Monday, December 12, 2011

Dogme ELT

This week, I came across an interesting paper by Martin Sketchley over at ELT Experiences, a blog I often read. The paper was a dissertation summary that talked about Dogme ELT. I've seen the term a few times in the last couple months, but I never really looked into it. Then, I saw the term “teaching unplugged,” which is also the title of a book on the subject, and I was intrigued. 
teaching unplugged

I read the paper, and I think I will look into this methodology a little more. I'm interested in the idea of a teaching methodology that claims to incorporate the best of Communicative Language Teaching, Task-Based Language Teaching (which I've been experimenting with lately), and Learner-Based Teaching.

The three tenants of Dogme ELT that Sketchley sets out in his paper are scaffolding, “materials light” (a.k.a. no textbooks or unneccesary teaching materials), and learner-based teaching—all things that I agree with seperately, and together, they appear to create a very effective team.

I reccomend this paper for anyone who is interested. As someone with little previous knowledge of the topic, I found it to be a nice summary. At the end of the paper, there is a also a list of suggested reading. I will be checking up on it as soon as I get some time!