v A proper welcome to our members, Marta Bujakowska

v Guest Article - "Dogme", Scott Thornsbury and Luke Meddings

v Guest Article - "Blogs for Teacher Diaries", Renata Suzuki

v "Assessment Portfolios- Heading for Matura", Ania Gmur

v "A Report from a Seminar", Grażyna Turlej

v "The Teacher's We", Zosia Grudzińska

v “Minimally Invasive Evaluation”, Zosia Grudzińska

v Lesson plans - voices from the Dogme discussion list

Dear Reader,

Another six months gone since I last wrote an editorial.  It was spring then and I remember I was snowed under by documents for my “portfolio” (the pleasures of climbing up the titular ladder!).  Now it is late autumn – we have been lucky so far, the weather holds and I can see sky like a spotless blue canopy above leafless tree branches in my garden.  But one thing seems constant – I am snowed under… although the nature of my obligations has changed.

Seems reasonable to suspect that this is the state of existence shared by most of our SIG members.  Not something to regret, by the way – it is a lucky person whose days are spent on industrious labours, when compared with one seeking involvement.

So it was with a great sense of amazement that I entered the room assigned to our SIG at the annual IATEFL Conference in Radom to see the crowd gathered for the meeting.  Then I read in the Conference Newsletter that ours is the biggest (apart from the Computer SIG)!  I can only say that I am proud to be able to serve as the editor for a newsletter which has such a wide circulation.  I hope that you will find the present issue interesting and relevant to your professional life.

This issue’s Guest article is a gift from Renata Suzuki, working in far-away Japan.  She has conducted admirable research on the use of blogs as an electronic form of a teacher diary.  For a teacher intent on her development it is an option not to be disregarded in our busy days.  It facilitates reflection and feedback – but if you want to know more, read on.

Some of you may have heard of “dogme” (not the Lars von Trier cinematography manifesto, but – admittedly inspired by his initiative – a teaching variety thereof).  The materials-free approach is worth considering either as an alternative to traditional course-book or worksheets lessons but also as a supplementary device.  As one teacher once said: “every time the bell rings, twenty-six ready-made potential lesson scenarios enter my classroom”.

In contrast with Renata’s academic style (it was her dissertation, after all!) Ania Gmur has given us a remarkably practical piece on using portfolios with Matura-oriented students.  I know that many liceum teachers complain their students spurn autonomy – if that’s also your concern, take heart!  Ania’s report shows that there is always a prudent use for every good tool.

Thanks to Grażyna Turlej we can re-live her experience-rich escapade to Knutsford and Durham.  Don’t you wish you were there?

The “sound off!” column will give you a fistful of thoughts provoked two years ago by the IATEFL Conference Panel Discussion about the role of a teacher.  Perhaps you will disagree with at least some of them and you will write to the Editor to give your point of view.  Or, alternately, you may wish to add some of your own reflections on the subject.

Your Editor,

Zosia Grudzińska

Marta Bujakowska

A warm hello to everyone. Here I am, the coordinator of the TD & AL Special Interest Group. I owe some explanation for those of you who joined our SIG at the Conference in Radom or afterwards.

Our SIG has been running for about six years or so. It was wonderfully run by David French who, in pursuit of his own teacher development, has been led beyond ELT and is currently involved in democratic education as such. We all owe him a lot. Not only did he create the group but managed to make it one of the biggest and most active within the IATEFL Special Interest Groups. He has had the charisma not many people possess. David was the soul and the facilitator at the same time. It is very strange to write about him in the past… Probably it is wrong too. David has stayed our friend and, I believe, will act behind the scenes helping us make progress in our development.

You will have to agree that I have undertaken a very difficult task. To try to replace someone who was doing his job so well and who ran the group so smoothly.

I asked myself many times whether I should do it, whether I would be able to follow into David’s footsteps. I am sure I will not be able to do it. But I can promise I will do my best to keep our SIG going and developing.

To start with I organised (with a lot of ‘help from my friends’ – thank you Bilal!) a weekend mini-conference in Myślenice on May 7-9.2004 with two main themes:

1.       Teaching ‘on the side of the child’.

2.       Assess assertively and autonomously.

As always all the participants took an active part in the meeting. We had some presentations but as usual we had many discussions and thought exchanges.

Let me quote some of the opinions we got as feedback from the participants on leaving Myślenice, which I entitled:

Let me add my own feedback. I am very pleased that I have undertaken the task. People who came to Myślenice were so creative and active. I’ve noticed how much they developed and it really raised my spirits. This is what we all wish, this is why we called our group Teacher Development, as well as Autonomous Learning.

