Teaching Unplugged

Teaching Unplugged was awarded the British Council ELTons UK Award for Innovation in 2010.

Teaching Unplugged is the first book to deal comprehensively with the approach in English Language Teaching known as Dogme ELT. It challenges not only the way we view teaching, but also the way we view being a teacher.

Dogme ELT advocates teaching ‘unplugged’: a materials-light, conversation-driven philosophy of teaching that, above all, focuses on the learner and on emergent language.

Teaching Unplugged contains three distinctive parts A, B and C which focus in turn on theory, practice and development:

A:
• A background to the ideas behind teaching unplugged.
• A detailed explanation of the core principles behind Dogme ELT.
• An invitation to reflect on the best way to learn a language and, consequently, to teach it.

B:
• A bank of activities that teachers can use right away and which help them ‘unplug their teaching’ from the start.
• Activities that involve little or no preparation, often requiring no more than pen, paper and the people in the room.
• Tips, techniques and key terms to facilitate a new approach to teaching.

C:
• A reflection on questions relating to how Dogme ELT can be applied in different teaching contexts.
• An in-depth examination of the issues and implications of adopting this new style of teaching.