text:
Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus
Michael A. Liss, Yidong Chen, Ronald Rodriguez, Deepak Pruthi, Teresa Johnson-Pais, Hanzhang Wang, Ahmed Mansour, James R. White, Dharam Kaushik
Department of Urology
Objective. To perform a proof of concept microbiome evaluation and PD-L1 expression profiling in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (cc-RCC) with associated tumor thrombus (TT). Methods. After IRB approval, six patients underwent radical nephrectomy (RN) with venous tumor thrombectomy (VTT). We collected fresh tissue specimens from normal adjacent, tumor, and thrombus tissues. We utilized RNA sequencing to obtain PD-L1 expression profiles and perform microbiome analysis. Statistical assessment was performed using Student's t-test, chi-square, and spearman rank correlations using SPSS v25. Results. We noted the tumor thrombus to be mostly devoid of diverse microbiota. A large proportion of Staphylococcus epidermidus was detected and unknown if this is a surgical or postsurgical contaminant; however, it was noted more in the thrombus than other tissues. Microbiome diversity profiles were most abundant in the primary tumor compared to the thrombus or normal adjacent tissue. Differential expression of PD-L1 was examined in the tumor thrombus to the normal background tissue and noted three of the six subjects had a threshold above 2-fold. These three similar subjects had foreign microbiota that are typical residents of the oral microbiome. Conclusion. Renal tumors have more diverse microbiomes than normal adjacent tissue. Identification of resident oral microbiome profiles in clear-cell renal cancer with tumor thrombus provides a potential biomarker for thrombus response to PD-L1 inhibition.
Advances in Urology
https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/9068068
10.1155/2020/9068068
Dive into the research topics of 'Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Programmed Death-Ligand 1 Medicine and Dentistry 100%
Microbiome Medicine and Dentistry 70%
Tissues Medicine and Dentistry 70%
Tumor Thrombus Medicine and Dentistry 50%
PD-L1 Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 50%
Thrombus Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 40%
Neoplasm Medicine and Dentistry 20%
Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma Medicine and Dentistry 20%
Liss, M. A., Chen, Y., Rodriguez, R., Pruthi, D., Johnson-Pais, T., Wang, H., Mansour, A., White, J. R., & Kaushik, D. (2020). Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus. Advances in Urology, 2020, [9068068]. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/9068068
Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus. / Liss, Michael A.; Chen, Yidong; Rodriguez, Ronald et al.
In: Advances in Urology, Vol. 2020, 9068068, 2020.
Liss, MA, Chen, Y, Rodriguez, R, Pruthi, D, Johnson-Pais, T, Wang, H, Mansour, A, White, JR & Kaushik, D 2020, 'Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus', Advances in Urology, vol. 2020, 9068068. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/9068068
Liss MA, Chen Y, Rodriguez R, Pruthi D, Johnson-Pais T, Wang H et al. Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus. Advances in Urology. 2020;2020:9068068. doi: 10.1155/2020/9068068
Liss, Michael A. ; Chen, Yidong ; Rodriguez, Ronald et al. / Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus. In: Advances in Urology. 2020 ; Vol. 2020.
@article{887ba26094524501a2ca9794aa45ed43,
title = "Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus",
abstract = "Objective. To perform a proof of concept microbiome evaluation and PD-L1 expression profiling in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (cc-RCC) with associated tumor thrombus (TT). Methods. After IRB approval, six patients underwent radical nephrectomy (RN) with venous tumor thrombectomy (VTT). We collected fresh tissue specimens from normal adjacent, tumor, and thrombus tissues. We utilized RNA sequencing to obtain PD-L1 expression profiles and perform microbiome analysis. Statistical assessment was performed using Student's t-test, chi-square, and spearman rank correlations using SPSS v25. Results. We noted the tumor thrombus to be mostly devoid of diverse microbiota. A large proportion of Staphylococcus epidermidus was detected and unknown if this is a surgical or postsurgical contaminant; however, it was noted more in the thrombus than other tissues. Microbiome diversity profiles were most abundant in the primary tumor compared to the thrombus or normal adjacent tissue. Differential expression of PD-L1 was examined in the tumor thrombus to the normal background tissue and noted three of the six subjects had a threshold above 2-fold. These three similar subjects had foreign microbiota that are typical residents of the oral microbiome. Conclusion. Renal tumors have more diverse microbiomes than normal adjacent tissue. Identification of resident oral microbiome profiles in clear-cell renal cancer with tumor thrombus provides a potential biomarker for thrombus response to PD-L1 inhibition.",
author = "Liss, {Michael A.} and Yidong Chen and Ronald Rodriguez and Deepak Pruthi and Teresa Johnson-Pais and Hanzhang Wang and Ahmed Mansour and White, {James R.} and Dharam Kaushik",
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doi = "10.1155/2020/9068068",
journal = "Advances in Urology",
T1 - Microbiome within Primary Tumor Tissue from Renal Cell Carcinoma May Be Associated with PD-L1 Expression of the Venous Tumor Thrombus
AU - Liss, Michael A.
AU - Chen, Yidong
AU - Rodriguez, Ronald
AU - Pruthi, Deepak
AU - Johnson-Pais, Teresa
AU - Wang, Hanzhang
AU - Mansour, Ahmed
AU - White, James R.
AU - Kaushik, Dharam
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Michael A. Liss et al.
N2 - Objective. To perform a proof of concept microbiome evaluation and PD-L1 expression profiling in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (cc-RCC) with associated tumor thrombus (TT). Methods. After IRB approval, six patients underwent radical nephrectomy (RN) with venous tumor thrombectomy (VTT). We collected fresh tissue specimens from normal adjacent, tumor, and thrombus tissues. We utilized RNA sequencing to obtain PD-L1 expression profiles and perform microbiome analysis. Statistical assessment was performed using Student's t-test, chi-square, and spearman rank correlations using SPSS v25. Results. We noted the tumor thrombus to be mostly devoid of diverse microbiota. A large proportion of Staphylococcus epidermidus was detected and unknown if this is a surgical or postsurgical contaminant; however, it was noted more in the thrombus than other tissues. Microbiome diversity profiles were most abundant in the primary tumor compared to the thrombus or normal adjacent tissue. Differential expression of PD-L1 was examined in the tumor thrombus to the normal background tissue and noted three of the six subjects had a threshold above 2-fold. These three similar subjects had foreign microbiota that are typical residents of the oral microbiome. Conclusion. Renal tumors have more diverse microbiomes than normal adjacent tissue. Identification of resident oral microbiome profiles in clear-cell renal cancer with tumor thrombus provides a potential biomarker for thrombus response to PD-L1 inhibition.
AB - Objective. To perform a proof of concept microbiome evaluation and PD-L1 expression profiling in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (cc-RCC) with associated tumor thrombus (TT). Methods. After IRB approval, six patients underwent radical nephrectomy (RN) with venous tumor thrombectomy (VTT). We collected fresh tissue specimens from normal adjacent, tumor, and thrombus tissues. We utilized RNA sequencing to obtain PD-L1 expression profiles and perform microbiome analysis. Statistical assessment was performed using Student's t-test, chi-square, and spearman rank correlations using SPSS v25. Results. We noted the tumor thrombus to be mostly devoid of diverse microbiota. A large proportion of Staphylococcus epidermidus was detected and unknown if this is a surgical or postsurgical contaminant; however, it was noted more in the thrombus than other tissues. Microbiome diversity profiles were most abundant in the primary tumor compared to the thrombus or normal adjacent tissue. Differential expression of PD-L1 was examined in the tumor thrombus to the normal background tissue and noted three of the six subjects had a threshold above 2-fold. These three similar subjects had foreign microbiota that are typical residents of the oral microbiome. Conclusion. Renal tumors have more diverse microbiomes than normal adjacent tissue. Identification of resident oral microbiome profiles in clear-cell renal cancer with tumor thrombus provides a potential biomarker for thrombus response to PD-L1 inhibition.
