should warn you I'm no way as extroverted in real-life as I am on the page or in the classroom, but I'm learning, so be patient with me ;-)!

Anyhoo, hope you also enjoyed your October and that November brings you much joy and learning.

Take care,

Karenne

October 2010

• Browse through all my posts, October 2010:

(You can also use this Furly -  http://fur.ly/355q   Furly collects URLs to browse through all the posts look at the yellow/orange menu at the top of the screen and click on the arrows)

• Foxy Voxy
• Google Docs for focusing on form
• The Easiest Speaking Game in the world
• Let's sell a car!
• Tara Benwell (Teaching English Online/My English Club)
• Not a drop to drink!
• Running towards TEFL
• Schooling the world
• How's my job different from yours?
• The Dogme Blog Challenge
• September's posts

• Read through the 23 posts I most enjoyed (by other bloggers in ELT): http://fur.ly/356s

Foxy Voxy: #mlearning meets motivation in language teaching

In a rant, several weeks back I emphasized my thoughts on how I really, simply, can't see how mobile phones and language learning/teaching are ever going to lie in a bed together...  partly because of the size of the tool itself, issues related to internet access on the go, but also, most importantly to be quite frank, my main suspicion is that, like Thornbury's suspicion of products developed for IWBs, is all we're gonna wind up with is a rehash of tired and out-dated methodologies spiced up for diamond-sharp-screen-technologies (gap-fill, random-name-that-photo anyone?) but these materials won't be personalized nor learner-centered, and undoubtedly won't be an interactive learning tool and sure as heck, won't be motivational.

I sure do love being proved wrong.

Folks, it looks like a fox has slipped into the henhouse with something really rather innovative.

At first contact, when they emailed, I scoffed and almost reached for the mark-as-spam button.

Oh, here we go, I thought,  I mean just how many emails do I really have to receive each week with someone wanting to be promoted on my blog?  But this email was very different.   It didn't congratulate me  and tell me how much they just love my blog but instead I got a long, professionallly laid out  list of solid reasons why their product was worth taking a look at.  

I clicked through.

I emailed back.

We Skyped.

I put it to the student-test.

Unanamious votes all round:  they said "cool" "guile" "very cool".    They asked "can we download it in German?"  I told them not yet.  But I hope soon.

The company who've created this incredibly simple concept of sending out a 3 minute SMS/email/app with a lead in in the students' own L1 is called Voxy, headed up by Paul Gollash (who lists in his claim to fame, working within Richard Branson's venture capital wing). 

His killer team includes Manuel Morales - in charge of community outreach; Gregg Carey (co-founder) and Ed Menendez who are developing the product; Laura Martinez (journalist and blogger) their Editorial Director - she currenlty creates the daily streaks.  

Linguist Jane Sedlar and language coordinator Sandra Rubio keep them on andragogical track... and their secret weapon?

Rudy Menendez who comes in with a background in creating addictive games.

  

The language learning tool came out of a simple wish to make language learning more interesting, they ask:

Why is language learning so un-interesting? Languages are, after all, empirically exciting, useful, and empowering to all of us. Does studying it have to suck? We don't think so.

Voxy was first conceived over cold beers at a Yakatori bar in the East Village of New York and the business plan was written shortly afterwards while in San Sebastian, on the northern coast of Spain. It grew out of a fascination for evolving media (including magazines, newspapers, digital and social), and a passion for language learning in an increasingly global community. At Voxy's core is a fervent belief that there is better way to learn a new language.

Voxy raised a seed round of capital from a group of angel investors with experience building successful businesses in the for-profit education space, and a history of creating powerful consumer brands.

Software in the back records what the students are interested in, what stories they tend to click on and flashcard games based on the lexis that the students have chosen themselves goes into a personalized bank.

Voxy is a young company, founded in Feb 2010 but has already been written up in the New York Times,  CNN money and TechCrunch. In the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield (video), Gollash quotes Chomsky saying that 98% of language teaching is just about keeping the students interested and they've met that challenge head on by creating an application which adapts seamlessly into adult life, converting relevant, topical content and turned this into a game.

Voxy uses an incremental approach, important in minimizing cognitive load.  Language is also offered in chunks - no grammar-based curriculum here although there is grammar: highlighted in context. (Hear my gasp!)

New material is presented at a level of difficulty  just beyond the students' current ability.

Students receive points based on how often they log in and play these streaks, the words they accumulate and the games they play.






Want to get involved?

As I mentioned earlier, Voxy is a young company and very eager to get real feedback from teachers and students.  The website is completely free (the i-phone app will cost a dollar) so if you happen to be a teacher reading my blog, based in the US or in Central or South America or Spain - basically anywhere where you have Spanish speaking students learning English then why not head on over to the Voxy website, mess around a bit  and then if you like, show it to your students.

If you'd like to ask questions or send in your thoughts, contact the very friendly Manuel Morales: manuel (at) voxy (dot) com.


Useful resources: 

• Language learners and computer games, Graham Stanley and Kyle Muwer (presentation)
  
• Digital Games Based Learning, Mark Prensky
• Games as learning machines, James Gee
• Assessment of games based learning by Rowin
  Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning, George M. Chinnery
• Using mobile phones in education by Patricia Thornton and Chris Houser
• English language teachers connect to mobile learning by Nik Peachey 
• How students use their mobile phones by David Reed 
• No Future? The English Language Teaching Coursebook in the Digital Age
• Texting: 10 resources by Shelly Terrell 
• Good sources for finding educational iphone / iPad apps by Paul Sweeney
• the #mlearning stream on twitter

and if you thought I was kidding when I said I am mostly suspicious of mobile technologies... do please have a thorough look at David Reed's blog on mobile ESL, he reviews products there and talks about the use of the phone in the classroom.  Well-written posts but as far as I can tell, personally, really can't figure how these apps he reviews are supposedly thinking outside the cage...   watch out ELT.

Best,
Karenne
education