Moira Henderson – Dialogue Teaching: Desirable but ‘Doable’ into Today’s Classrooms?

Nystrand et al 1997, 72 - “What ultimately counts is the extent to which Instruction requires students to think, not just report someone else’s thinking.” O v e r v i e w - t h e b i g d e b a t e

During the 21st century, more so than ever before, the quality of classroom discourse has been a hot topic of discussion in school reform. Most would agree with Murname and Long 1996 that the new ‘basic skills’ required for high wage jobs include “the ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing” and “the ability to work in groups with persons of various backgrounds.” This is seen as developing individual capital for a healthy economy and societal capital for healthy communities.

Few would disagree with the premise that verbal communication skills are crucial to success in academic life and beyond. However, rather regretfully, oracy in the UK still doesn’t have the status that oracy has in other countries where it is equal to reading and writing. Organisations such as the University of Cambridge, Voice 21 and the APPG are aiming to challenge and remedy this state of affairs. This is another area of inquiry which will not be explored here.

According to Lyle 2008, the dominant discourse in today’s schools is monologic which reflects behaviourist/absolutist assumptions - “knowledge is transmitted to learners by authority figures through unambiguous use of language.” Learning involves “passively and unselectively receiving and producing knowledge known by experts in its original, objective form.” This, of course, presupposes a power imbalance between the student and teacher and which sees the teacher as the source of knowledge and authority in which the typical discourse follows the IRF pattern i.e. ‘Initiation - response - feedback.’ Here the teacher asks a question (usually closed) to which the student responds before the teacher corrects any misunderstandings or comments. It does not encourage cognitive thought nor the exploration of ideas in a cumulative and coherent manner, rather the correction and transfer of knowledge. In addition, in many contemporary classrooms, “teachers do most of the talking.” R J Alexander 2005 p.2. Barnes (1969) comments that it is largely through teacher’s talk that “the students’ talk is facilitated, mediated, probed and extended … or too often, inhibited.” Dialogic teaching, on the other hand, is a discourse that uses an inquiry dialogue wherein open questions are discussed through a collaborative effort to reach a sound and rational conclusion. This is more a reflection of sociocultural and constructivist theories of learning and reflects as evaluatist classroom in which students come to see knowledge as “the product of a continuing process of examination, comparison, evaluation and judgement … of different perspectives.” (Anderson 1977, Mead 1962, Piaget and inhelder 1969, Vygotsky 1962, Wertsch and Bivens 1992.) It is representative of the thinking in academic communities which encourages exploration, evaluation and rational argument about proposed theses. R J Alexander who has written much about developing dialogic teaching comments that this approach reflects the “intimate and necessary relationship between language and thought” and the power of spoken language to enable, support and enhance children’s cognitive development.” It is an approach that links back to the desire to educate young students who are articulate, expressive, thoughtful members of society who bring individual and societal ‘capital’ to our world. So what should a dialogic classroom look like? This is a classroom in which:

➢ Power relations are flexible between student and teacher ➢ Classrooms are seen as a ‘learning community’ ➢ Students are encouraged to ask questions, participate in turn and to evaluate and build on answers ➢ Open-ended questions invite disciplinary inquiry ➢ Teachers assume a ‘scholarly ignorance’ and don’t supply answers to students ➢ Teachers treat students as “potential sources of knowledge and opinion” - Nystrand et al 2003 p.140

➢ Open-ended questions encourage students to problematize opening knowledge to higher-order thinking (Lefstein 2010 p.176)

Just as in an academic community, students should be encouraged to challenge, support and compliment each others’ work, which offers grist for further inquiry and for students to learn how to talk like a mathematician, scientist et al. The value of the dialogic classroom is that the students become a selfcorrecting group. Language is the “tool of tools” which not only facilitates interaction but also fundamentally transforms individual cognition. (Cole and Wertsch 1996.) In a dialogic classroom, the group observes, practises and gradually internalises new ways of thinking.

