teachers the opportunity to use a complete range of materials and resources.
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However there is a debate to the extent that Dogme is actually anti-textbook or anti-technology.Meddings and Thornbury focus the critique of textbooks on their tendency to focus ongrammar more than on communicative competency and also on the cultural biases oftenfound in textbooks, especially those aimed at global markets.
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Indeed, Dogme can beseen as a pedagogy that is able to address the lack of availability or affordability of materials in many parts of the world.
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Proponents of a Dogme approach argue that theyare not so much anti-materials, as pro-learner, and thus align themselves with other formsof learner-centered instruction and critical pedagogy.
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Emergent language
Dogme considers language learning to be a process where language emerges rather thanone where it is acquired. Dogme shares this belief with other approaches to languageeducation, such as task-based learning. Language is considered to emerge in two ways.Firstly classroom activities lead to collaborative communication amongst the students.Secondly, learners produce language that they were not necessarily taught. As such, theteacher's role, in part, is to facilitate the emergence of language. However, Dogme doesnot see the teacher's role as merely to create the right conditions for language to emerge.The teacher must also encourage learners to engage with this new language to ensurelearning takes place. The teacher can do this in a variety of ways, including rewarding,repeating and reviewing it.
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As language emerges rather than is acquired, there is noneed to follow a syllabus that is externally set. Indeed, the content of the syllabus iscovered (or ‘uncovered’) throughout the learning process.
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Pedagogical Foundations of Dogme
Dogme has its roots in Communicative language teaching (in fact Dogme sees itself as anattempt to restore the communicative aspect to communicative approaches).
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Dogmehas been noted for its compatibility with reflective teaching and for its intention to“humanize the classroom through a radical pedagogy of dialogue”.
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It also shares manyqualities with task-based language learning
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and only differs with task-based learning interms or methodology rather than philosophy.
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Research evidence for Dogme is limited but Thornbury argues that the similarities with task-based learning suggest that Dogmelikely leads to similar results. An example is the findings that learners tend to interact, produce language and collaboratively co-construct their learning when engaged incommunicative tasks.
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Dogme language teaching - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dogme_language_teaching&pri...3 of 66/27/2009 11:41 AM
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