At SLanguages 2009 I gave a presentation on Dogme language teaching and its relevance to virtual world language education. Here is the presentation as text…
I have been using virtual worlds such as Second Life for approximately two years and during this time I have done some interesting and engaging activities with students. However, I have also being looking for methodologies to draw upon to ensure that these activities are pedagogically sound and beneficial to the students’ learning. More recently I have taken a closer look at Dogme ELT as a pedagogy to guide these virtual world activities and Dogme has stood out as an approach that has much to offer virtual world language learning because of its focus on real life communication as the basis for developing language competencies.
This text starts with an overview of the Dogme approach and then continues by mapping out the different ways in which virtual worlds can be used for language learning. These two topics are then brought together to reflect on how Dogme can guide language teachers in using virtual worlds.
What is Dogme?
Dogme language teaching is a movement; it is a collective of teachers who have been inspired by the ideas of the Dogme film movement founded by Lars von Trier in 1995. Similar to the filmmakers, Dogme teachers are looking to return to the essence of a classroom by choosing to reduce or even avoid the use of technological tools and materials. Although virtual worlds are themselves high tech, a Dogme focus tends to take the activities in the direction of a lower tech approach that concentrates on the experiences that can lead to language emergence (or language acquisition). Followers of Dogme have generally moved away from using textbooks in class, partly as a desire to include real life materials and partly to reduce the role of third party content (text, audio, video) in the language lesson. In a Dogme lesson the students are encouraged to produce the content through their communication. This in turn leads to language learning opportunities in their striving to express themselves more clearly, fully and accurately. As such, this focus on communication reflects Dogme’s focus on social learning and so places the pedagogy within a constructivist context.
No Syllabus
Whereas a textbook strives to organize the learning into a program of themed units, Dogme teaching does not follow a syllabus, but instead prefers to allow the students’ needs and interests to set the pace and direction. In Dogme the syllabus emerges, or indeed is uncovered through the process of reflecting upon the language that emerges in class. Dogme language teaching is therefore a process, where the teacher responds to students’ needs rather than preemptively planning for them.
Principles
The Dogme approach is based upon some key principles that were set out by the movement’s founder, Scott Thornbury (ref). Learning is considered to take place through the interaction amongst the students and between the students and the teachers. This interaction enables knowledge to be co-constructed by the students rather than transmitted by the teacher to the students. In fact, by concentrating on conversation as the vehicle for learning, the knowledge is jointly assembled by the participants in what is termed ‘scaffolding’. As such, the teacher’s role is more akin to a “guide on the side” than that of a “stage on the stage”.
As already mentioned, communication is seen as the key vehicle for language learning, because it allows for affordances or language learning opportunities to arise in class. In this way language learning is considered to be not so much of a process of acquisition (as in second language acquisition) as more one of emergence: the language emerges from the students’ conversations in class. These conversations in effect become the primary content in the language lesson, and especially contribute to the class because they enable the introduction of the students’ beliefs, knowledge and experiences into the learning process. The question of content is particularly interesting in the context of virtual worlds because a virtual world, such as Second Life, offers experiences far more than it can offer third party content in the way that published materials do. In a conventional (classroom-based), Dogme lesson the content is preferably introduced (at least in part) by the students themselves. This more proactive role of the students helps to ensure that the content is engaging and relevant, which are key attributes to promote the communication that leads to language emergence and therefore language learning.
Virtual World Language Learning
In order to consider how Dogme can guide virtual world language education, the above overview will now be placed within the context of the various ways in which virtual worlds offer opportunities for language learning. I see four main types of experiences that the learner may have in a virtual world: social, immersive, creative and gaming.
- Social: Almost all 3D virtual environments (a notable exception being Google Street View) are social spaces which allow the opportunity for social interactions for language learning. These social experiences could be formal group lessons or casual conversations with unknown residents of a 3D virtual world. This type of experience can be approached from a Dogme perspective to enable language emergence.
- Immersive: All 3D virtual environments can offer users immersive experiences that can stimulate conversation for use in a Dogme lesson. In Second Life this could take the form of a virtual field trip to the moon or to a replica of a real life place such as Barcelona. The important aspect here is that immersive spaces are stimulating and engaging places and that this can promote the use and therefore development of a foreign language.
- Creative: Some virtual worlds, allow the residents to customize their avatars, decorate their homes or even build entire cities, as is the case in Second Life. This can be drawn upon in lessons to allow students to describe their constructions and how they relate to them. If done as a collaborative task the process of building can itself be a communicative activity. Again, a Dogme approach is able to recognize the pedagogical value of these more creative activities.
- Gaming: Many 3D virtual environments are in fact Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) that can also be used to further language learning. MMOGs often involve considerable negotiation and collaboration amongst players and therefore may also offer scope for Dogme inspired teaching. MMOGs for language learning is a relatively new field and there are few recorded examples of attempts to incorporate MMOGs in to language education; [name] is one of them. Second Life can also be used for game-like activities by virtue of its flexibility. Second Life offers educators to create immersive tasks that reward the student for the correct answer. In some respects this approach is a 3D version of an exercise book and there therefore seems to be limited scope to draw on Dogme ideas for guidance with this approach.
