Who is this blog for?

For teachers who are open to trying new things.

For teachers who are looking for a change.

For teachers who are looking for any easy solution to a big problem: planning fun and engaging classes where students will learn.

For teachers who know something´s not right but don´t know how to change it.

So it´s for you, but it´s also for your students. I mean, I hope that following the lessons here will not only change how you approach teaching but will also change how your students view learning. I know that after teaching these classes to adult students, I´ve seen first hand how their attitudes toward learning have changed. But before this, I noticed how by following textbooks provided by the director of studies of whatever school I was working for at the time, I was not only boring students, but I was patronizing them as well. So they were not learning as much as they could have been.

But what could I do? How could I change this? How could I make classes more meaningful and interesting and do it every day without spending hours planning and preparing?

Well the answer didn´t come to me until after I finished a Cambridge DELTA course--a fantastic experience, by the way, and one I´d recommend to anyone who´s not happy with the status quo of teaching, but likes teaching. It gave me insights into other ways of teaching and forced me to read books by people (a.k.a. theorists) who posed fascinating questions about learning and teaching which I had never considered before. And it was the result of the teaching practice I did during the course, as well as my research (duly encouraged by the tutors) where I discovered two truly remarkable, yet simple concepts.

The first was "Task-based Learning". The second was "Dogme".

Now, as to the former, if you don´t know what it is, I´ll briefly explain. Task-based learning was begun by N. Prabhu in India back in the 80´s. Later, Jane and David Willis became what most would consider to be the most well-known experts on the method by writing some incredibly comprehensive books and articles on the method in the 90´s and 00´s. The idea was to focus on the content of what was being discussed rather than the forms for discussing it, using a "task" as the vehicle for doing so. In other words, a task for one class could be to make a telephone reservation, or to plan a trip, or just read about someone´s problem and agree upon a solution. There are many "types" of TBL classes and many variations of the procedure for conducting classes but essentially the rules are the same.

1. Task-completion is valued above language proficiency: students are not forced into using any specific language forms (grammar) for completing the task.

2. The content should be engaging for students by making the tasks themselves interesting.

3. Tasks must have a clear and obtainable objective: the objective should go beyond the obvious such as "finishing" an exercise or "learning" a language-point and instead be an objective which is content-related rather that language-related.

This last point is perhaps the most important because it´s what I believe to be the magic ingredient which makes any class on any topic, using any activity type, motivating. But hold on, I´ll discuss this in more detail later on.

So you have the rules above. In their essence, they are, as you can see, applicable to any type of task, activity, exercise, text-book, game, whatever. Willis and Willis proposed a basic template for conducting a TBL class and other versions exist but basically it goes like this: class begins with a "Pre-task" introduction to the topic and/or task; then it moves on to what´s called the "Task cycle" that being composed of the planning stage, the task performance and the reporting stage in which student "report" their results to the others; finally, there´s the "Language focus" stage in which language used or misused during the task is analyzed and practiced further if necessary.

So this "discovery" of mine was the first step towards enlightenment, and in fact, I can´t emphasize enough how important it was. In fact, you´ll notice these basic rules are present in each and every lesson I propose.

The second "discovery", combined with the first, crystallized my ideas and inspired my imagination to write what has become this blog. That discovery was an approach proposed by S. Thornbury in the early 2000´s called simply "Dogme". If you´re familiar with contemporary Danish film directors, you may recognize the term which derives from their ideas and practices of self-imposed conditions for minimalist film-making. So like these minimalist filmmakers who gave up anything artificial such as lighting and makeup, Thornbury proposed that English teachers give up the artifice of textbooks or any materials which come from "outside" the learners altogether and take a minimalist approach, using little or no materials. Apparently, the idea came from the feeling of alienation that he (and others) felt as a result of using textbooks in class, as well as a reaction to the growing focus in the ELT world on technology as the next big thing in the classroom. He wanted to utilize "real" communication in class, have interactions with students which was based on a real knowledge gap between speakers, rather than rely upon the artifices books provide.

Although there´s no clear procedure in Dogme, his book on the subject (co-written by Luke Meddings), proposes classes which do follow the rules listed above. The difference, it seems to me, between TBL and Dogme aren´t in the rules or procedures but in the use of outside materials. TBL, as proposed by Jane and David Willis allows for outside materials to be heavily used and Dogme uses the teacher, students and immediate environment as the source of materials--something which, it seems to me, opens up as many doors as it closes.

All I can say is that what I propose here is to have students do tasks with adult themes (no, not the R or X-rated type) which attempt to mimic transactions or conversations they would have in real life. Materials do come from outside but are adapted to students´ needs, culture, interests, etc. Conversations, however, are focused on the students themselves--their opinions, their proposals, their experiences and their ideas. The internet is heavily relied upon as a source of material through which to stimulate conversation and task completion. I don´t always provide materials but instead ask you to find them yourselves on the internet because I believe that the bridge between TBL and Dogme is in adapting the materials to the students. It´s easy to do and worth the effort.

I encourage you to do your own research on these methodologies and decide for yourself what works best for you. In addition, I hope you try these classes for yourself and share your experiences --what worked, what didn´t, what you did differently--and even come up with your own TBL classes.