Imagine walking into class with no textbook, no handouts, and no slides. Just you, your students, and a conversation. It sounds like the opposite of a plan. But there is a method behind it, and it has a name: Dogme. A radical idea from 2000 In 2000, the British linguist Scott Thornbury published a short article in IATEFL Issues titled "A Dogme for EFL." The name was a nod to the Dogme 95 movement in cinema, which tried to strip filmmaking down to its essentials: no special ef

It usually starts with enthusiasm. A new app. A new notebook. Maybe even a new set of colored pens. For the first few weeks, learning a language feels exciting. You learn greetings, numbers, basic expressions, and suddenly you can understand things that made absolutely no sense before. Progress feels fast. Then something changes. The lessons become harder. New vocabulary refuses to stay in your memory. Native speakers still seem impossibly fast. You miss a few days of practic

Back-to-school season is the time when many families begin looking for new activities, academic support, and enrichment programs. For parents interested in foreign languages, the choices can be overwhelming. Online classes, private lessons, group programs, apps, tutors, native speakers, school-based courses... How do you know which option is actually right for your child? After years of working with children, teenagers, homeschool families, and adult learners, I have noticed