We are a group of people who believe in life-long learning and want our students to take this passion from us. We are not afraid of trying new things, experimenting a little and making mistakes. We know that there is no learning without making mistakes. We try to draw good, creative conclusions from our own and our peers mistakes. We want to go forward… and we manage to do it with the support of one another within our group. Sometimes it is a hard, difficult way, sometimes we feel we ended up in a dead-end street but no. There is always someone in our SIG who may find a solution or at least an explanation of our problems or even failures. 

My next attempt is a one-day meeting in Gliwice  (December 18, 2004) with no main theme but many presentations long and short. I hope it will be as fruitful as all the previous meetings.

Dogme emerged and, like the kinds of language-learning opportunities it promotes, it seems to have had a life of its own. Five years on, the discussion group called Dogme ELT (www.groups.yahoo.com/group/dogme) has an archive of more than 5,000 postings and a regular forum of participating members as widely scattered as Seoul, Wellington and Berlin. The term “dogme” now pops up in methodology books and scholarly journals. It even seems to have outlived its cinematic progenitor.

It all started when Scott Thornbury teased out an analogy between the Dogme 95 film-makers collective and the current state of ELT. Dogme 95 (spearheaded by Lars von Trier) vowed to rescue cinema from its slavish allegiance to a Hollywood model of film-making, with its addiction to fantasy and special effects. ELT, Thornbury argued, had become similarly dependent on a constant fix of materials and technology, at the expense of the learning possibilities that could be harvested simply from what goes on "within and between" the people in the room (to borrow Stevick's phrase). ELT needed a similar kind of "rescue action".

On the eve of our joint session at this year's IATEFL conference, it seems a good moment to draw breath and take stock. One thing we've noticed is that Dogme seems to provoke excitement and derision in equal measure.

If publishers are dismissive, it may be because they misunderstand the central notion of Dogme. It is not books that we oppose. It is the prevailing culture of mass-produced, shrink-wrapped lessons, delivered in an anodyne in-flight magazine style. Worse, in their syllabuses these in-flight courses peddle the idea that the learning of a language runs along a predetermined route with the regularity and efficiency of a Swiss train.

The order in which learners acquire language, and the elements of which that order is composed, are still hotly debated. But what is certain is that people come to English in a very different way than they did 40, 30 or even 20 years ago. Powerful socio-economic and technological trends - of which the internet is just one - have revolutionised the way the world learns English. Investment in schooling, both privately and state-funded, is higher than ever. English is out there 24/7, 52 weeks a year.

Paradoxically, classrooms themselves are locally constituted sub-cultures nested within this global spread of English, and each has its own unique needs, goals, social structure and learning potential. Dogme is one way that the situated nature of language learning can accommodate, and exploit, the globalisation of English. Publishers need not feel excluded, but they need to reassess the wisdom of using 20th-century learning aids in a 21st-century world.

And with teachers and learners so used to being spoon-fed, it is not surprising that many teachers should also feel a little apprehensive or derisive. "Winging it elevated to an art form," concluded one Dogme skeptic. In the same fashion, many film-makers felt hostility to the Dogme 95 group, accusing it of setting unnatural and unnecessary challenges. But Von Trier insists that, for him, Dogme 95 restored the "joy" to film-making. We would argue that Dogme ELT also reaches those parts of teaching that a conventional, drip-feed pedagogy does not. And that there is joy there, too: the joy of witnessing your learners coming to life before your eyes, experiencing language and learning in a new and profoundly human way, and the excitement of finally feeling that you're doing a real job, not just shrink-wrapping grammar McNuggets.

So, what does Dogme actually mean, in classroom terms? Well, three years down the line and it's more difficult than ever to describe a Dogme lesson. It seems to work at a number of levels, and in a number of ways - which is hardly surprising, given its inherent context-sensitivity. But here is our own personal summary of what Dogme might mean, from Dogme-light to Dogme-heavy:

 Richard Kelly, in his book on Dogme 95, comments: "Dogme 95 was driven by a... genuine desire to reset the rules of engagement. It was a game played in high seriousness, prankish, mock solemn, and yet '100% idealistic'." Perhaps the same could be said about Dogme ELT.

back to the top

‘Diaries, logs and journals are important introspective tools in language research.’ Nunan (1992:118) asserts. McDonough and McDonough, (1997:121) concur, commenting on diary suitability: ‘Indeed the theme of change over time and the sense of writing about a process is one that resonates directly with the use of diaries in educational research.’ In spite of the advantages of diary study in researching classroom and teacher processes over time, McDonough and McDonough (1997:131) explain that there are to date fewer studies of teachers researching their work in diary form than in studies of SLA. This trend may be changing with the advent of the online internet diary, otherwise known as a ‘blog’.