U2 - 10.1155/2020/9068068
DO - 10.1155/2020/9068068
JO - Advances in Urology
JF - Advances in Urology


The North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) is a bustling business community, with its headquarters situated in the heart of the North East region, just off the A19 in Sunderland. Today, the BIC complex covers a fourteen acre site and the range of business space includes executive offices and incubator units, as well as bio-science labs and large industrial facilities. The current occupancy rate is 94 per cent, with over 140 independent businesses employing over 1000 people on site.
Located just off the Yarm Road Business Central Darlington benefits from excellent access to major road networks and the railway. All offices are finished to the highest standard and space is available for up to 60 firms. In addition the facility includes meeting rooms, communal reception and an Open Space co-working area, which is ideal for businesses on the move.
The Hub, on Crowther Road, Washington is in an ideal location, less than two minutes' drive from the A1. The Hub consists of two floors and 17 modern, air-conditioned offices providing meeting space, conference facilities as well as advice and support to start up and established businesses. Offices range from 150sq.ft. up to 1,000sq.ft.


Five hundred years ago, a volcanic explosion created massive basalt rock walls and made Boquete a prime place for rock climbing and rappelling.
The basalt walls are masterpieces of natural art with geometrical columns and vertical and horizontal curvatures. Canadian climber Gary Henning developed the first, safe climbing routes and trained local climbers including Cesar, the founder of Panama Rock Climbing.
Today, mountaineers come from all over the world to climb routes suitable for both beginners and experts. Climbs include classic sport routes, multi-pitch routes and amazing waterfall descents.
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For experts, there are 14 routes up to 5.12 d.


text:
Sharique Hasan
Associate professor of strategy @ Duke
iSPIRT: M&A Connect (Part A)
September 20, 2018 September 23, 2018 shariqueorg
Stanford GSB Cases
(with Sarah Rosenthal)
Part A of the case describes the founding of the Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable (iSPIRT, pronounced "ispirit"), a nonprofit organization formed in 2012 by a small group of Indian entrepreneurs and technology professionals who believed that India's tremendous engineering talent could be harnessed to transition the country from its role as the "back office of the world" into a "product nation" in its own right. Led almost entirely by volunteers, the group identified three major obstacles blocking the path of entrepreneurship and innovation in India: 1) obstructive government regulations and policies; 2) entrepreneur readiness (or lack thereof); and 3) the process by which potential acquirers/partners could "discover" Indian startups. Though iSPIRT engaged in numerous initiatives to address these challenges, it is the challenge of "discovery" that provides the focus of Part B of the case.
The learning objective of the case is to provide students with an opportunity to apply social network theory to a real life business challenge. As Rao, students are asked to navigate the challenges and opportunities and determine a pathway forward for launching M&A Connect based on limited financial resources and numerous constraints. What personal and professional networks should he tap into, what resources can he use, what value can he bring to the respective audiences with whom he is speaking? Once students learn the details around how Rao actually launched the program, they are then asked to evaluate the next steps in Part B. How can he overcome the dual challenge/opportunity that iSPIRT's status as a nonprofit brings? What new challenges does he face as he attempts to identify the "top" entrepreneurs throughout India while at the same time trying to establish credibility with the top tier technology firms in the U.S.? As Rao refines his model, how can he go about scaling it such that iSPIRT can have
iSPIRT: M&A Connect (Part B)
Stanford GSB Case Study
Part B explores the launch of M&A Connect, a one-man initiative led by Sanat Rao, to serve as a matchmaker between viable, high-potential Indian startups and U.S.-based acquirers such as Google, AutoDesk, and Intel. Students learn how Rao approached the challenge of finding inroads into the corporate development departments of these American companies in order to connect them with virtually unknown Indian startups. While he has achieved success, the process is ongoing and the future of M&A Connect continues to unfold. Also see Part A.
2011 2012 2013 2015 2018 Careers Digitization Education Entrepreneurship Healthcare Helpfulness India Inequality Innovation Internet Labor Markets M&A Machine Learning Natural Language Processing Peer effects Social networks Startups Venture Capital

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Home » Bunker Bulletins » NYCC 2018 Day Three News Round-Up
NYCC 2018 Day Three News Round-Up
October 7, 2018Kevin LainezBunker Bulletins0
The third day of New York Comic Con continued the momentum of the second day. There were plenty of panels from DC Comics and Marvel that showed what plans the Big Two have for their respective universes. From new comics to big plans there seems to be something for everyone to look forward to. Along with that we learned the results of the big winners from the Harvey Awards that was held during NYCC. Let's break down the big news that came out of the third day of NYCC 2018.
DC COMICS WORLD'S FINEST ASSEMBLE
For DC Comics NYCC was more about elaborating on the projects they already announced than new comic. The World's Finest panel was an example of that as DC Comics used it as opportunity to have Kelly Sue DeConnick, Steve Orlando, Peter J. Tomasi, James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson take center stage for the panel. Each of these writers have major titles involving key members of the Justice League. With Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman having enough attention on them this was refreshing to see.
With DeConnick we got to learn a little more about what she was planning for Aquaman. Given her library of work it does look like DeConnick has a good understanding of how to write Aquaman, especially as the series will have more attention on it after the movie releases. It was also interesting to learn that DeConnick will be working on the Black Label series titled Hisotria, which will focus around the Amazons.
On a similar note it was good to see Steve Orlando get the chance to talk about the upcoming Martian Manhunter series. With the Martian Manhunter being elevated thanks to his leadership role in the Justice League this is the perfect time for the iconic DC character to get a shot at a solo series. Adding these series to what Tomasi, Tynion and Williamson have planned for Detective Comics, Justice League Dark and Flash, respectively, show that there is a lot to be excited for from the DC Universe.
Source: CBR
FLASH FUTURE INCLUDES DEATH AND YEAR ONE REVISITED
Coming out of the World's Finest panel we found out that Flash is in store for an even bigger year in 2019. For one thing Flash will have to wait until January to feature Barry Allen to deal with Wally West's death in Heroes In Crisis. It is an odd move given that we just saw Oliver Queen and the Justice League deal with Roy Harper's death in Green Arrow #45. Waiting an extra three months for Wally's death to be address is head scratching and does make you wonder if there is more to Wally's death in particular. Though that may be tied in with Bart Allen's appearance, which is said to happen in the Flash comic before Bart goes on to star in Young Justice.
To go along with that annual we also learned that Barry Allen's Flash will be getting the Year One treatment. What's particularly interesting about Flash: Year One was the costume featured on the cover. It's much more of a street-level costume that is reminiscent of Peter Parker's homemade Spider-Man costume in Civil War and Homecoming. How that costume works and what is revealed from Barry's updated history will be interesting to see.
Source: Newsarama
WHAT IS MARVEL'S NEXT BIG THING?
As is typical with the comic cons that Marvel has a big presence at they hosted a Next Big Thing panel. This one featured Jason Aaron, Donny Cates, Gerry Duggan and Dan Slott. The line-up wasn't surprising given that those four writers are working on big Marvel titles. For Aaron he quickly established that we will be getting a seventh full-time member on the Avengers. Though it does not seem to be Namor and Doctor Strange. Who exactly it'll be seems to be left to fans imagination until Aaron makes it official on the Avengers.
Slott also seems to be given free reign on Iron Man and Fantastic Four as he talked about how he is being allowed to do things on those comics he didn't get to do on his Spider-Man run. As long as he doesn't trick us with a wedding fake out then he could avoid angering fans the way other comic book weddings did.
