Comments for Pura Vida Dogme

Comment on Class 10: You’ll Get Used To Riding Camels by Chris Ożóg

Chris Ożóg — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:14:54 +0000

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the positive feedback! I actually agree with you about the QTTT and have wondered if it’s just an ingrained modern ELT teacher thing that you can’t talk too much. It’s about avoiding meaningless TTT and that’s what I tell my CELTA trainees. In this class, I was enjoying the conversation and so were they, so there was real communication and meaningful exchange on both sides. It’s just that I really wanted to get them talking more amongst themselves. I wonder from which activity they benefited most?

Chris

Comment on Class 10: You’ll Get Used To Riding Camels by mikecorea

mikecorea — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:03:03 +0000

Thanks so much for sharing this! I really love the project you guys are doing! It seems like one of the (many?) complaints/critiques/attacks/whatevers on dogme is that it’s sometimes a bit unclear how teachers actually do it. I think you are doing a great job on bridging this gap. I actually have so much to say (and think about) but I think I will have to just leave it at expressing my appreciation for this post and this project.

A bonus result of this post for me was as a sort of reminder about things I used to do but haven’t focused very much on lately.

You wondered about talking “too” much. This sort of brings me to of one of my critiques on the dreaded TTT. I mean you were part of the group answering real questions that they had and you were sharing your thoughts and ideas. This sounds a lot like quality teacher talking time (QTTT) to me!

Thanks again!

Comment on Class 9: Dogme, Dogmetic, Dogmetician by Class 10: You’ll Get Used To Riding Camels « Pura Vida Dogme

Class 10: You’ll Get Used To Riding Camels « Pura Vida Dogme — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:29:48 +0000

[...] previous class had dealt with certain aspects of word formation that emerged as problematic from the group’s [...]

Comment on Class 13: Bacon zucchini ice-cream by Ben Naismith

Ben Naismith — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:10:51 +0000

Before anyone else says it, I know that ‘zucchini’ is mispelt on the board in the photo. Double c…

Comment on Class 8: My Dog(me) Ate it, Honest! by Ben Naismith

Ben Naismith — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:13:05 +0000

With any luck Neil the project will continue in Dubai as we’ll both be at the same school!

Comment on Class 8: My Dog(me) Ate it, Honest! by mcneilmahon

mcneilmahon — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:06:24 +0000

Hi Chris,
Really interesting lesson, especially since I had my recent guided discovery lesson in the back of my mind as I read it and I was kind of comparing them: http://wp.me/p15rqq-bX
While my lesson was engaging and the students discovered the language for themselves (those that didn’t already know it) I’m completely sure that your students would have found the context in which you based the language (i.e. your own lives) much more engaging, motivating and memorable than the topic of accidental discoveries my course book provided with me.
Which is why I’m coming around to the idea more and more, especially through avidly reading your and Ben’s posts here (i.e. Ben’s the other day about a rubbish clarification stage) that perhaps a meshing of Dogme and Guided Discovery is a good way to go. Discuss things with the students and look for your emergent language (not that I’m a fan of this term) but leave the focus on it til the next class when you have a chance to knock up a guided discovery worksheet in between lessons (with the students own language as the examples you use by which to guide them). This also gives you the chance to think about what type of practice activities will most benefit the students, or is this too structured for you Dogme-gicians still?

Hope either you or Ben have the ‘ganas’ and chance to try this out before you head off to Dubai…

P.S. I think he’s the First Gentleman!

Comment on Class 11: Hallucinating relative clauses by Ben Naismith

Ben Naismith — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:42:24 +0000

Great website, although it doesn’t seem to want to give me anything for ‘which’ or ‘that’ – maybe because there are too many options for it to compute? Anyways, I can use the British corpus which gives a list of random examples.

I would definitely go for the ‘building it up on the board’ idea, maybe coming out of some sort of pair dictation activity with students choosing interesting sentences from the online corpus. Trying to avoid unnecessary printing, at least for this project!

Definitely let me know how it goes if you try your own idea out.

Comment on Class 11: Hallucinating relative clauses by unpluggedreflections

unpluggedreflections — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:02:33 +0000

Hi Ben,

I find a usefully accessible way in to using corpus in class is via a great website http://www.just-the-word.com? It’s so easy that even my students actually say they use it out of class!! Shocking! might be a good segue in for you? Especially if our students also have smart phones?

There are a few issues in a classroom without an IWB or computer & projector, but perhaps you can pop out the room and print off some corpus data quickly? Or better, build one on the board with examples from the students, correcting them as you go and then dictate some simple guided discovery questions for them to work on in pairs/alone? Then you solve the problem of decontextualisation too.

If you did it like a corpus, with the target word lined up in the middle, that could provide a nice intro to how corpus works for the learners too.

What do you think?

Might try it myself when the opportunity presents itself…

Jem

Comment on Class 11: Hallucinating relative clauses by Ben Naismith

Ben Naismith — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:03:12 +0000

Hi Jemma, thanks for commenting.

I like the idea of using corpus to find appropriate models. Shamefully, I’ve never used corpus in the class, only when doing research, and have to admit that it had never crossed my mind to use in a dogme style lesson. Although we don’t have IWBs or computers, my iphone can probably do the trick. I suppose the only drawback I can see is that the sentences will all be decontextualized – I wonder, are there any ways around that?

Cheers,

Ben

Comment on Class 11: Hallucinating relative clauses by eflnotes

eflnotes — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:56:21 +0000

thank you for being candid and sharing your experience, it is very useful for others!
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mura