The term “blog” is a combination of the words “web” and “log”, combined to form “weblog”, further shortened to “blog”.

 According to Dieu, B. (2004), blogs in education may be used in manifold ways, the most common being:

·        By individual learners to post work and reflect (may be assessed)

·        By the class to discuss and publish assignments (sometimes assessed)

·        By teachers to post assignments, suggestions and links for students

·        By teachers as a further development and research tool posting ideas and links to the wider professional community

This study is therefore concerned with the fourth category of teacher blog in education. I will not make any distinction between logs, journals and diaries, but consider all these including electronically formatted teacher blogs as diaries.

Doernyei and Csizer (1988) conducted a comprehensive survey of 200 Hungarian teachers which revealed that teachers consider teacher behavior to be the most important and underused motivational tool in the classroom. (Doernyei, 2001b:31).  Not only teachers, but also learners seem to share this perception: in a study focusing on demotivated learners, Doernyei(1998b in Doernyei,2001a:150) found that with 40% frequency teacher-related issues were the largest quoted source of negative influence.

In spite of the relevance of teacher motivational strategies on the learning process, Doernyei (2001a:27) claims that there are few if no teacher- training curriculums which focus on training teacher use of motivation skills. Meanwhile a study by Veerman (1984in Doernyei, 2001a:117) revealed that teachers ranked motivating pupils their second most serious source of difficulty.

Doernyei provided a four-component model of the process of motivation, itemized in a thirty-five point checklist.  This model specifies

• Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions

• Generating Initial Motivation

• Maintaining and Protecting Motivation

• Encouraging Positive Self-Evaluation

as the basic elements of an interrelated progression of motivation over time.  (Doernyei, 2001b:31).

I have decided to to use a diary including checklist and free-written entries to research the change in the motivational process, both to explore the validity of and possibly substantiate Doernyei’s model and to examine teacher use of said strategies in the classroom over a five-week period.

I teach two ninety minute, thirteen- day, first semester courses of English for Economics Majors (third year higher intermediate students, age 21) on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the Faculty of Economics, Sophia University. I have the freedom to create the course curriculum and evaluate the students. The textbook chosen for the course is MacKenzie, I. (2002) , English for Business Studies, 2^nd edition, Cambridge University Press.

Checklist of Motivational Strategies according to Doernyei

Doernyei’s (2001b) checklist, chosen for its comprehensive nature and replicability by other teachers, was completed after class and posted on the blog for a period of five weeks (ten lessons). (See Appendix A for a sample of the checklist.)

The items checked were calculated in percentages to reflect the difference in number of strategies in each of the four sections, and placed in a graph to measure differences in use over the five-week period. 

To complement the checklist of strategies as provided by Doernyei, a free retrospective, commentative diary entry written in the blog at http://grankageva.blogspot.com was chosen.

To exploit the interactive nature of the blog, visitors and comments were invited by posting to relevant e-mail discussion groups.

As can be seen in Fig.1, an emerging pattern of convergence in the four sectors of motivation can be observed. During the initial part of the course the areas of Generating Initial Motivation and Creating Basic Motivational Conditions figure prominently higher, while towards the middle of the course the use of Maintaining Motivation and Encouraging Positive Self-Evaluation have been steadily rising.

The heavy weighting of use of some motivational strategies as oppose to others ( see Fig. 2-4 ) would suggest that my teaching strategies may be fossilized and raises the possibility of applying an underused strategy consciously with a view to improving my teaching.

The free-written blog entries pinpoint further strategies not mentioned in Doernyei’s checklist (2001a) but considered important by the teacher. For instance, the May 11^th entry spotlights teacher insistence on frequent breaks, movement and drinking fluids to support the flow of oxygen to the brain, which is in line with the latest research on cerebral processes of learning. (Geyer, 2003).