Along with all that we also learned that No Surrender will be getting a sequel titled Avengers: No Road Home. Given that No Surrender was largely a forgettable story it is surprising that it is already getting a sequel. And with Aaron having free reign over the Avengers it'll be tough for No Road Home to seem consequential without him on the series.
C.B. CEBULSKI TALKS MARVEL UNIVERSE FUTURE
With Marvel's Next Big Thing panel mostly centered around the Avengers franchise it was interesting to see Editor-In-Chief CB Cebulski's spotlight panel was more about the X-Men. Cebulski seemed to passionately talk about how important the X-Men are for half of his panel's alloted time. That says a lot about the X-Men's new position back to prominence at Marvel. With the Fox merger just months away Marvel seems to be trying to get ahead of the game on the comic book front. In doing so Marvel can make sure to streamline the X-Men as much as possible for when Disney goes all in on franchise in other mediums.
In addition to that we also learned from Cebulski that the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man are also key players he wants to focus on. Which is not surprising given the previously mentioned Fox merger and Spider-Man continuing to be Marvel's most popular character.
Though it was surprising to learn that the Young Avengers series will be returning. While Young Avengers has a strong loyal following we already have the West Coast Avengers which could be seen as a spiritual successor. How the market will deal with yet another Avengers title will be say a lot about how the franchise does handling so many comic book series at the same time.
TOM KING TALKS HEROES IN CRISIS
After Heroes In Crisis #1 was released there was a lot of talk about what Tom King did in the first issue. It was shocking to find that King opened DC Comics latest Crisis event with major deaths throughout Heroes In Crisis #1. King understands how big these deaths were as he talked about them during his spotlight panel at NYCC. During his panel King confirmed that the deaths in Heroes In Crisis are permanent. So at least for now we should not expect the likes of Wally West and Roy Harper to return. That may be King trying to get fans to buy into what happened in Heroes In Crisis as we all no to well that in comics no death lasts forever.
During the panel we also found out that DC Comics seemed to want to also kill Tim Drake during Heroes In Crisis or King's Batman run. Given that Tim recently returned from being placed in limbo it was good that King did not go that route since Tim will be Robin in Young Justice. And it was also refreshing that King said he found killing a Robin to be boring. As King showed with Nightwing getting shot in the head and Lodell's turn with Red Hood.
MARJORIE LIU AND SANA TAKEDA WIN BIG AT HARVEY AWARDS
Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda continues to rack up awards. It is great to see Liu and Takeda's work continue to gain so much recognition. Monstress winning the Harvey Award for Book of the Year further proves the power of the independent scene in the comic book industry. This type of recognition also continues to build momentum for the series as now Monstress will likely be in the running for many as comic book of the year given all the awards it has already won.
Aquaman, Avengers, Comic Con, Detective Comics, Flash, Heroes In Crisis, X-Men


Lenovo today introduced the ThinkCentre Edge 91z all-in-one desktop, which is the company slimmest AIO to date, measuring just 2.5 inches. Despite the fact that it is one of the thinnest and compact PCs, the 91z doesn't lack of power, it comes equipped with Intel i7 Quad Core processors, 8GB of DDR3 memory, AMD Radeon HD6650A 1GB graphics, and 80 GB solid state drive or 1 TB hard drive storage.
The AIO PC is fitted with 21.5-inch glossy, widescreen HD Infinity LED display (1920 x 1200), along with a 2MP webcam and built-in speakers. It also offers six USB ports, 6-in-1 card reader, HDMI, an optional Blu-ray DVD drive and spill resistant wireless keyboard. ThinkCentre Edge 91z is load with Windows 7, that Lenovo claims boots 30 percent faster than non-optimized models.
The ThinkCentre Edge 91z all-in-one desktop will be available starting in July, starting at $699.


text:
M is for Manifesto
If you get a chance to see Julian Rosefeldt's movie Manifesto, starring Cate Blanchett, do – if for no other reason than to see Blanchett at the top of her form, playing 13 different roles and as many accents, to often hilarious effect. (You can see the trailer here).
Originally conceived as an art gallery video installation, it has now been spliced together as an art-house movie. Each of its thirteen segments has Blanchett reciting and/or enacting a manifesto, or a cluster of related manifestos, that launched various 20th century art movements: Dadaism, Futurism, the Situationists, Surrealism, etc. The Pop Art manifesto, for example takes the form of Blanchett, with a broad Southern accent, saying grace in advance of a turkey dinner, while her long-suffering family roll their eyes at each successively outrageous pronouncement, taken verbatim from Claes Oldenberg's 1961 text 'I am for an art…': "I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum….I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids' smells. I am for the art of mama-babble…' and so on. And on.
But my favorite sequence has to be the one near the end, about film, in which Blanchett plays a primary school teacher with a pitch-perfect 'teacherly' voice, talking her class through the Dogme 1995 manifesto. Hovering over the kids as they complete an assignment, she gently corrects one of them: "Shooting must be done on location." And another: "The camera must be handheld."
The Dogme 1995 film manifesto, apparently drafted over a bottle of red wine by Lars Von Trier and a handful of his Scandinavian film-making buddies, was, of course, the stimulus for the Dogme ELT manifesto. The scene in Manifesto prompted me to revisit both. Here, for the record, are four of the 10 'vows' that adherents to the Dogme film movement were expected to comply with:
1.Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
2.The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot). […]
7.Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) […]
10. The director must not be credited.
Motivated by a similar desire to 'rescue' teaching from the clutches of the grammar syllabus, as enshrined in coursebooks, and all the associated pedagogical paraphernalia that goes with it, I drafted an (intentionally provocative) Dogme ELT manifesto which clearly echoes both the style and spirit of the van Trier one, and takes the form of ten 'vows' (Thornbury 2001):
Teaching should be done using only the resources that teachers and students bring to the classroom – i.e. themselves – and whatever happens to be in the classroom. If a particular piece of material is necessary for the lesson, a location must be chosen where that material is to be found (e.g. library, resource centre, bar, students' club?)
No recorded listening material should be introduced into the classroom: the source of all "listening" activities should be the students and teacher themselves. The only recorded material that is used should be that made in the classroom itself, e.g. recording students in pair or group work for later re-play and analysis.
The teacher must sit down at all times that the students are seated, except when monitoring group or pair work (and even then it may be best to pull up a chair). In small classes, teaching should take place around a single table.
All the teacher's questions must be "real" questions (such as "Do you like oysters?" Or "What did you do on Saturday?"), not "display" questions (such as "What's the past of the verb to go?" or "Is there a clock on the wall?")
Slavish adherence to a method (such as audiolingualism, Silent Way, TPR, task-based learning, suggestopedia) is unacceptable.
A pre-planned syllabus of pre-selected and graded grammar items is forbidden. Any grammar that is the focus of instruction should emerge from the lesson content, not dictate it.
Topics that are generated by the students themselves must be given priority over any other input.
Grading of students into different levels is disallowed: students should be free to join the class that they feel most comfortable in, whether for social reasons, or for reasons of mutual intelligibility, or both. As in other forms of human social interaction, diversity should be accommodated, even welcomed, but not proscribed.
The criteria and administration of any testing procedures must be negotiated with the learners.
Teachers themselves will be evaluated according to only one criterion: that they are not boring.
Re-reading it now, I realise how it was influenced (a) by the specific training context in which I was working, where elicitation sequences and the playing of barely audible cassette recordings were the order of the day, and (b) by my reading of Postman and Weingartner's radical treatise, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1967) which similarly called for a moratorium on mandated curricula and formal testing. I still hold by that, but the final vow (about not being boring) is just plain silly.
The key vow is, of course, the first one, and its proscription on 'imported' materials. While the idea of taking students to the bar or library is clearly impractical, technology now allows us to bring the bar or library into the classroom, thereby realising Peter Strevens' (1956) injunction that:
"Language is not a sterile subject to be confined to the classroom. One of two things must be done: either life must be brought to the classroom or the class must be taken to life."
