Abstract
This literature review looks at the Dogme method, which is one of the most controversial approaches to English Language Teaching (ELT) to emerge in recent times. Organic and natural in style, it can be viewed as somewhat experimental which arguably prevents its more widespread adoption. By contrast, it relies upon the learner being the source of language and advocates usage of minimal materials and technology. This study examines this approach and considers the benefits and drawbacks of its implementation. Keywords: emergent language, conversation-driven, materials-light.
Introduction
Could you imagine English teaching without materials or technology? One such approach, the Dogme method, is undoubtedly one of the most controversial in the history of ELT. Whilst it is rooted in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task Based Learning (TBL), criticism of this approach suggests that it is “lazy teaching” and “unstructured” (Sketchley, 2012b).
Nevertheless, at its inception, Scott Thornbury (2000) did not claim Dogme as a new method per se, even though observers tended to view it as such. Initially, he merely sought to seek alternatives to prescribed methods of instruction which have technology and materials at their core. To this end, he started to look for ways to capture learning opportunities provided solely from within the classroom - namely the thoughts, interests and opinions from the students themselves. However, this begs the question of how a classroom approach seemingly devoid of structure with limited materials and technology, could possibly serve a purpose. This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages and looks at a qualitative case study carried out to gauge the opinions of teachers and students.
Efficacy of Dogme
The author has chosen to look at the effectiveness of Dogme mainly due to it being somewhat enigmatic and often reported as controversial in terms of ELT methods. The term ‘Dogme’ was originally adopted by Scott Thornbury from the Danish Dogme 95 movie making movement which rejected Hollywood-style special effects and techniques in favour of focussing on the actual story itself, in all its rawness (Thornbury, 2000). Seeing comparisons to ELT, Thornbury felt that EFL teaching had become “lost in an avalanche of photocopies, visual aids and video clips” and similarly sought to strip it back to basics.
The Dogme method itself is rooted in CLT and is based on three principles:
Problems with Dogme
Whilst Dogme can be advantageous in low resource contexts, it is not without its criticism:
Coşkun’s (2016) study noted that teachers were not able to observe and scaffold all language emerging from their students during class and that Dogme can be difficult to manage for lower level students. Furthermore, the teacher needs to be able to actually reproduce authentic English in order for Dogme lessons to be effective. Although the lack of textbook could be viewed as problematic, in reality students indicated that course materials were often boring and unnatural; in addition to this, universities were often seen to be “course book-dependent” whereby teachers would rarely venture outside the safe confines of lessons derived from published materials (Economic Policy Research Foundation, 2015, p. 44 in Coşkun, 2016). As far as lesson planning goes, when a syllabus requires rigid adherence, there is obvious limited scope for the implementation of Dogme.
Case Study
Sketchley’s (2012a) small-scale research project focused on gleaning teacher and student opinions of Dogme ELT and the effectiveness of its basic principles, distributing surveys to teachers and students at three participating private language schools in the UK. The findings show that whilst teachers tended to rely on course books, around half of the respondents stated that they had taught classes without materials and noted that some students “did not want to be taught from one day in day out” and actually preferred the natural flow of conversation-driven lessons. Regarding the effectiveness of the emergent language process, teachers and students both highlighted that this had improved language knowledge and awareness through either immediate or delayed error correction interventions.
This study (albeit with a limited demography) has wider implications for ELT inasmuch as teachers may already be implementing the tenets of Dogme without actually being explicitly aware of it. Subsequently, this suggests that there could already be a likelihood of both unplugged and structured methods in place in language schools, contributing to an overall more balanced approach (Sketchley, 2012a).
Conclusion and Future Study
There is no doubt that there is some risk involved with Dogme but if the teacher is confident to deal with language issues which arise, it can be utilized effectively and can contribute to what the author considers a more ‘balanced’ classroom when used in conjunction with existing approaches. It can be advantageous for building rapport with learners as the topics are developed from language which emerges from the learners themselves, rather than that which is prescribed by the teacher or course materials. According to the research in this paper, some students even suggest that emergent language sessions should be incorporated into their program as an alternative to grammar-based lessons (Coşkun, 2016). Nevertheless, there is still much scope for further studies to be carried out worldwide amongst different nationalities and age groups to determine how preferable Dogme would be in comparison to existing methods.
References
British Council & TEPAV. (2015). The state of English in higher education in Turkey. Ankara: Yorum Basın Yayın.
Coşkun, A. (2016). Dogme ELT: What do teachers and students think? International Journal Of Research Studies In Language Learning. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.5861/ijrsll.2016.1445
Rhalmi, M. (2012) The Dogme Approach to Language Teaching Retrieved from http://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/the-dogme-approach-to-language-teaching/
Sketchley, M. (2012a). MA English Language Teaching: Dissertation An investigation into teacher and student attitudes of the key tenets of Dogme ELT. University of Sussex.
Sketchley, M. (2012b). Reflecting on Criticisms of Dogme ELT. Experiences of an English Language Teacher. Retrieved from http://eltexperiences.blogspot.com/2012/04/reflecting-on-criticisms-of-dogme-elt.html
Thornbury, S. (2000). A Dogma for EFL. IATEFL, 15). Retrieved from http://nebula.wsimg.com/fa3dc70521483b645f4b932209f9db17?AccessKeyId=186A535D1BA4FC995A73&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
Thornbury, S. (2010). D is for Dogme. An A-Z of ELT. Retrieved from https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/d-is-for-dogme/
This literature review looks at the Dogme method, which is one of the most controversial approaches to English Language Teaching (ELT) to emerge in recent times. Organic and natural in style, it can be viewed as somewhat experimental which arguably prevents its more widespread adoption. By contrast, it relies upon the learner being the source of language and advocates usage of minimal materials and technology. This study examines this approach and considers the benefits and drawbacks of its implementation. Keywords: emergent language, conversation-driven, materials-light.
