Dogme ELT Approach To Speaking Teaching

Dogme ELT (English language teaching) arose approximately in the year 2000 as a response to English teaching approaches that can be improved. To a fairly large extent teaching English often includes textbooks that do not involve the learners. Too much emphasis is placed on grammar, examinations, and texts, which does not help students to learn and develop necessary skills, In comparison with the task-based language learning, Dogme still remains relatively unfamiliar to researchers of linguistics in China.Under the guidance of Dogme theories, the following thesis explores a recent methodological proposition in TEFL, known as Dogme ELT (English language teaching). In this thesis, Dogme ELT's theoretical background and practical applications are presented based on some videos and works by some leading advocates of Dogme ELT. It is followed by a short discussion of the merits and demerits of this approach and a final section listing the procedures for some experimental lessons and the ways of measuring the outcome of these experiments. The thesis also includes detailed lesson plans with commentary and a model for future professional development.Research data compromises mainly online videos and writings by Dogme advocates. Some other activities are conducted in the speaking lessons by foreign teachers. This is primarily a qualitative study, comparing and contrasting Dogme ELT with some other conventional approaches and methods under the guidance of Dogme theories.Just like a great many other English teaching methods and approaches in the past, the philosophy of Dogme ELT has originated as a reaction against contemporary trends in the English classroom. Its advocates, Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings, fighting against the typical culture of grammar-driven, level-based course textbooks, have called upon material-free (or material-light) teaching, getting rid of a redundancy of materials and technology. Actually, English is not merely grammar; English is a socio-cultural artifact. They claimed that effective English training prefers what goes on amongst the class to materials, techniques and linguistic analysis etc.Dogme has come under criticism for its perceived rejection of both published textbooks and modern technology in language lessons. Furthermore the initial call for a'vow of chastity'is seen as an unnecessary purist and that a weaker adoption of Dogme principles will allow teachers the freedom to choose resources according to the needs of a particular lesson. Some also present Dogme as an approach that increases the constraints on teachers. Some critics note that adoption of Dogme practices may face greater cultural challenges in countries outside Europe, such as Japan. Questions have also been raised about the appropriateness of Dogme in low contexts and where students are preparing for examinations that have specific syllabi.Dogme has its roots in Communicative language teaching. Dogme has been noted for its compatibility with reflective teaching and for its intention to humanize the classroom through a radical pedagogy of dialogue. It also shares many qualities with task-based language learning and only differs from task-based learning in terms of methodology rather than philosophy. Evidence for Dogme is limited but Thornbury argues that the similarities with task-based learning suggest that Dogme likely leads to similar results. An example is the findings that learners tend to interact, produce language and collaboratively co-construct their learning when engaged in communicative tasks.Dogme ELT fights against material-oriented teaching not because published English references and current technology are less than practical, but because they would limit the necessary conditions for English training. The masses of photocopies, flashcards, videos, CD-ROMs, textbooks, and so on, might inhibit real training opportunities, real communication and the inner life of the students.Dogme ELT is not anti-grammar. On the contrary, Dogme ELT believes that trainers should know their grammar quite well and so they could solve the grammatical questions arising from daily teaching routines. More importantly, trainers should have a solid knowledge of the students'grammar problems because this is what ought to be taught, which enables the students to go through separate steps of development.Dogme ELT views English and English acquisition as being emergent, complex and socially motivated. It happens slowly in the context, without obvious training happening. Therefore, the idea to control it by means of a prepared textbook is impractical. The worst scenario in Dogme ELT is to allow imported grammar-oriented materials to dominate teaching, and consequently, lead to our students to passive users of grammar.The availability of teaching materials results in our treating English as outside activities, instead of inside activities. By bringing the socio-cultural characteristic of English back to teaching, Dogme ELT captures English as a means for self-expression. English students are, actually, individuals and their training goals are defined by what the learner desires to express, which means that they have their individual training projects. Consequently, Dogme ELT prohibits any pre-selected program of grammar. Instead, English training is to happen through interactivity and dialogue.The most proper approach to ELT is real-life conversation rather than textbook-centered training which concentrates too much on the form of languages and ignores the interaction between trainers and students, and that amongst the students themselves.Although Dogme teaching has been seen to be anti-technology, Thornbury maintains that he does not see Dogme as being opposed to technology as such, rather that the approach is critical of using technology that does not enable teaching that is both learner centered and is based upon authentic communication. Indeed, more recent attempts to map Dogme principles on to language learning with web 2.0 tools (under the term "Dogme 2.0") are considered evidence of Dogme being in transition and therefore of being compatible with new technology. However, although there is not a clear consensus among Dogme teachers on this issue (see discussions on the ELT Dogme Yahoo Group), there is a dominant view that the physical classroom will be preferable to attempts to substitute physical presence with communication via digital technology.Over 1,000 Dogme ELT group members on yahoo.com are a mix of trainers, educators and writers who are committed to a belief that English training is both socially motivated and socially constructed, and to this end they are seeking alternatives to models of instruction that are mediated primarily through materials and whose objective is the delivery of grammar. They are looking for ways of exploiting the learning opportunities offered by the raw materials of the classroom, that is, the language that emerges from the needs, interest, concerns and desires of the people in the room. The sites are open source sites. This means anyone can freely copy, adapt and distribute materials from the sites so long as you explicitly mention the source of the materialsThe thesis only covers the most typical and most significant aspects of Dogme ELT approach to speaking teaching. Further research need to be carried out concerning more details for the benefit of better pedagogical studies. Also, quantitative evaluation and assessments of Dogme ELT are not involved due to practical obstacles, such as the number of students to be tested, different levels of educators and students, and various cultures.The study has shown that Dogme ELT theories are proper to guide oral English teaching and hopefully the proposed model could provide teachers with an intriguing and efficient yet less expensive alternative to future professional development. The import of Dogme is also an innovation of this paper.