Does anything else in the Dogme ELT manifesto strike you as worth retaining?
Postman, N. & Weingartner, C. (1967) Teaching as a subversive activity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Strevens, P. (1956) Spoken language: an introduction for teachers and students in Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Thornbury, S. (2001) 'Teaching Unplugged (Or That's Dogme with an E)'. IT's for Teachers, Issue 1 (February), 10-14.
Tags: coursebooks, dogme, dogme 95, grammar McNuggets, manifesto, teaching unplugged
S is for Sylvia (Ashton-Warner)
'I harness the communication, since I can't control it, and base my method on it' (Ashton-Warner, 1966, p.85).
Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1908 – 1984) was a primary school teacher in rural New Zealand, where she was entrusted with teaching reading and writing, using textbooks that were imported from Britain. The content of these 'primers' bore little resemblance to the world of her pupils (most of whom were of Māori origin). Their inability to identify with the textbooks and their consequent failure to develop good literacy skills was a constant source of frustration for Ashton-Warner. She wrote (cited in Hood, 1990, p. 91):
There's no communication … you see they're not thinking about what they're writing about or what I'm teaching. I'm teaching about 'bed' and 'can' but they were thinking about canoes and grandfathers and drowned men and eels.
This frustration led to her abandoning the use of the imported textbooks altogether and, instead, developing an approach – and the materials to go with it – that 'emerged' out of the lives and experiences of the children themselves.
In her successful novel, Spinster (1958, p. 67) she describes the germination of this idea:
A rainy, rainy Thursday and I talk to them all day. They ask ten thousand questions in the morning and eleven thousand in the afternoon. And more and more as I talk with them I sense hidden in the converse some kind of key. A kind of high-above nebulous meaning that I cannot identify. And the more I withdraw as a teacher and sit and talk as a person, the more I join in with the stream of their energy, the direction of their inclinations, the rhythms of their emotions, and the forces of their communications, the more I feel my thinking travelling towards this; this something that is the answer to it all; this . . . key.
Conscious that each child had a unique inner imagery, she reasoned that if she could just capture and label these 'pictures of the inner vision', she had all the material she needed to provide the foundations of literacy – what she called the 'key vocabulary'. These were the words that, once written down and recognized, would unlock the ability to read and write texts that included them. These first words, she believed, 'must have an intense meaning' and 'must be made of the stuff of the child himself' (1966, p. 28).
Because the words that emerged from the children provided the basis for their initial writing and reading tasks, she called the approach to literacy 'organic' – it grew naturally out of the 'stuff of the child': 'I reach a hand into the mind of the child, bring out a handful of the stuff I find there, and use that as our first working material' (1966, p. 28).
How did it work? The first stage in Ashton-Warner's 'key vocabulary' process is the eliciting from each child of a 'key' word, i.e. one that has strong associations for them, and writing it on a card which the child takes ownership of.
After play … we turn our attention to the new words themselves. The children pick up their books and run to the blackboard and write them up: the words asked for during the writing of the morning. They're not too long ago to be forgotten. Some of them are, when a child has asked a lot, but they ask you what they are.
Since they are all on the wall blackboard, I can see them from one position. They write them, revise them, the older children spell them and the younger merely say them… Of course, there's a lot of noise, but there's a lot of work too. (p.63)
These words then become the basis of sentences that the children individually write on the blackboards that ring the room. These sentences in turn form the basis of mini-narratives, usually autobiographical, that the pupils write into their notebooks and share, the teacher supplying correction at the point of need. Ashton-Warner used these texts as the basis for writing her 'infant readers' which she herself illustrated. Out of this 'raw material' – and with no explicit teaching as such – the ability to read and write develops.
In her life-time and beyond, Sylvia achieved a considerable degree of fame, not only as an educational innovator but as a novelist and counter-cultural icon. For a while she was revered by the progressive schools movement and her methods were adopted beyond her native New Zealand (where her capacity to irritate even her supporters, along with her tendency to stereotype the Māori, badly dented her reputation). As with many visionary educators, her fame may have owed a lot to her own charisma, but those who were taught by her attest to the success of her approach.
One way her legacy has survived is the Language Experience Approach (LEA), a literacy program used with success in the US and based on the principle that the best way of teaching children to read is through their own words. Essentially, the teacher transcribes the telling of a shared experience (e.g. a field trip) or an individual's narrative, recasting it into more target-like language were necessary. The class then read the story aloud, either in chorus, or individually, and any further revisions and corrections are made. These stories can then be saved as part of the class reading library and even shared with other groups of learners.
And, of course, Ashton-Warner's organic, materials-light approach is a direct precursor of dogme ELT/teaching-unplugged. In both her teaching journal and her novel she describes the day she burnt all her classroom materials: 'It's impressive to see it go up in smoke. … But teaching will be much simpler now, and there'll be more time for conversation. And whatever the past has or has not taught me, I'm satisfied that communication on any level, giving birth as it does to the new body, the new idea or the new heart, is the most that life can be' (Spinster, p p.86 – 87).
Ashton-Warner, S. (1966) Teacher. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Ashton-Warner, S. (1958) Spinster. London: Secker & Warburg.
Hood, L. (1990) Sylvia! The biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Auckland: Penguin.
Photos from Teacher.
Tags: Ashton-Warner, communication, dogme, key vocabulary, language experience approach, organic reading, teaching unplugged
S is for Speaking (2)
photo by Ahed Izhiman
Following on from last week, here are five more of my favourite speaking activities that I included (or planned to include) in my talks in Palestine. As in the last batch, they require minimal materials, promote a good deal of productive language use, and have elements of task rehearsal and repetition built in.
Find someone who… This is a classic and hardly needs describing, but there are some interesting variations. It involves learners walking around (space permitting), asking all the other learners questions with a view to completing a survey or finding someone whose answers most closely match theirs. For example, in order to find out how adventurous the class is, learners (either singly or in small groups) first prepare three or four questions that fit this frame:
Have you ever …? Would you ever…?
For example, Have you ever been sailing? (And, if the answer is No) Would you ever do it? Have you ever eaten insects? Would you ever eat them?) etc. They then survey the rest of the class, making a note of the number of affirmative answers. This will involve the repeated asking of the question(s), but in a context that requires that learners pay attention, not only to asking the right questions, but also to the answers. It is this requirement, the enforced re-allocation of attentional resources, that – in theory – encourages memorization of the forms. Reporting to the class the results of the milling activity (e.g. Maxim said he would never dive off the high board; Olga said …) is also another way of providing repetitive practice where attention is not only on meaning, but, because of the public nature of the reporting, also on form – i.e. on getting it right. Variants involve choosing items from a grid – e.g. holiday destinations, hotels, and months – and asking questions in order to find someone who is going to the same destination, staying in the same hotel, and in the same month.
Show and tell. Another classic: in successive lessons, learners take turns to make a short (two to five-minute) presentation to the rest of the class, e.g. about an interest they have, a hobby, a favourite object, a book they have read or movie they have seen. It is important than the presentation is spoken – not simply written down and read aloud. This requirement, along with the public nature of the task, encourages preparation and rehearsal. A question-and-answer session at the end ensures spontaneous language use. Ideally, learners should have a chance to repeat the presentation, either immediately or at a later date, in order to incorporate any feedback. An alternative organization is to put the students into small groups to share their 'news', while the teacher circulates and assists. One person from each group then reports some of the more interesting findings to the class. This is a great way to begin a lesson, and, if done regularly, trains learners to prepare in advance.
