One of the things I wonder when I see some Dogme blogs (and unplug parts of my lesson) is setting up some of these activities takes time. So I wondered
How do we keep our students involved during these activities?
So this post will aim to include some suggestions of how to keep lessons following and active yet being adaptable.
Get the students to set up
Pretty obvious really. They can write an activity, put cards around the room (great with young learners) or even draw pictures/find pictures to use in the activity. They have to be involved, you can practice a language skill at the same time and certainly input functional language.
Dictoglosses
If someone has found some material they want to use in the class the other students can listen to them talk about it, make notes about it and then report back. Meanwhile the teacher can adapt the material.
Interview
Similar to the last one, interviews can get other students to make predictions and then check if they will be in this activity. You can even turn this into a roleplay, perhaps getting people to be from different news sources and acting like them
Set a challenge.
If students/ some students have brought in their own devices with them it is possible to set a web challenge of finding a video or picture on the internet that you want to look at.. This can help practice digital literacies skills of searching and keywords. This can also provide vocab revision or introducing new words via search strategies.
Predicting games:
There are a few predicting games I use such as
- Guess what words will appear in the audio/video/etc then tick when you hear them
- Write a plot/outline.
- Draw a picture to represent events. (with a partner)
