|
The Impact of Dialogic Teaching on English Language Learners’ Speaking and Thinking SkillsWhat is di alogic teaching?
The term “dialogic teaching” is particularly associated with Alexander’s (2008)
focus on tal k between t eachers and students i n t he cl ass room. Alexander grounds
his approach to dialogue in Bakhtin often quoting the line “if a n answer does not
give rise to a new question from itself, it falls out of the dialogue” (Bakhtin,
1986, p. 168). Alexander’s point in using this Bakhtinian definition of dialogue
is t hat i t i s onl y b y engaging i n l ive di al ogue, either with each ot her, dir ectl y
with t he t eacher, or vicariousl y b y li stening to others i n di al ogue, t hat st udents
learn to think. Thi s understandi ng of di alogue as a form of open ended shared
inquiry links Alexander’s ‘dialogic teaching’ to Nystrand’s ‘dialogic instruction’
(N ys t rand, 1997), Matusov’s ‘di alogic pedagogy’ (2009), Well s’ ‘Di al ogi c
inquiry’ (Wells 1999a, b), Flecha’s ‘dialogic learning’ (2000) and Wegerif’s
‘Dialogic education’ (2007; 2013). What all of these approaches to teaching have
in common i s a stress on t he im port ance of teachi ng for di alogue as well as
teaching through di alogue. In ot her words, the ai m of educati on is not onl y that
the st udent s will l earn som ethi ng that the teacher alread y knows but also t hat t he
students wil l l earn how t o ask open questions a nd how to l earn new things for
them sel ves t hrough engaging in di alogic i nqui r y.
Purpos eful: Cl as sroom tal k, performs though open dis cus sions , The ori gin
of thes e crit eri a as has been st at ed b y Al exander (2005, p.14) i s com plex it needs
more expl anation as well as int erpretat i on. In short , it com bines (i ) a posit ive
response (ii ) an at tempt t o count er the l ess satis factor y feat ures of mai nst ream
cl assroom int eraction ( for exam ple, t ends not to exploit t he full coll ective
pot enti al of student s worki ng i n groups) (iii ) distill ati on of ideas from others
|
|
|