Discussion cards. Students in small groups have a set of statements or questions about a specific topic on cards. These can be prepared by the teacher, but, better still, by the students themselves, whose discussion cards can then be exchanged with another group. One student takes the first card, reads it aloud, and the group then discuss it for as long as they need, before taking the next card, and so on. If a particular statement doesn't interest them, they can move on to the next one. The object is not necessarily to discuss all the statements: the teacher should decide at what point to end the activity. Groups who have finished early can prepare a summary of the main points that have come up. These summaries can be used to open up the discussion to the whole class.
Describe-and-draw race. The teacher pre-teaches or revises nouns relating to geometrical shapes, such as line, square, circle, triangle, and rectangle, as well as prepositional phrases such as on the left, on the right, above, below, outside, inside, so that learners can describe a simple arrangement of shapes. (Alternatively, they could be easy-to-draw objects, such as fruit, items of clothing or of furniture).
To practise, the teacher describes an arrangement so that the learners can draw it correctly. The learners do the same to each other in pairs, and/or 'dictate' a picture to the teacher.
photo by Tamar Hazam
Now the game element is introduced. The class is divided into two teams, and the blackboard is divided in two by a line down the middle. Each team has a representative at the board, each with a piece of chalk, or boardmarker. In advance of the game the teacher should have prepared a dozen or so different designs incorporating the geometrical shapes, large enough to be seen by all the class. The teacher ensures that the two team representatives at the board can't see the designs, and then selects one and shows it to the two teams. Each team attempts to describe the design to its representative at the board, and the first team to do this successfully, so that the design is replicated on the board, is the winner of that round. The teacher then selects another design and the game continues, with new 'drawers' at the board.
Paper conversations. Not strictly a speaking activity, but one that simulates the real-time and non-predictable nature of spoken interaction, and therefore is useful preparation for it. Learners have a 'conversation' with their classmates, but instead of speaking, they write the conversation onto a shared sheet of paper. While the students are writing, the teacher can monitor their written 'conversations' and make corrections or improvements more easily than when students are actually speaking. The conversations can then be read aloud, using the 'heads up' procedure described in the previous post.
All these activities, and more, can be found in my book How to Teach Speaking (Pearson 2005).
Tags: communicative activities, dogme, fluency, information gap, interaction, speaking, teaching unplugged
F is for Forty years on
IH Shaftesbury Avenue – where it all started
It came as a slight shock today to realize that I started my career in TEFL forty years ago last month. So, forgive the somewhat indulgently autobiographical nature of this post.
February 1975: newly arrived in London and eager to return to Greece under whose spell I had fallen en route from the dominions, I enrolled in a four-week course at IH London — in those days housed in its quaintly labyrinthine headquarters in Soho. It cost £65 – probably the best £65 I ever spent.
I was instantly captivated by the 'IH method', a Direct Method derivative, where 'grammar points' were presented using ingeniously contrived situations, and vocabulary was taught through mime, realia, visual aids – anything, of course, but translation. The fact that we were plunged into teaching practice from day one made perfect sense, but ratcheted up the intensity of the experience to a degree that might have been insupportable had I not had a background in children's theatre.
The Monday after the course finished I was already teaching – at the International House affiliate in Hastings. I still cringe when I remember some of those first lessons: presenting countable and uncountable nouns using a painstakingly assembled bag of groceries, drilling the present simple instead of the present continuous to narrate a picture story, being challenged (and failing) to explain the grammar of 'I wish' to a group of insolent Iranian naval cadets, walking my class through Hastings old town in order to reinforce the learning of those same countable and uncountable nouns…
Hastings 1975 – writing my application for a job in Cairo
Four months on, with my visa due to expire, I applied to join the teaching staff of a new IH affiliate in Cairo. I'd wanted to go to Greece, but Egypt seemed close enough. My original teacher trainer, who happened to be in Hastings at the time, urged me on: 'It's a new school and expanding rapidly. Stick it out and in a year's time you'll be assistant Director of Studies. And then … who knows?'
Which is more or less what happened.
So, looking back, what has happened to TEFL in those forty years?
Only a year into teaching and the first waves of the communicative approach started breaking on the methodological shore. I've written about that elsewhere, so I won't say more now, except that its advent was perfectly timed to provide a humane alternative to the 'drill-and-repeat' methodology I had been trained in and which, I have to say, I had perfected to the point that my classes had an almost military rigour.
This trend was reinforced by serendipitously coming across a book by Earl Stevick, which – like Chapman's Homer – opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about teaching – in fact, not thinking about teaching at all, but about learning.
This undercurrent of early CLT and humanistic principles permeated my subsequent teacher training career at IH Barcelona, reinforced by my reading on task-based instruction, along with a heavy dose of Krashen – all of which bubbled to the surface as Dogme ELT (aka Teaching Unplugged) – a rearguard action to salvage communicative principles in the face of a grammar-driven materials tsunami.
By now I was starting to go to conferences, where my thinking was further moulded by luminaries too numerous to mention. The first major conference I dared to speak at myself was at IATEFL in, uniquely, Lille, France – on the subject of reflection, which had been the focus of my MA dissertation at the University of Reading.
Teacher training, IH Barcelona 1986
It was at one of these early conferences that I was approached and invited to submit a proposal for a book of language awareness tasks, which became About Language – now in the process of being re-written for its long overdue second edition. The rest is not exactly history, but it is of perhaps less consequence in terms of my overall development.
So, what is different in TEFL now compared to 1975? For a start, the very notion of EFL itself has succumbed to the complexity and diversity of globalized English, where the distinctions between English as a foreign, or second, or international language are blurring to the point of illegibility.
And those who confidently and even imperiously 'owned' EFL in those days – the (mainly white) inner circle native speakers like myself – are slowly relinquishing their authority to the majority outer and expanding circle non-natives – although not without a struggle. And, of course, technology has radically changed the way that language is used and learned – although its benefits for teaching, and its unintended consequences, have yet to be fully understood.
But that's enough of me. What's changed since you started teaching?
Tags: dogme, International House, shameless self promotion, teaching unplugged, TEFL
W is for Wondering
Three excellent presentations at IATEFL this year, each of which referenced Dogme, got me wondering.
The first, Conversation-driven or dialogic methodology? ELT Classroom talk, was given by Dr Phil Chappell, from Macquarie University in NSW. Phil started out by asking the question: 'If Dogme ELT is driven by conversation, yet natural conversation is not usually possible in the classroom, what kind of talk could best support its aims?'
Based on an extensive database of classroom interaction that he has amassed over time, Phil has identified five kinds of instructional classroom talk, two of which seem to approximate closely to the notion of conversation: discussion (defined as 'the exchange of ideas with a view to sharing information and solving problems'), and inquiry dialogue. Inquiry dialogue is less about the exchange of ideas than the joint construction of ideas. It shares features with what Barnes (1976) called 'exploratory talk', which Mercer (1995: 104) describes as talk 'in which partners engage critically but constructively with each other's ideas… In exploratory talk knowledge is made more accountable and reasoning is more visible in the talk' (emphasis in original).
In comparing the two conversational modes, discussion and inquiry dialogue, Phil found that the former tends to be transmissive in style, involving the mere exchange of tokens of information or experience, with little in the way of follow-up, and which, in the interests of task completion, inclines towards early closure. As Phil put it: 'The students are seated in groups, but they are not always working in groups.'
Inquiry dialogue, on the other hand, tends to be more open-ended, more tentative, and displays greater contingency, successive turns building on each other in a process of jointly-constructed 'thinking aloud'. Because this talk revolves around playing with, and exploring, possibilities, it has been labelled wondering by some researchers (e.g. Lindfors 1999). Due to its collaborative and contingent nature, and because of the ongoing struggle to fit words to meanings in which the learners are heavily invested, this joint 'wondering' is, arguably, a prime site for language learning affordances, and hence a fertile source of 'raw material' in the Dogme classroom.
