Task 1A- Reflection

I personally agree with Thornbury’s idea on the Dogma teaching. In my opinion , the natural
environment dogme provides between the teacher and the students is much more beneficial
and versatile for the students to actually experience and comprehend the language, as they
themselves are constantly testing the language, creating examples and forming dialogues. As
Thornbury (2000) mentions in his article, having outside materials,or even artificial
properties such as artificial light or tripod within the classroom environment would corrupt
the naturality of the teaching and learning process. Also, the related materials,articles or
books would get the students away from the real world or real topics within the classroom
borders and takes them to other worlds that are more ‘’fictional’’. Therefore, as Thornbury
(2000) mentions in his article, the language takes place in ‘’here and now.’’. Therefore,
encouraging the students to communicate with each other without any obstacles in a
classroom environment would not only increase their awareness of their capacity over the
language, but it would also increase their awareness of themselves. For example,as
mentioned by Thornbury (2000), having specific genres of movies such as western,thrillers
and comedies within the clasroom borders would create a sense of alienation and would
interrupt the real classroom by creating a distorted and fictional reality. As for how i would
apply this strategy in the classroom environment, i believe i would use this strategy on more
mature students such as high school or university level students, as their mental capacity is
far more developed and therefore they are able to create more abstract and complex schemes
regarding the language compared to younger students,who require concrete supporting
materials in order to activate their creativity and capacity in the language. Therefore, what i
would do is i would create speaking sessions with the students, for example i would ask them
to talk about how their day was,rather than following fixed dialogues within a book or from a
slide. I would create a discussion session among the students that would catch their interest
such as philosophical questions related to life, morality, justice and so on. Also, i would try to
be more friendly to students for them to feel more comfortable with me, like a consultant or a
friend rather than a teacher. Creating this environment is really important for the students to
actually be ‘’in’' the classroom. As mentioned above, this sense of belongingness would also
increase the self awareness of the students.Finally,as for how to apply dogme teaching in
Turkish context, we can create a more socially competent environment by giving students a
chance to talk among themselves and with the teacher. The teacher can put students in teams
and can ask them to talk about the specific aspects of a certain topic,such as disputation teams
for discussing activities. Also, the teacher can give students reading texts and might ask the
students to read and tell their ideas.