Introduction
Could you imagine English teaching without materials or technology? One such approach, the Dogme method, is undoubtedly one of the most controversial in the history of ELT. Whilst it is rooted in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task Based Learning (TBL), criticism of this approach suggests that it is “lazy teaching” and “unstructured” (Sketchley, 2012b).
Nevertheless, at its inception, Scott Thornbury (2000) did not claim Dogme as a new method per se, even though observers tended to view it as such. Initially, he merely sought to seek alternatives to prescribed methods of instruction which have technology and materials at their core. To this end, he started to look for ways to capture learning opportunities provided solely from within the classroom - namely the thoughts, interests and opinions from the students themselves. However, this begs the question of how a classroom approach seemingly devoid of structure with limited materials and technology, could possibly serve a purpose. This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages and looks at a qualitative case study carried out to gauge the opinions of teachers and students.
Efficacy of Dogme
The author has chosen to look at the effectiveness of Dogme mainly due to it being somewhat enigmatic and often reported as controversial in terms of ELT methods. The term ‘Dogme’ was originally adopted by Scott Thornbury from the Danish Dogme 95 movie making movement which rejected Hollywood-style special effects and techniques in favour of focussing on the actual story itself, in all its rawness (Thornbury, 2000). Seeing comparisons to ELT, Thornbury felt that EFL teaching had become “lost in an avalanche of photocopies, visual aids and video clips” and similarly sought to strip it back to basics.
The Dogme method itself is rooted in CLT and is based on three principles:
- classes are materials-light.
- lessons are conversation driven rather than featuring content dictated by a course book.
- development of emergent language produced in class by the learners (Thornbury, 2000).
Problems with Dogme
Whilst Dogme can be advantageous in low resource contexts, it is not without its criticism:
- inexperienced teachers who find safety in using a course book as a guide may find Dogme challenging.
- not using textbooks or technology can be perceived as unnecessarily purist and without structure.
- lesson planning - how does the teacher predict what will happen? (Rhalmi, 2012).
Coşkun’s (2016) study noted that teachers were not able to observe and scaffold all language emerging from their students during class and that Dogme can be difficult to manage for lower level students. Furthermore, the teacher needs to be able to actually reproduce authentic English in order for Dogme lessons to be effective. Although the lack of textbook could be viewed as problematic, in reality students indicated that course materials were often boring and unnatural; in addition to this, universities were often seen to be “course book-dependent” whereby teachers would rarely venture outside the safe confines of lessons derived from published materials (Economic Policy Research Foundation, 2015, p. 44 in Coşkun, 2016). As far as lesson planning goes, when a syllabus requires rigid adherence, there is obvious limited scope for the implementation of Dogme.
Case Study
Sketchley’s (2012a) small-scale research project focused on gleaning teacher and student opinions of Dogme ELT and the effectiveness of its basic principles, distributing surveys to teachers and students at three participating private language schools in the UK. The findings show that whilst teachers tended to rely on course books, around half of the respondents stated that they had taught classes without materials and noted that some students “did not want to be taught from one day in day out” and actually preferred the natural flow of conversation-driven lessons. Regarding the effectiveness of the emergent language process, teachers and students both highlighted that this had improved language knowledge and awareness through either immediate or delayed error correction interventions.
This study (albeit with a limited demography) has wider implications for ELT inasmuch as teachers may already be implementing the tenets of Dogme without actually being explicitly aware of it. Subsequently, this suggests that there could already be a likelihood of both unplugged and structured methods in place in language schools, contributing to an overall more balanced approach (Sketchley, 2012a).
Conclusion and Future Study
There is no doubt that there is some risk involved with Dogme but if the teacher is confident to deal with language issues which arise, it can be utilized effectively and can contribute to what the author considers a more ‘balanced’ classroom when used in conjunction with existing approaches. It can be advantageous for building rapport with learners as the topics are developed from language which emerges from the learners themselves, rather than that which is prescribed by the teacher or course materials. According to the research in this paper, some students even suggest that emergent language sessions should be incorporated into their program as an alternative to grammar-based lessons (Coşkun, 2016). Nevertheless, there is still much scope for further studies to be carried out worldwide amongst different nationalities and age groups to determine how preferable Dogme would be in comparison to existing methods.
References
British Council & TEPAV. (2015). The state of English in higher education in Turkey. Ankara: Yorum Basın Yayın.
Coşkun, A. (2016). Dogme ELT: What do teachers and students think? International Journal Of Research Studies In Language Learning. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.5861/ijrsll.2016.1445
Rhalmi, M. (2012) The Dogme Approach to Language Teaching Retrieved from http://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/the-dogme-approach-to-language-teaching/
Sketchley, M. (2012a). MA English Language Teaching: Dissertation An investigation into teacher and student attitudes of the key tenets of Dogme ELT. University of Sussex.
Sketchley, M. (2012b). Reflecting on Criticisms of Dogme ELT. Experiences of an English Language Teacher. Retrieved from http://eltexperiences.blogspot.com/2012/04/reflecting-on-criticisms-of-dogme-elt.html
Thornbury, S. (2000). A Dogma for EFL. IATEFL, 15). Retrieved from http://nebula.wsimg.com/fa3dc70521483b645f4b932209f9db17?AccessKeyId=186A535D1BA4FC995A73&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
Thornbury, S. (2010). D is for Dogme. An A-Z of ELT. Retrieved from https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/d-is-for-dogme/