Ken in action
The second presentation that had me wondering was by Ken Lackman: CAT: A framework for Dogme. CAT stands for Conversation Activated Teaching and hence is consistent with the Dogme precept that teaching should be conversation-driven.
What Ken has devised (and what he engagingly demonstrated using his audience as pretend students) is a framework for constructing lessons that meet Dogme principles, but that at the same time provides novice (or nervous) teachers with a tight structure on which to map emergent language processing.
The demo lesson consisted of cycles of pairwork conversations (on a topic that had been selected by a class brainstorm and vote) alternating with similar conversations between the teacher and a selected student. As the teacher reformulated the guinea-pig student's responses, and the observing students took notes, these 'public' conversations provided the 'input' for the subsequent closed pairwork stage. Key expressions were written on the board and their mechanics highlighted, in a way that replicates the language focus stage of Counselling Language Learning (CLL). The cycle of performed conversations, language focus and pairs practice can be repeated as often as time permits, allowing for optimal practice at 'output + 1'.
In the light of Phil Chappell's earlier presentation, however, my wondering took the form: 'Could the same procedure be adapted for less transactional, and more exploratory talk? That is to say, could the goal of the conversations be less about exchanging travel experiences, say, and more about trying to explain why travel matters?' My feeling is that it can, but I'd like to see this demonstrated.
Finally, Andrew Walkley's talk, Language-focused teacher development, challenged the assumption (again, central to Dogme) that good teachers are well-equipped to deal with emergent language issues in ways that are non-trivial and challenging.
Andrew neatly demonstrated that many of our intuitions regarding the frequency of a word, or its most typical collocations, are flawed, to say the least. More importantly, he argued that teachers are 'primed' by traditional coursebook grammar syllabuses to see only (verb phrase) trees and no (lexical) wood. Hence, when it comes to reformulating learner utterances, we/they seldom provide the kind of productive co-textual data that a corpus search or even a well-written coursebook (like one of Andrew's, presumably) might deliver. Using the example of the word 'efficient', he showed that a Google search for 'efficient' throws up many texts of the type 'X [service, product etc] was very efficient. I had a problem but X sorted it out'. Andrew argued that the reactive teacher would be unlikely to link 'efficient' with the phrase 'sorted it out' in an off-the-cuff reformulation in the context of, say, one of Ken Lackman's performed conversations.
Not Venice. Liverpool.
I have to agree, although I think that the ability to think 'outside the grammar box' can be trained, by, for example, repeatedly unpacking texts for the constructions that they house (see C is for Construction for an example). The deft use of reference tools, such as learner dictionaries or online corpora, can also be developed. And, of course, teachers who (luckily?) have never used a coursebook are perhaps less prone to see everything through the prism of pedagogical grammar anyway. In the end, though, teachers will get better at reformulating effectively only if they realise that the success of their teaching depends on it. (And this, surely, is a skill that should be developed in all teachers-in-training, whether Dogme-inclined or not).
So, in the light of these three presentations, what (I wonder) might a more rigorous model of Dogme look like? Perhaps it would have the tight, reiterative methodology of Lackman's CAT framework, but adapted to the wondering conversations favoured by Chappell, while – following Walkley's example – the reformulation stage would gather in, not just sentence grammar features, but lexical, co-textual and generic ones as well.
Why not just use a coursebook? There are so many ways I could answer that question, but space doesn't allow. Suffice it to quote the very quotable John Holt (1967: 124):
It can't be said too often: we get better at using words, whether hearing, speaking, reading, or writing, under one condition and only one—when we use those words to say something we want to say, to people we want to say it to, for purposes that are our own.
Barnes, D. (1976) From Communication to Curriculum, London: Penguin.
Holt, J. (1967) How Children Learn, London: Penguin.
Lindfors, J.W. (1999) Children's Inquiry: Using language to make sense of the world, New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Mercer, N. (1995) The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk amongst teachers and learners, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Tags: affordance, construction grammar, conversation, discussion, dogme, exploratory talk, inquiry dialogue, reformulation, teaching unplugged, wondering
S is for Silence
In Teaching Unplugged (Meddings and Thornbury, 2009) we have an activity called 'The Sounds of Silence', whereby the class simply listen in silence for one minute to whatever's going on around them (open the windows or the door, if possible) and then share what they have heard. You can see Luke demonstrating it here, on the shores of a lake in Austria.
Claire Kramsch, in her latest book (2009: 209), suggests that as teachers we are afraid of silence: 'We like lively classes, we want to see the students participate, speak up, take the floor, contribute actively to class discussion. Communicative language teaching puts a premium on talk and thus often rewards students who "do" conversation and self-expression rather than those who reflect and understand in silence. But words have no meaning without the silences that surround them…'
In an interesting take on silence, Philips (1994) uses a framework devised by Jensen (1973) that identifies five different functions of silence, each function having both a positive and negative aspect:
a. linkage: silence can act as a bond or as a device to separate people.
b. affecting: silence can represent respect, kindness, and acceptance, and bring about a time for reflection and a healing period after a 'confrontation'. On the other hand it can be seen as embodying scorn, hostility, coldness, defiance, or even hate.
c. revelation: silence can lead to understanding and self-awareness. It can also be used to conceal opinions and feelings.
d. judgemental: silence can lead to an assumption of assent and agreement with what has been said. It can also be interpreted as disagreement and resentment.
e. activating: silence can communicate an attitude of thoughtfulness and consideration or an absence of thought or opinion.
Phillips uses this framework to suggest ways of intervening — or not intervening — during, for example, feedback sessions on teacher training courses. The framework can also help make sense of trainees' own silences.
The power of silence has, of course, being exploited in at least one teaching method: the Silent Way, in which the 'the teacher is almost always silent' (Stevick, 1980:45). The teacher's silence provides the cognitive and affective space within which the learner takes charge of his or her learning. At the same time, by keeping quiet, the teacher is in a better position to 'read' the learner: 'The teacher learns the student at the same time that the student is learning the language' (op. cit.: 48-49).
Stevick incorporated moments of silence into his teaching when he was using other methods as well. For example, at the end of a Community Language Learning workshop, he asked the learners to sit in total silence for period of three minutes in order to reflect on the lesson, and he concludes that 'the opportunity to sort things out free of distraction from the knower [i.e. the teacher] or other learners, and safe from competition from other learners, was evidently a very welcome relief to many' (op. cit.: 154).
In a similar spirit, Jim Scrivener, in his new book, Classroom Management Techniques (2012: 187) recommends that teachers withhold their responses from time to time: 'Acknowledge student contributions, but don't feel the need to say something after each one' . Scrivener comments that 'often, the space and silence (i.e. the absence of the teacher saying something) is what students need to organise their own thoughts and find something to say' (ibid.). Likewise Kramsch (op.cit.: 209-210) suggests that 'we may want to leave time in class for students to write in silence, to have a silent, private contact with the shape of a poem and its silent sounds, to listen in silence to the cadences of a student or to our own voice reading aloud, to follow silently the rhythm of a conversation played on tape, the episodic structure of a story well told. We may want to even foster silence as a way of letting the students reflect on what they are right now experiencing' .
And, of course, there is evidence that at least some learners need time – the so-called 'silent period' – to process the second language in advance of producing it. As Krashen (1987:26) describes it: 'It has often been noted that children acquiring a second language in a natural, informal linguistic environment, may say very little for several months following their first exposure to the second language'. According to Krashen, 'the child is building up competence in the second language by listening, by understanding the language around him. In accordance with the input hypothesis, speaking ability emerges on its own after enough competence has been developed by listening and understanding' (ibid.: 27). These findings undergird the methodology of what are sometimes called 'comprehension approaches', such as Total Physical Response, in which learners are not forced to speak until they are ready.