The qualitative free blog entries give a much clearer idea of how or why a particular strategy is being applied or underused. They can therefore serve as a reflective tool for the teacher in discovering possible underlying teacher beliefs, which may influence the choice or not of said strategy. As Van Lier (1996:117) states on motivation:

Visitor comments at the blog fell in two distinct categories, those concerned with the content of the classes and teacher motivation processes, and those commenting on the data-entry and collection process、which latter I shall discuss first.

The blog offers the possibility of not only “walking through” research a posteriori, but indeed of “walking with” in constructive participation, as the following comments in Fig.5 illustrate:

 This section has analysed how the comments feature of the blog both adds a dynamic, interactive feedback element which loops into the classroom, enhancing the motivational process, and simultaneously serves to co-construct the research, opening it up at all times to scrutiny and comment.

A comparison of Fig 6 and 7 serves to illustrate the added dimensions that blog comments offer to the reflective process, which feed back directly into classroom practice. The comments function on three levels:

·        Offering positive practical suggestions. For instance, in a comment to the class of April 27th, Matt suggests the task may be too demanding in the time provided. “…but seven topics 45 minutes sounds a bit tough. Even though they should have the vocab, I think it would take them some time to get interested in the topic and come up with some relevant opinions they could express in English.”

·          Suggesting areas for further research and reading with book recommendations/links. For instance, a comment to the May 7^th entry on evaluating, suggests:   “This link may be of interest to you: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/focus_on_the_student_how_to_use_learning_objectives_to_improve_learning.php

·        Questioning the nature of teacher beliefs with meta-comments on the blog language. For instance, in a comment to May 9^th, Zosia questions the underlying assumption of teacher dominance/control evident in the blog. “ I find it slightly appalling as if these students were "dangerous creatures" to be watched monitored round the clock like wild animals in the zoo.”

Since a diary/blog is essentially a non-invasive, non-threatening observation instrument, easily maintained over a period of time, it would seem the ideal tool.　 McDonough and McDonough(1997:133) suggest that using diaries, trainee teachers can be ‘sensitized to the valuable role of critical reflection on practice at the same time as learning about at least one research tool.’ The same factor applies with regard to the practicing teacher like myself, who is approaching research and publishing for the first time: ‘affective hurdles are lowered and the covalent relationship between theory and practice are highlighted.’

In her famous diary, “Teacher”, arguably the most influential of all teacher diaries ever written, Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1963:213) writes: ‘Its [the diary’s] purpose has been already fulfilled. I was lonely, professionally. I wanted gifted, intimate understanding. I’ve had it. I’m no longer professionally alone.’

This mirrors my own situation as a part-time teacher at University without access to research grants or peer support. Her words illustrate how a diary (and in this instance a blog) may be used for research and teacher training in such absence of collegiate body or professional development schemes: it enables the teacher to combine both the roles of ‘participant’ and ‘observer’ in the classroom. Keeping a journal can be beneficial when colleagues share their journals and meet to discuss them. Although this study has not explored this aspect in detail, it can be assumed that a collaborative teacher blog would be a logical enhancement of this, free from the time-consuming and organizational problems of a face- to- face meeting.

It takes a lot of time to write and analyze because diaries are both data rich and address more than one theme, thus demanding a great investment of time and energy to analyze.

Diaries are written retrospectively, thus incurring a decay in accuracy over time. ‘Few people would claim that a diary is a ‘true record’…,rather that, in Elliot’s words, it can ‘convey a feeling of what it was like to be there participating in it’ (1991:77) (McDonough and McDonough,1997:124). Nunan (1992:124)has argued that diaries are a ‘ground clearing preliminary’, generating topics worth pursuing with other research tools both qualitative and numerical’.

However I would argue that the unashamedly biased perspective of the diary provides a far more honest perspective on the messy truth than numerical research can ever hope to provide.

Ashton-Warner, S. (1963) Teacher New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster

Dieu, B. (2004) http://beewebhead.blogspot.com/

Doernyei, Z. (2001a) Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press

Doernyei, Z. (2001b) Teaching and Researching Motivation. Harlow: Longman, an imprint of Pearson Education

Geyer, G. (2003)  Creating Optimal Learners.  www.edupr.com/brain8.htm

McDonough, J. (1994) ‘A Teacher looks at teachers’ diaries’ ELT Journal 48/1pp.57-65 Oxford University Press

McDonough, J. and McDonough, S. (1997) Research Methods for English Language Teachers. London: Arnold

Nunan, D. ( 1992) Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge University Press

Van Lier, L. (1996) Interaction in the Language Curriculum. Longman, Pearson