Although virtual environments are often thought of as being virtual worlds such as Second Life, there are many other 3D virtual spaces that offer many of these experiences. Google Street View is a case in point; it allows users to virtually visit real cities and see the buildings from the perspective of someone standing in the street. Google Street View is not a social space, but it allows for 3D virtual immersive experiences not so dissimilar to 3D virtual worlds. Another form of virtual environment is the browser-based 3d virtual space “Hangout” which allows users to customize their apartment and invite other avatars to share the space with them. Exit Reality is similar, but also allows users to surf the web in 3D with their avatar.
Blended Learning
The range of 3D virtual environments allows considerable choice in using a specific tool for the desired type of experience. In fact distinguishing between the types of experience (social, immersive etc) helps the educator (or indeed the learner) focus on selecting the right tool for the job. And it is therefore likely that a blend of tools (online of offline; 3D or 2D) will be employed. So blended learning is the most likely format given that virtual environments are excellent for experiential learning yet cannot compete with the flexibility and scope of the 2D web for content and especially text work.
Implications for Dogme teaching with virtual worlds
The immersive, social and creative experiences available with 3D virtual environments can be guided by the Dogme methodology to focus on the students’ own needs and interests and in doing so, to develop their language skills. The above presentations of the Dogme approach and the opportunities offered by virtual worlds have implications for the likely approach to Dogme teaching with virtual worlds.
Firstly the focus on experience leaves considerable scope for using virtual worlds both in class or drawing on them for homework activities. Since Dogme teaching is most interested in the enabling of communication (for learning), the location of that communication (in-world, in physical classrooms or through wiki-based collaboration) is less important. Secondly, given that the students’ engagement is key to enabling the conversations that lead to language emergence, they need to have the freedom to choose where they want to go (in a 3D virtual environment) and what they will do there.
The above implications suggest that a Dogme educator is unlikely to use pre-prepared materials and exercises in a virtual world. And as such, Dogme in virtual worlds has a light touch to technology, much as it does in the conventional classroom. A clear advantage of this approach is that both teachers and students need not be as expert in navigating the complexities of a virtual world such as Second Life. However, the main strength of Dogme is the natural tendency to focus on the strengths of 3D virtual environments – namely the social, immersive and creative experiences.
Dogme Activities in Virtual Worlds
Naturally there is a wide range of activities that could fit into a 3D virtual class inspired by Dogme. A few examples are suggested here…
- Social experiences such as meeting other students or even complete strangers in a 3D virtual space can be achieved through interviews, casual conversations, group discussions or even presentations at conferences held in virtual worlds. Some experiences indicate that social interaction is most productive when it has a clear purpose rather than just conversation practice.
- Students can be immersed in a specific environment, perhaps a place that exists in real life or somewhere imaginary, to stimulate conversation. This can be done through encouraging the student to respond to basic questions about the place or to perhaps elicit more complex responses such as emotional reactions to the 3D environment.
- A more creative approach can be taken by including the building of objects. Perhaps the construction of a house followed by guided tours or through group activities that likewise involve the creation of objects.
- Using MMOGs such as World of Warcraft remains a relatively unexplored field, but it seems likely that there are opportunities to engage students in either communicative and collaborative tasks or perhaps as a quest-like activity.
Role plays may also be done in immersive environments, such as a city tour using Google Street View. There are various examples of using Second Life for simulated training, such as by the Canadian Border Control and the Iowa emergency preparation. However, given the structured and planned nature of such training, it seems there may be less scope to apply Dogme ideas.
Dogme Inspired Lesson: an example
Video clips of a Dogme inspired lesson are embedded below to illustrate how 3D virtual worlds (in this case Second Life) can be integrated into (offline or 2D online) lessons. These clips show how the student is able to identify for himself which vocabulary and structures were key to matching the images and texts; the student was then able to draw on new or unfamiliar vocabulary to use in his own terms, when exploring restaurants in Second Life. Learning opportunities (such as reinforcing the pronunciation of the word ‘bank’) naturally arose with only gentle prompting by the teacher. As such, the lesson reflects the Dogme principles of language emergence, materials-light content and conversation-driven learning.
However, this lesson could have demonstrated greater Dogme influences had the student played a more active role in the selection of materials (from the Lonely Planet site in this case) and of the locations (the restaurants in Second Life) for the virtual field trip. The lesson could also have involved greater social experiences such as the student interviewing other Second Life residents (eg restaurant diners) or leading a group discussion on the topic. However the clips do serve to show the flexibility of virtual worlds and the scope to integrate specific experiences (be it social, immersive, creative or gaming) into Dogme inspired language lessons.
Some related links…
