Scott's four lessons

I had to substitute an upper int class at about the same time as I was preparing the Dogme article, and this is what I did (more or less)

Teaching without materials - an experiment

Lesson 1:

Meet students (there are 7). Question each one individually re jobs, English learning experience, mainly - about 5 minutes each, very conversational. Ask them to do same to me, but first to prepare questions in pairs. Check questions - write mistaken ones on to board. Class check. sts me questions. In pairs/groups they write up a summary about me. Monitor writing and share any interesting errors.

Lesson 2:

"Paper conversation" - students in pairs have a conversation but written, passing paper back and forth (like on-line chat). Monitor and extract interesting errors. Change partners and do this spoken. Introduce "back channel" devices - e.g. showing interest - and they change partners a third time, trying to incorporate these. Students report to class on partner's day.

CLL activity - record students constructing a converstaion round any topics they wish. Play back and transcribe on to board, highlighting areas of interest.

Lesson 3:

For homework I have given them different human interest news stories from websites. They are to read these and prepare to "tell" them to their classmates. After initial class chat about the weekend I model task by telling story about my weekend and asking individual student to tell it back ("non-directive listening"). This is their task with the news stories. First I go round sorting out any problems of vocab. Then sts in pairs tell and tell back their stories. Change partners to repeat this. Choose one of the stories; in pairs they write it from the point of view of one of the protagonists. Monitor and select errors for open class focus.

For homework students have been asked to find interesting news stories on suggested websites.

Lesson 4:

Students repeat previous lesson's task with their own stories - telling and telling back. provide narrative framing devices: "I heard this amazing story the other day…" etc. Select most interesting stories to tell class. Engineer discussion about the story - which develops into a general discussion. towards end, ask students to write a summary of the discussion, as if they were reporting it in a local newspaper. Monitor and correct.

Note that this sequence was not entirely materials free - I had print outs from websites for them - one each x 7 or 8 sts - the idea was that this might act as aspur to get them to bring similar stuff to class. In actual fact, few had done this, but I fortunately had some more up my sleeve for the 4th lesson. But I did feel that this had been a bit of a cheat!

Incidentally, the Dogme filmmakers are quite endearingly candid about times when they cheat - they "fess up" to things like chasing a flock of chickens from the neighbour's yard into the place where the film is being shot - so nobody is entirely chaste!