Dogme Revisited
Is it time to return to "Teaching Unplugged" given the plagarism and pretense that AI and large language models offer?
Dogme: The point is to restore teaching to its pre-method “state of grace” – when all there was was a room with a few chairs, a blackboard, a teacher, and some students, and where learning was jointly constructed out of the talk that evolved in that simplest and most prototypical of situations’ (2000). Scott Thornbury, A Dogma For EFL.
This morning, I sat down and had some “my time”. Went through a number of my hundreds of notebooks full of philosophy, essays, poems that I’ve been collecting over the years. A lot of stuff buried in these books but I was surprised to pull open about 50 pages on film. Don’t even remember writing it but it was fascinating. One part was on Dogme, when it was a new approach to film making in the 90s.
It got me thinking about Dogme ELT something I think is often misinterpreted by many teachers. It also is sort of misnamed – if Dogme ELT were to follow the original Dogme manifesto, it wouldn’t ever take place in a class but only use original settings for practicing language. For example, if you were learning about ordering food, you’d do so in a restaurant. The classroom would be anathema for anything but learning metalanguage (language we use to talk about language).
To me, Dogme ELT is about two crucial things:
1. focusing class activities around the language of the learner and the resulting emergent language (it is highly personal). Fluency before form.
2. little or no use of materials (coursebooks, worksheets, phones, computers etc…). The soil of the lesson is the “raw material” of the classroom.
Too often I hear teachers talk about Dogme ELT like it is just going into a classroom and chatting up, running with anything that happens. I don’t think this is what Scott or Luke had in mind and that approach could probably be called “Hangout ELT.” In Dogme, the teacher needs to be very experienced in language teaching and interpreting the language of the learners – so they may guide them towards better use and form of that language.
Teaching Unplugged is the book one should reference to learn more about the Dogme teaching approach. I highly recommend the first chapter, it’s a stellar indictment still - of what is happening in English language teaching, day in and day out. Especially important words given the washing and hype of AI as “revolutionizing” teaching and learning of language (not). Has Dogme come of age?
The core of the Dogme approach I believe rests in its rejection of the over-reliance on media - both technology and coursebooks (plugged in) - Also, central to Dogme is the freedom it gives teachers to reflect, experiment and challenge traditional beliefs about teaching and learning. See Scott Thornbury’s fine detailing of this here. I ardently believe this is the path we need to successfully teach language.
Find below two things.
1. My rewrite of Dogme ELT imagining if it strictly followed the original Dogme 95 manifesto
2. My notebook entry from the 90s about Dogme, rewritten to apply to Dogme teaching.
I hope these might spark some thought about new possibilities with our lessons and in our classrooms.
Dogme ELT Manifesto: (see th original film version HERE)
Location based English. All teaching and practice of language must be done “in situ”, in the real location. No fake props or sets but only using real language in a real location.
Teaching is holistic. There must be no separation of function and form and language is treated not in discrete parts, nor dissected but rather as it is used.
Technology must be simple and hand driven. Chalk, pencils, pens etc…. No use of Ai, chat bots, electronic devices; computers, screens and so on. The speaker, the human being, is the focus.
Teaching must be real. It can’t be a play, a scripted event. The plan is that there is no plan other than the main objective to start things off. No fakery, no lying on the part of the teacher. No paint by number lesson plans.
Extrinsic motivators are forbidden. The class must not be tainted by point systems, rewards and competition.
No fakery. There should not be any role playing in the classroom (this is artificial). All language takes place and arises from a real need and impulse.
Always Here and Now. No use of video to show learners language used in a different time and place.
One English. The teacher can’t be an actor or use different teaching styles. Nor are there any different types of English to be taught (business, global studies, finance, hospitality and tourism etc…). The only English used is that of necessity that comes from the learner, there is no imposed structure given from the instructor.
Community. The class must be 10 or less students to facilitate real use of the language and proper instructor intervention.
Equality. The teacher is part of the class and a learner. Credit goes to the whole class for any success, not just the teacher.
Dogme Teaching – A revisiting (rewriting for education/teaching of what I originally wrote about Dogme film, substituting “teaching” for references about cinema). Originally, I wrote this in a notebook circa 1996 while teaching in the Czech Republic.
Dogme?! Everyone is talking about this manifesto, a new and amazing approach to teaching. What a crock! There is nothing new there, it is all fluff and puff. It is only “style”, how a woman might choose a scarf for her walk. Dressing up. The form of teaching shouldn’t be an absolute, a funnel but open and expansive, a way to more things. Dogme teaching is a way for some but we shouldn’t think that anything about teaching language is a MUST. Nothing is sacred and there are many ways to touch that special place where learning happens.
But even if we accept this new form, this new approach as being new, it certainly isn’t revolutionary or transformative. It hasn’t any developmental gravity, it takes teaching nowhere. It only leaves so much on the cutting floor. It simplifies but at a cost. We don’t realize it but we all bring so much cultural baggage into the classroom – there must be desks, a chalkboard, students as an audience, 40 minutes ……. Dogme teaching is just another system and jailing – as all ideological, school and teacher led learning must be.
Interested in learning more about Dogme ELT? I found this paper good, solid food for thought.
