Luke Meddings: unplugged subversion
Hi folks! It’s been an awful long time, hasn’t it? To break the “fast” is yet another familiar name on most of our list, Luke Meddings, co-author of the bible of Dogme, “Teaching Unplugged” (with Scott Thornbury) and the first offering from The Round, “52: a year of subversive activity for the ELT classroom” (with Lindsay Clandfield).
This interview’s actually been a long time coming, but not only just before IATEFL Glasgow that we managed to do it. I’ve enjoyed putting it together and I hope you all will like it, too. Stay till the end – there’s a little surprise!
Bio
Luke Meddings is a teacher, author and teacher trainer. In 2000 he co-founded the Dogme in ELT movement with Scott Thornbury, and their book Teaching Unplugged (Delta Publishing, 2009) won a British Council ELTon Award for Innovation in 2010. In 2011, together with Lindsay Clandfield, he started The Round, an e-publishing collective; their e-book 52: a year of subversive activity for the ELT classroom has just been published.
Luke’s “neglected” blog: http://lukemeddings.posterous.com/
Luke’s Twitter handle: @LukeMeddings
Teaching Unplugged can be bought here or here.
52 can be bought here or here.
For the geeks:
I used:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS62
Quicktime Pro v7.7 (1680.34)
AVS Video Editor v5.2.0.169
Audacity 2.0.0
Acer Aspire 5742
Posted on 26 March 2012, in Uncategorized and tagged dogme, Lindsay Clandfield, Luke Meddings, Nicky Hockly, Scott Thornbury, The Round. Bookmark the permalink. 18 Comments.
iasku 
This was bloody brilliant!!! Loved the ending.
Chiew, whatever you do, don’t stop doing iasku. It’s such a great insight into teachers lives, thoughts and hopes. As a fairly inexperienced teacher it is inspiring to see and hear more experienced teachers speak about their teaching as well as their personal lives.
Keep up the good work.
Adam
Thanks for the comment, Adam. Much appreciated. I think I may have to organise an ELT concert! 😉
It’s inspired me to pick up my guitar again. It could be some sort of travelling willbury style get together. Would love to be interviewed by you one day. This is such a good project.
You’ve been on my list for some time now 😉 We’ll do it some time soon!
Great interview, Chiew and Luke! I like that shirt, Luke. Blue is your color but on a more serious note I think that Teaching Unplugged is still making waves and has offered a balance to the rigorous teacher training programs out there that are producing teachers that drill, are over prepared, and have every second pinned down that there isn’t any room to let learning occur within the classroom setting. I hope it has more of an influence because that is what we need. We need classrooms worldwide where learning has time to just happen and the student has the time to ingest that learning, contribute to it, and watch it become a new entity all together. Great ending! Chiew, how come you didn’t ask Rosco and I to play 😉
Thanks for dropping by, Shelly.
I didn’t ask because I didn’t see the guitar strap on Rosco… looks like we’d just have to do another one, eh? 😉
Totally Ditto all above Chiew – I have loved all your interviews PLLLEEEEAAAASSSSEE don’t stop doing them. Thank you ,
Awww, thanks Emi! Much appreciated. I get demotivated too easily, I guess, especially when I have too much to do. You know, like when there are too many balls to juggle and you start questioning, “Why am I doing all this?”
I know the answer – that’s why I keep at it though the gap may seem long sometimes.
Cheers again Emi! 🙂
Feedback is motivation so……………………This site is absolutely AMAZING. There’s nowhere else where we can get so up close to big names and find out about who they really are.
Never give up. This is better than all the journal interviews, blogs, books etc put together.
BRILLIANT!!
Haha, Phil, don’t pull so hard or my legs will come off! I have weak joints!
I may not comment much Chiew but I always watch your interviews – Don’t stop!
If you ever need a sax player for your ELT concert just let me know…
That’s nice to know, Ben, and the comment is much appreciated. As for the sax, yes, yes, yes! We’re gonna have a big band – amazing how much talent there is among us. We even have someone who sings like a diva, and one of my future interviewees plays the cello… I say no more! 🙂
You were absolutely right Chiew – thoroughly enjoyed this interview!
I have to second what Shel wrote – I see Teaching Unplugged still making waves. So good to have things felt instinctively put into words that give it such clarity!
One thing though – the minute Chiew said there would be a surprise at the end I knew what it would be! LOL! Not only was the guitar behind Luke a huge hint, but wasn’t it Willy Cardoso who blogged about meeting Luke at a guitar store?
Looking forward to the next interview!
Naomi
Thanks for the comment, Naomi; glad you enjoyed it! Ok, so you managed to guess the surprise! Yeah, the guitar was sort of begging to be played, wasn’t it? But I bet you didn’t guess the tune nor the way it was done!
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