History & Background:

Dogme ELT is both an approach and a philosophy of teaching that saw the light at the

beginning of the 21st century. It was a teaching movement initiated by a group of English

educators and pioneered by Scott Thornbury and Luck Meddings who antagonized the overuse

of materials, such as documentation and technological utilities and realized that it was preventing

learners from what is valuable for them, or otherwise they generated a fence between learners

and the actual learning (Meddings & Thornbury, 2009).

According to Scott Thornbury, the name ‘Dogme’ was inspired from a filmmaking movement

that took place in Denmark which depended on what is available in the scenes where the films

were to be produced without the dependency on any special effects or technical materials; this

movement was called ‘Dogma 95’, and its principles were to be applied to the EFL or ESL

classroom (Scott, 2000).

Emergent Language
When we take a look at the different teaching methods and approaches, we reckon that they

consider language learning as a continuous acquisition or learning process[ CITATION Med09 \l

1036 ]. The Dogme teaching approach has a different view of language learning; it is

fundamentally dependent on what’s available in the classroom; that is the teacher and learners

and the classroom. Scott Thornbury and Luck Meddings see language learning as an emergent

process. To say so in different words, it means to “that is less to do with covering items on a

syllabus than ‘uncovering the syllabus’ within”. According to Thornbury in his book, when the
teacher forms the right conditions for learners to express themselves and use language

effectively, their learning capacities will thrive and will be activated; therefore, language will

emerge and not be acquired[ CITATION Med09 \l 1036 ]. Many approaches, namely process

syllabus, task-based learning, and also Dogme share the view that when given the right incentive

and conditions to the learners, language will emerge.

This idea came from John Wade’s practice in New Guinea in the 60’s of the previous century

whose teaching assistances were vanished and consequently he adopted a new approach in which

John used what’s available in the environment surrounding him. John Wade provided “tasks and

projects” that met the learners’ needs “naturally and organically” without following a certain

curriculum or course book whose aims where satisfied when Wade observed a primary school

curriculum (Wade. J op. cit).

Luck Meddings and Scott Thornbury believe that language emerges on two levels:

interpersonal and intrapersonal[ CITATION Hol98 \l 1036 ]. Firstly, language emerges on the level

of interpersonal level when learners’ engagement in the classroom is set to produce language

output collectively. That is, when the learners work together in the classroom on producing

language when they are given the ultimate conditions to engage, language emerges. Secondly,

when the learners engage in the classroom processes, “their internal language system (or

interlanguage) responds and develops in a mysterious way”. To explain more, their language

system produce language which accordingly signifies language emergence[ CITATION Med09 \l

1036 ]. Many scholars, remarkably Diane Larson-Freeman, Lynn Cameron, and Nick Ellis, have

studied how language grows both in the society and interlanguage through time. They believe

that language is a dynamic system that shows the characteristics of an emergent system[ CITATION

Dia06 \l 1036 ]. Dogme ELT proponents acknowledge that the role of the teacher is to create the
conditions for the language to emerge, and also the teachers ought to encourage the learners to

engage with the emerged language to ensure that learning occurred through different ways such

as rewarding, repeating and reviewing learning[ CITATION Med09 \l 1036 ].

Material light:
Since the beginning of the 21st century, Dogme has been seen as an anti-coursebook approach

which proscribe the use of the textbook in the classroom and additionally the utilization of any

technological aids. Its pioneers and supporters were called, as Thornbury named them in his

book, luddites, iconoclasts, and ELT ‘Amish folk’ because mainly this approach did not give

teachers enough materials and equipment to use in the classroom[ CITATION Med09 \l 1036 ]. The

typical Dogme classroom consists of chairs, the blackboard, the teachers and the learners where

learning emerge from the conversation between the teacher and the learners themselves.

Actually, Dogme does not ban totally the use of technological aids, instead it supports their use

as long as it does not go against the Dogme ELT principles. Sadly, most ELT materials does not

toe the line with the Dogme philosophy which promotes interaction and conversation and frees

the classroom from the overuse of materials (Ashton-Warner S op. cit.).

Actually, Thornbury argues that some ELT materials have some conversational aims within

the syllabus; however, they actually include some grammatical aims and cultural values that does

not meet the learners needs directed to the learners, or as he calls them ‘pretexts’ or even

‘Subtexts’[ CITATION Gra97 \l 1036 ]. As Kulmaravadivelu debates that:

Because of the global spread of English, ELT has become a global industry with high
economic stakes, and textbook production has become one of the engines that drives
the industry. It is hardly surprising that the world market is flooded with textbooks
not grounded in the local sociocultural milieu. [ CITATION kum03 \l 1036 ]
 Kulmaravadivelu believes that textbooks are now manipulated by Globalization, and therefore

they are empty of the values that the learners actually need, and that is why the Dogme ELT ban

the use of textbooks in the classroom owing to the odd values it carries as he contends in his

book:

Materials-mediated teaching is the ‘scenic’ route to learning, but the direct route is
located in the interactivity between the teachers and the learners, and between the
learners themselves.[ CITATION Tho05 \l 1036 ]

That is, the teacher and learners construct knowledge collaboratively without the dependency

on materials which are not totally banned. According to Thornbury and Meddings, using little or

no materials such as textbooks empowers both of the teacher and the learners. [ CITATION Sco00 \l

1036 ]

The Dogme Classroom:

Conventionally, the learners in an ELT classroom is teacher-centered, that is the teacher

prepares previously the lesson and bring it to the class and give it to learners without any real

conversation between the learners and the teacher; however; in the Dogme approach, things go

the differently; students bring the lesson with them to the classroom. In other words, they bring

their interests, thoughts and stories to the classroom and the teacher’s role is to transfer these

interests and “rough form” of their language and lives”, as Thornbury said, into learning

experiences that suits that learners needs[ CITATION Med09 \l 1036 ].

Thornbury introduced four key concepts in his book that allow the teacher to unplug his/her

teaching and create the righteous conditions for the learners to get the most out of the

lesson[ CITATION Med09 \l 1036 ]. They key concepts are:

1- Learners: The learners are the most important part of the Dogme classroom. The

teachers should give them the chance to express themselves and encourage them to
 prompt their ideas and beliefs and therefore leads the language to emerge and learning to

happen.

2- Language: Next to the need for the learners to express themselves, Thornbury and

Meddings believe that the teacher should understand why his/her learners want to learn or

improve their English. A good understanding of this will be a good guide to understand

their will to learn English what they expect.

3- Paper: The needs of the teacher in a Dogme classroom that should be present to unplug

his/her teaching is a marker/chalk and a whiteboard/blackboard. Thornbury sees that “

It’s not that technology should be avoided on principle