However, as Ellis (2008: 74) cautions: 'There is some disagreement regarding the contribution that the silent period makes to language learning' and there is considerable individual variation between learners, some opting for production even when it is not required. One researcher concluded that 'the initial silent period is in many cases a period of incomprehension that does little or nothing to promote acquisition and that if the silent period is a prolonged one it may reflect psychological withdrawal' (ibid.). Ellis cites research by Saville-Troike (1988), on the other hand, that found that 'while some child learners may use silence as a strategy for avoiding learning, many make active use of it to prepare for the time they begin speaking the L2' (ibid). In fact, such learners are only outwardly silent: what they are in fact doing is engaging in unspoken or barely perceptible vocalising, known as 'private speech'.
Maybe, as the composer John Cage ([1961] 1973: 191) tirelessly pointed out,
There is no
such thing as silence. Something is al-
ways happening that makes a sound.
No one can have an idea
once he starts really listening…
Silence seemed an appropriate topic on which to end this cycle of blogging. I have a busy summer coming up, a good excuse to take an extended break. Also, I need time to re-work a selection of these blog posts for an e-book to be published by The Round in the next few months, and called Big Questions in ELT. Look out for it!
Thanks to everyone who has followed this blog, contributed to the discussions, and helped make it such a rewarding experience for me.
So, until we meet again, 'the rest is silence'.
Cage, J. ([1961] 1973) Silence. Middletown, CN: Wesleyan University Press.
Ellis, R. (2008) The Study of Second Language Acquisition (2nd edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jensen, V. (1973) 'Communicative functions of silence,' ETC, 30.
Kramsch, C. (2009) The Multilingual Subject, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S.D. (1987) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
Meddings, L., and Thornbury, S. (2009) Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching, Peaslake: Delta Publishing.
Philips, D. (1994) 'The functions of silence within the context of teacher training', ELT Journal, 48, 3.
Scrivener, J. (2012) Classroom Management Techniques, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stevick, E. W. (1980) Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways, Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Photos by ST.
Tags: Krashen, methodology, silence, silent period, Silent Way, SLA, teaching unplugged
T is for Teacher development
This is a summary of the keynote talk I gave yesterday at the IATEFL Learning Technologies and Teacher Development Joint SIG Conference, titled With or Without Technology, held at Yeditepe University, Istanbul this weekend.
Why Dogme is good for you.
Because the conference theme focuses on teacher development (TD), in both its 'plugged' and 'unplugged' manifestations, it's perhaps timely to review the case for 'teaching unplugged', otherwise known as Dogme ELT (hereafter just Dogme), and try to situate it in relation to teacher development generally.
In its relatively long life (12 years and still counting) Dogme has generated a fair amount of heat – more, indeed, than its co-founders bargained for, and indicative, perhaps, of how surprisingly subversive it is. Formerly, this heat was confined mainly to the Dogme discussion list itself, but it has now migrated into the blogosphere at large, where, far from having been diffused, it seems to be burning more fiercely than ever. (I'm not the first to point out that you can increase the traffic to your blog exponentially by cocking a snook at Dogme!)
Among the criticisms that have been levelled at it these are some of the most frequent:
it doesn't work for beginners
it doesn't work with large groups
it doesn't work with young learners
it doesn't work with non-native speaker teachers
it's not new
it doesn't work because there's no input
it doesn't work because there's no syllabus
it doesn't work because there's no attention to form
it doesn't work in [insert name of the country where you work]
it doesn't work with [insert any nationality] learners
it just doesn't work, period.
Far from attempting to refute any of these claims, I would argue that they are in fact irrefutable. Method comparison, as a science, is dead in the water. There's no controlling for all the variables, and sample sizes are usually too small to generalise from. And so on. So, for argument's sake, I will simply accept that for some teachers these claims are plausible (just as for others the claims made for Dogme are equally plausible), and I will move on. (At the same time, whether or not the above claims are true, I don't think Dogme has done anyone any harm. It's not like HIV-denial or the anti-vaccine lobby. I don't know of many students who have died because their teachers didn't use coursebooks. But I may be wrong).
There is, however, one thing to be said about Dogme which is incontrovertibly true. And that is that – for a great number of teachers – Dogme has provided a framework for highly productive self-directed teacher development, involving cycles of experimentation and reflection, essential components for any developmental program. It has done this principally because it invites teachers to question some of the received wisdoms about language teaching, such as
that language learning is an incremental and linear process
that language learning is a purely cognitive process
that a grammar syllabus represents the best 'route' for language learning
that imported materials are better than learner-generated ones
that lessons have to be meticulously planned
that accuracy is a pre-condition for fluency
that teaching is better with technology
Dogme is by no means the first platform from which these claims have been challenged, but for reasons I still don't entirely fathom, it seems to have been very successful at articulating its critique and broadcasting it to practising teachers. (The concurrent boom in online communication may have had something to do with it – an irony not lost on Dogme's critics).
A glance through the quantity of postings on the list demonstrates the fact that many teachers have used one or more of the tenets of Dogme, either to initiate change in their own teaching, or to explain changes that they had already initiated – and often with spectacularly positive results, as this early post suggests:
…I'm buzzing at the moment 'cos I've been lucky enough to hit on a couple of new groups who seem to have invented dogme themselves, and the things we're coming up with together are stunning me into a state of 'I've never loved teaching so much before – but is this really teaching?!'.
Well, it certainly seems to be learning – enthusiastically and really joyfully – for all of us.
And thanks to everyone in the group for helping me better appreciate what's happening!
Some of the dogme blogs
Like the Dogme critics, the Dogme enthusiasts have also turned to blogging to get their teacher development message across. One notable instance of grassroots, collaborative Dogme-inspired teacher development was the 'teach off' that Chia Suan Chong initiated last month. Whatever doubts you might have about its scientific rigour, the buzz that it generated was truly remarkable.
Finally, and in advance of the conference, I did a little exercise in crowdsourcing, by tweeting the following question: 'How has Dogme helped you develop as a teacher?' Here is a small selection of the many replies I got:
@michaelegriffin: #Dogme helped me c that I wasn't crazy to think that books weren't a curriculum and that the people in the room are the key
@AnthonyGaughan: it encourages confidence in exploring my teaching self #DogmeTD
@dalecoulter: playing with variables in the lesson and reflecting on the results #DogmeTD
@kevchanwow: watching lively exchange within Dogme community makes me more comfortable trying new approaches in my own way & own classes
@kenwilsonlondon: #DogmeELT I couldn't understand why my best lessons were when the class more/less forced me to abandon the plan. Now I know!
@esolamin; Haven't followed Dogme as such, but 'unplugged'/improvised activities produced more ss participation & interest, I found.
@englishraven It marked my progression into actually being a teacher- the whole deal, real thing. Not an instructional attendant #DogmeELT
@sx200i how has Dogme helped me. Pure enjoyment in my lessons. Confidence. Never bored! #DogmeTD
Tags: dogme, method, teacher development, teaching unplugged, technology


The Ipswich Jets were still finalising a team due to passport matters and injuries as they prepared to fly to PNG tomorrow morning.
Together, they complete the Ipswich Force's major roster a week out from the start of a new Queensland Basketball League season.
EVEN after finger surgery and with damaged ribs, dependable team man Ben Shea would play on if he could.
IT'S amazing what a difference playing 120 minutes of pressure football makes.
For a team featuring more newcomers than players with experience, the Goodna women have made a positive start in this year's SEQ Division 2 competition.
As a new dad, loyal Ipswich player Tim Woodford has scaled back his A-Grade and teaching commitments this season.
FRESH from scoring another hat-trick, Goodna speedster Brett Kelly would welcome a call-up to the Ipswich Jets.
OUT of every defeat comes a story of hope and even excitement.
After conceding the first two goals, the Eagles weathered the pressure to run out 113-60 victors over the Hinterland Blues.


