If you’re a planner with a capital P then look away now, because being a Dogme Star may give you a nosebleed!

Photo by Janine Robinson on Unsplash

Back before the time of wifi and cafe latte was a time in which I would go all out to plan the perfect lesson. I would write them on Budapest buses on the backs of street flyers, and I would chat for hours with fellow teachers about original ideas for classes in bars you could order fried chicken with peaches.

At my first summer school, my DoS would lock the teachers’ room because we loved planning that much.

At the beginning, the idea of not planning vigorously for classes felt as alien as not having to carry a bulky cd player about.

Ultimately, there’s something very necessary and earnest about setting aside precious time to plan. It is empowering to have learning aims and stepping stones in which to map the journey of an exciting class. It is calming having your angles covered and feeling absolutely prepared. And it goes without saying that you can feel more invested in a class you have lovingly prepared.

But truth be told, planning to the nth degree all the time, is part of a teaching eutopia that is despairingly tied to dreams of perfectionism. Dreams which are neither sustainable nor actually even that necessary as it sometimes feels.

At various points in my professional life, to tick the right boxes, I have spent more time planning lessons than I did for my first wedding. And the legacy of setting the bar that high from the beginning, is that it sets some kind of twisted norm.

Boris Johnson’s approach to governing a country has seemed infinitely more ad-hoc than any lesson ever carried out by a teacher. And it kills me to say this, as a lifelong anti Tory… but there’s something to be said for teaching like a Boris, because more often than not, the best way to teach, is to teach in the moment.

The amount of experience you have does naturally determine how much you may need to plan, but if I fast-forward 16 years from when I first started teaching, planning does feel different, especially when I teach online. Back when I started, I taught three classes a day and not seven… and basically, I had more time to think about classes. Lessons felt more tailored and not so much pulled off the rack.  

Back in the day, I really did look at lessons from their raw ingredients and the thought of seeing a 90 minute class as something I could heat up and dish up, felt inconceivable.

Besides having to teach more lessons during the pandemic, I think what has knocked a lot of devotion to planning out of me, is my expectation that many teaching environments are often organised chaos. Booking systems are open, new students appear from nowhere, students can’t make it, people arrive late, connections crash, or there are teachers off ill… somewhere along the line… I simply gave up on being more proactive, in an environment which constantly tests my ability to be reactive.

And this is why Dogme can not only feel refreshing but indeed a necessary part of your armoury. More often than not, things can go to pot and you do have to think quickly on your feet and improvise.

In a Dogme lesson, you basically rock up with no PPT slides and it’s just you and your students. You’re alert to any stimuli, such as a band t-shirt a student is wearing, what’s in the news, and you gently prompt students to talk by asking open questions and you respond by adding emergent language or with personalised examples of structures that they’re still in the process of grasping.

There’s no telling where it might go, and with smartphones and teaching online, Dogme has become even more expansive.

And let’s not forget, Dogme loves trees. I have only ever needed scrap paper in a Dogme lesson.

Dogme online can involve, asking a student to show a trailer of the last film they watched and to talk about it, or to tell you about the last app they downloaded and how to use it, talking about the last photo they took, or getting away from their laptop screen to grab the last thing they bought from Amazon.

It can involve asking a student to show you their neighbourhood on Google maps street view, or comparing their step counters on their phones. Who walked where? And for how long? Who walked the furthest? And why?

My favourite lately with online teaching, has involved asking students to run to their fridge, to tell you its contents and to write a shopping list. It can involve, grabbing the family pet and introducing them, or talking you through their bookcase or vinyl collection.

Top 5s are also a classic for Dogme. Or if your students are sporty… selecting a dream team XI.

Going in with no plan can feel completely spontaneous, but there’s a realness to it which tests what a student can actually do with the language, and it provides you with the perfect stage to fill in the blanks.

Being a Dogme Star is basically like being a DJ that doesn’t have a playlist, but instead always takes requests… if two people are lovingly gazing into each other’s eyes then you don’t need to have spent hours putting together tracks, to know that you need to play ‘True’ by Spandau Ballet.

Tuition reigns supreme, and as the latter pop group once said…’you are gold…always believe in your soul.’

If you are reading this and do not know who Spandau Ballet are, then you may feel how my youngsters felt the other day, when I was teaching them from a textbook where Wayne Rooney was still a Manchester United player, there was constant reference to downloading films, dvds, and MP3 players… and basically, the whole thing felt like we were trapped in a digital pastime museum.

This clearly points out that materials have a shelf life when it comes to being relevant for younger learners, whereas student-led classes never age.

Of course, Dogme has shortcomings… from the few examples I’ve given… you may well be thinking… I wouldn’t try that at A1 or I couldn’t keep that up for an hour… but with teaching in this way… I think you’ll always surprise yourself in how quickly you can think on your feet.

Whenever I go Dogme Star, I never have that ill-feeling in my stomach that I have taught this lesson three thousand times before, and my students, instead of feeling that I’m unprepared or am not acting professionally, actually feel that I’m even more present in class. I’m not glancing at lesson notes, fiddling with technology or hiding behind materials.

Dogme is very footloose and fancy-free, and lessons do not feel like generic flatpack pieces of furniture that you are assembling.

Will Dogme prepare you for a Delta? No.

Slavishly cover all the content of a syllabus? No.

Please your DoS who’s checking your online progress admin? Probably not.

But you know what? A Dogme lesson every now and then is important. It’s important because it doesn’t seem artificial or staged, but is in fact very real.

Over the years, I’ve felt so depressed going to teaching conferences and hearing amazing ideas, and feeling guilty, unprofessional, lazy even… because I’m always left thinking… just how can I feasibly find the time to pull all that off? After I’ve exercised, learnt Italian, done the food shopping and ran about after my cats… my time for planning for any more time than 10 mins per class, is rare.

In a Dogme class, the last thing I feel is that I’m going through the motions. Because being that present in a class makes you feel very alive. You’re a shining light.

So why not put your folders away and let your student map the lesson and not English File?

Not everything is about planning and teachers should embrace that feeling of going second star to the right and straight on till morning.