DOGME IN PRACTICE
A New Book Project
Call for Submissions
2025 marks 25 years since the original publication of Scott Thornbury’s “A Dogme for EFL” article and more than 15 years since Luke Meddings and Scott Thornbury followed up with Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching. To celebrate 25 years of Dogme in (English) language teaching, the International Teacher Development Institute (itdi.pro) is thrilled to announce the planned publication in 2024 of a follow-up to Teaching Unplugged with the working title, Dogme in Practice.
We envision Dogme in Practice including lesson accounts from Dogme teacher practitioners, broadly defined, as applied in their classroom, which can include examples of student language. These will be accompanied by commentary from Luke and Scott about what they find compelling in them and suggestions for aspiring Dogme teacher practitioners to consider when applying Dogme principles in their own classrooms.
This really is an incredible opportunity for dedicated teachers to not only work on a unique project with Scott and Luke, but also add your voice and be a part of Dogme-building ELT history!
As one of the co-founders of Dogme ELT, I never cease to be amazed by the way that the original idea (minimally-resourced, learner-driven teaching) has been picked up and adapted by teachers all round the world, teaching in a wide range of contexts. That’s why I’m excited by this book: it brings together in one volume a cross-section of that rich and diverse engagement with that simple idea.
Twenty years ago, after we started an online discussion group for Dogme ELT, but before writing Teaching Unplugged, we pitched our first idea for a book: a compilation of teaching voices, sources and resources. Dogme in Practice revisits that idea by placing the voices of teachers (like the voices of our students) front and centre, and I can’t wait to read and reflect on their experiences.
Submission Guidelines
This is an invitation for Dogme practitioners, with more or less experience, to submit an account of their classroom practice of about 1,000 words for publication consideration. Submissions should adhere to the following guidelines:
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About 800 words of commentary on your Dogme practice experience. Preference will be given to vignettes that describe a specific experience or lesson or even a ‘Dogme moment’ (an unanticipated intervention that turned into a learning opportunity) rather than more general lesson accounts of Dogme in practice.
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Up to 200 words of student-generated language, including written and spoken output, which illustrates the success of your Dogme account. These can include sample text from boardwork as well.
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We encourage the following structure for your submission:
Class: Describe your class with specific details.
Context: Describe your class context with attention to specifics rather than generalities.
Motivation: The reason why you chose to use Dogme for this class.
Beginning: How did your activity start?
Development: How did your activity develop?
Reflection: How did you and your students reflect on the activity?
Integration: How did the experience impact your teaching practice and your students’ learning?
In the interest of inclusion, we envision your lesson accounts engaging with Dogme in different ways, with Dogme broadly defined as incorporating the following three principles:
Emergent Language
Lessons center around students’ classroom language use rather than language pre-determined in a lesson plan.
Materials-Light
Lessons focus on students’ emergent language rather than, for example, language determined by textbook units.
conversation / text-driven
Learning is seen as emerging through classroom interactions, whether spoken or written, with shared responsibility between teacher and students for noticing what language is of interest to the learning process.
Download samples
Before submitting your own work, we strongly encourage prospective contributors to review our Dogme account samples.
Ready to submit?
Click on the button to submit your lesson account. Please include the following with your submission:
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Your lesson account of about 1,000 words following the structure outlined previously. References are optional. If you include references, the list of works cited need not be counted against this total
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A bio of up to 50 words
Submission for publication of previously published lesson accounts, such as online via a blog, is acceptable, although authors must explicitly state theirs is a submission for republication and must appropriately cite and acknowledge the originally published source.
Authors are responsible for obtaining any relevant copyright permissions pertaining to their submissions.
Authors are responsible for adhering to ethical publication practices concerning student data, as outlined in the British Association for Applied Linguistics’ Recommendations on Good Practice in Applied Linguistics as well as to any applicable rules and regulations that may apply. Individual students should not be identifiable from published lesson accounts.
Timetable
Deadline: May 31, 2024
We will aim to acknowledge submissions within one working week of receipt. We will aim to notify all authors of whether their submissions have been accepted for inclusion in Dogme in Practice by the end of July 2024.
Preliminary Publication Schedule:
July 2024: Finalize authors’ lesson accounts to be included in Dogme in Practice
September 2024: Luke and Scott finalize reflections on teachers’ lesson accounts in Dogme in Practice