Amazon Business represents Jeff Bezos' company expanding into the market of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. The Amazon unit was e-branded from "Amazon Supply" seven years ago. Amazon Business "combines positive attributes of Amazon's consumer marketplace," such as broad selection and delivery convenience with the products and benefits that are "tailored for businesses, government organizations and the education sector," Bank of America analyst Justin Post said.
While Amazon Business is just beginning to establish itself, Bank of America projects there is a total addressable market for e-commerce B2B of $1.4 trillion by 2021, which is double the firm's estimated $761 billion market for consumer e-commerce. Essentially, the market potential for Amazon Business is about double the potential for its core retail business.
Amazon Business may have a long way to go to catch the retail unit but it's growing fast. Post said it now has "millions of business customers." Post pointed to growth of the run rate of gross merchandise volume for Amazon Business (its estimated gross sales extrapolated out on an annual basis). In the past two years, that run rate has increased by 10 times: From $1 billion in 2016 to $10 billion in 2018, Bank of America said. And by 2023, the firm estimates Amazon Business can scale that gross merchandise volume run rate to $33.7 billion, with $16.1 billion in revenue.
Amazon rose 1 percent in premarket trading from Monday's close of $1742.15 a share. The stock is up nearly 16 percent this year.


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Atom Instrument Corporation is categorized under Gas Analyzing Equipment in Houston, TX and active since 2013.
Atom Instrument Corporation was established in 2013, and today employs 1 to 4, earning $100.000 to $499.999 per year. This is a Gas Analyzing Equipment business, which does work in the B2B market, and is classified as a Gas Analyzing Equipment, under code number 334516 by the NAICS.
If you are seeking more information, feel free to contact Alastair Crawford Full Name Report at the company's single location by writing to 4123 Hollister St # East, Houston, Texas TX 77043 or by phoning (713) 461-0034 Full Phone Report. You can also visit this business on Facebook by going to their profile page at Facebook or on find them on Twitter.
Atom Instrument Corporation was started in 2013 to provide professional Gas Analyzing Equipment under the SIC code 3826 and NAICS code 334516. Since its inception, the company has gone on to take a total of 1 to 4 personnel under its employment and has achieved earnings of $100.000 to $499.999 per annum.
Feel free to contact Alastair Crawford Full Name Report for inquiries that concern Atom Instrument Corporation by calling the company number (713) 461-0034 Full Phone Report, as your correspondence is most welcome. Additionally, the physical location of the single location of Atom Instrument Corporation can be found at the coordinates 29.831261,-95.509463 as well as the street address 4123 Hollister St # East in Houston, Texas 77043.
For its online presence, you may visit Atom Instrument Corporation's website at atominstrument.com and engage with its social media outlets through on Twitter and on Facebook.


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♦ In 2008, over 616,000 people died of heart disease.
♦ In 2008, heart disease caused almost 25% of deaths—almost one in every four—in the United States.
♦ Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. More than half of the deaths due to heart disease in 2008 were in men.
♦ Coronary heart disease is the most common type of heart disease. In 2008, 405,309 people died from coronary heart disease.
♦ Every year about 785,000 Americans have a first coronary attack. Another 470,000 who have already had one or more coronary attacks have another attack.
♦ In 2010, coronary heart disease alone was projected to cost the United States $108.9 billion. This total includes the cost of health care services, medications, and lost productivity.
♦ More than 42 million women are currently living with some form of cardiovascular disease.
♦ More than 8 million women have a history of heart attack and/or angina.
♦ Five and a half million women will suffer angina.
♦ Heart disease is the leading cause of death of American women, killing more than a third of them.
♦ 35.3% of deaths in American women over the age of 20, or more than 432,000, are caused by cardiovascular disease each year.
♦ More than 200,000 women die each year from heart attacks- five times as many women as breast cancer.
♦ More than 159,000 women die each year of congestive heart failure, accounting for 56.3% of all heart failure deaths.
♦ 48% of adult women have a total cholesterol of at least 200mg/dL.
♦ 50% of Caucasian women, 64% of African-American women, 60% of Hispanic women, and 53% of Asian/Pacific Islander women are sedentary and get no leisure time physical activity.
♦ 58% of Caucasian women, 80% of African-American women, and 74% Hispanic-American women are overweight or obese.
♦ Women with diabetes are 2.5 times more likely to have heart attacks.
♦ More women than men die of heart disease each year.
♦ 23% of women and 18% of men will die within one year of a first recognized heart attack; 22-32% of women and 15-27% of men heart attack survivors will die within five years.
♦ 12-25% of women and 7-22% of men heart attack survivors will be diagnosed with heart failure within five years.
♦ Women are less likely than men to receive appropriate treatment after a heart attack.
♦ Women comprise only 27% of participants in all heart-related research studies.
♦ In 2008, medical costs associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.
♦ Among non-Hispanic black and Mexican-American men, those with higher incomes are more likely to be obese than those with low income.
♦ Higher income women are less likely to be obese than low-income women.
♦ There is no significant relationship between obesity and education among men. Among women, however, there is a trend—those with college degrees are less likely to be obese compared with less educated women.
♦ Between 1988–1994 and 2007–2008 the prevalence of obesity increased in adults at all income and education levels.
♦ 18.8 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with diabetes.
♦ 7 million people in the U.S. have diabetes but remain undiagnosed.
♦ Among U.S. residents ages 65 years and older, 10.9 million, or 26.9 percent, had diabetes in 2010.
♦ About 215,000 people younger than 20 years had diabetes—type 1 or type 2—in the United States in 2010.
♦ About 1.9 million people ages 20 years or older were newly diagnosed with diabetes in 2010 in the United States.
♦ In 2005–2008, based on fasting glucose or hemoglobin A1C (A1C) levels, 35 percent of U.S. adults ages 20 years or older had prediabetes—50 percent of adults ages 65 years or older. Applying this percentage to the entire U.S. population in 2010 yields an estimated 79 million American adults ages 20 years or older with prediabetes.
♦ Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, nontraumatic lower-limb amputations, and new cases of blindness among adults in the United States.
♦ Diabetes is a major cause of heart disease and stroke.
♦ Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.
Source: National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health.
♦ About 1 in 3 U.S. adults—an estimated 68 million—has high blood pressure.
♦ High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease.
♦ High blood pressure was listed as a primary or contributing cause of death for more than 347,000 Americans in 2008.
♦ In 2010, high blood pressure was projected to cost the United States $93.5 billion in health care services, medications, and missed days of work.
♦ About 1 in 2 U.S. adults with high blood pressure has it under control.
♦ Almost 30% of American adults have prehypertension—blood pressure numbers that are higher than normal, but not yet in the high blood pressure range. Prehypertension raises your risk for high blood pressure.
♦ Approximately one in every six adults—16.3% of the U.S. adult population—has high total cholesterol.1 The level defined as high total cholesterol is 240 mg/dL and above.
♦ People with high total cholesterol have approximately twice the risk of heart disease as people with optimal levels. A desirable level is lower than 200 mg/dL.
♦ For adult Americans, the average level is about 200 mg/dL, which is borderline high risk.
♦ More women than men have high cholesterol in the United States.
♦ Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, and lung diseases (including emphysema, bronchitis, and chronic airway obstruction).
♦ For every person who dies from a smoking-related disease, 20 more people suffer with at least one serious illness from smoking.
♦ Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030.
♦ In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for about one in five deaths annually (i.e., about 443,000 deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these smoking-related deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure).
♦ On average, smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.
• Each day, more than 3,800 persons younger than 18 years of age smoke their first cigarette.
• Each day, about 1,000 persons younger than 18 years of age begin smoking on a daily basis.
• Approximately 69% of smokers want to quit completely.
• Approximately 52% of smokers attempted to quit in 2010.