Investigating the Effects of Dogme Approach on Improving Delta University Freshmen Students’ Speaking Skills and Attitudes toward it

Dogme is a learner-centered teaching strategy that goes above and beyond the other widely used educational approaches. It is based on the theory that students learn best when they are engaged and enthusiastic about a subject. The aim of the current study is to examine the impact of Dogme approach on developing TEFL students’ speaking skill. and to determine their attitudes toward this approach in English communication classroom. To achieve these aims, fifty-six freshmen students of English department at the faculty of Arts were participated in this study. They were distributed to two equal groups, an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). They attended twelve language speaking sessions. EG were exposed to practice communication skills with Dogme approach, while CG received communicative language teaching traditionally. A pretest-posttest was used to gauge the improvement of speaking skill of the two groups and within the EG. Moreover, an attitude scale was administered to evaluate students’ attitude towards this approach. The results of a quantitative two-way ANCOVA study showed that Dogme ELT was more effective in enhancing learners' speaking skills. The study of qualitative data showed that most students had favorable opinions of Dogme. The results of this study indicate that the Dogme approach should be employed for advanced EFL levels, however it should be applied with more care.