I’ve always felt that dogme, a genuinely learner-centred approach that turns top-down orthodoxy on its head, is intrinsically linked to teacher development. It may now be true to say that teacher development must be linked intrinsically to dogme, if the latter’s...
Dogme has endured, and I now find myself going into other schools and teaching departments to share the ideas advanced in Teaching Unplugged. What’s increasingly apparent to me is that – while there is a genuine appetite for ‘opening the space’ in language classrooms...
The ‘unplugged’ TDSIG conference, which will be held in Barcelona on Saturday, 21st May, will retain the Open Space format used in last year’s pre-conference event to explore unplugged teaching and its implications for teacher development. Open Space is a particularly...
Darren wrote: Searching the Cambridge CELTA syllabus for `culture’, I discover the following. Unit 1 ELearners and teachers and the teaching and learning context 1.1 Cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds Demonstrate an understanding of the range of...
Just came across Paul Braddock’s blog this morning. Paul works for the British Council in Barcelona, and has a keen interest in teacher development. The whole blog is well worth reading, but I’d especially like to draw the attention of TDSIG members to two...
The answer to this question is ‘yes’. But it should be clear what we mean by ‘critical friend.’ The concept would no longer be meaningful if it could not be distinguished from helpfulness, sympathy or peer coaching. An essential characteristic of a critical friend is...