R J Alexander names five principles of dialogic teaching that it be:

➢ Collective ➢ Reciprocal ➢ Supportive ➢ Cumulative (this underpins inquiry and knowledge growth in academic communities) ➢ Purposeful.

However, as we will see, this demands much skill from the teacher working within the constraints of the curriculum, space, time, environment and student body. Whilst many teachers are already aware of the benefits of dialogic teaching, actually enabling true dialogue with the classroom is a different matter.

“If an answer does not give rise to a new question from itself, it falls out of the dialogue.” Bakhtin 1986, p.168.

M a i n - A n a l y s i s o f t h e e f f e c t i v e n e s s o f d i a l o g i c t e a c h i n g i n t h e U K a n d C z e c h R e p u b l i c .

The best known research project, run by the Cambridge Primary Review Trust and University of York aimed to raise the levels of “engagement and attainment across English, maths and science in primary schools by improving the quality of teacher and pupil talk in the classroom.” It focused on working with Year 5 teachers in 38 schools during the 2015/6 school year. Teachers were trained and mentored in emphasising dialogue through which pupils could learn to ‘reason, discuss, argue and explain in order to develop their higher order thinking as well as their articulacy.’ This research was widely reported upon and highly regarded by educational staff.

In the report’s key conclusions, two additional months of progress were gained in English and science and one month’s progress in maths compared to the control schools’ children. FSM children also made two months’ progress in English, science and maths and in fact, the effect of dialogic teaching on students from disadvantaged backgrounds was marked. This intervention was highly regarded and teachers reported the positive effect on student engagement and confidence. The programme built on the principles of dialogic teaching developed by R J Alexander in 2015.

However, the research programme did have its weaknesses. It was very challenging to implement within two terms and the effects of the intervention could have been possibly compromised by a) a change in teacher and b) a change in pedagogy. Some data was missing - 7 of the 38 randomised intervention schools did not complete post test measure GL assessment results. From the initial 4958 pupils randomised to intervention/control groups; 3912 completed post tests which amounted to 79% of original pupils. Other key factors related to time management, conflicting school priorities, the fear of teachers being videoed of being appraised as part of their Performance Management process and on the need for an evidenced ‘written culture’ for Ofsted. The recruitment target of 80 schools was not met and the programme required

substantial changes in practice. Most taking part conceded that two terms was an insufficient amount of time in which to develop and dramatically alter discourse in the classroom.

Another thought-provoking study took place in the Czech Republic by Klara Sedova, Zuzana Salamounova and Roman Svaricek in 2014 that examined dialogic teaching at lower secondary school level. Here discussion and dialogue were viewed as a form of ‘scaffolding’. They used the following markers to recognise dialogic talk within the classroom:

➢ The use of open-ended questions with no pre-given answers ➢ The use of ‘uptake’ - building on what has been previously said to create a coherent discourse ➢ More elaborate feedback provided by the teacher ➢ A discussion in which at least three people interacted for more than 30 seconds ➢ Evidence of exploratory talk (Mercer)

However, the researchers concluded that there was an obvious gap between the theory and practice. Teachers tended to fall back on the familiar pattern of IRF and to dominate talk in the classroom. So which principles of dialogic talk were difficult for them to adopt and why? Their main findings were the lack of argumentation and misunderstandings caused by semantic noise.

R J Alexander summarised several key features that are essential for dialogic teaching. It has to be i) collective ii) reciprocal iii) supportive iv) cumulative and v) purposeful. The researchers concluded that these features are very difficult to achieve in the reality of the classroom. (See Appendix i and ii.) Their findings highlighted the following complications of implementing dialogic talk in the classroom:

Collective - Students in a class have different zones of proximal development which makes it difficult for the teacher to engage the whole class. Collected data shows that the most motivated and most gifted participate in dialogic sequences. Whilst teachers will try to support weaker students for social reasons, this may discourage further elaboration or rational argument from students.

Reciprocal - Research showed that when teachers and students listen to each other, share their thoughts and consider alternative viewpoints - without activating all students - this can be at the expense of concentration and behaviour.

Support - There is a paradox of teachers trying to be supportive (encouraging talk) yet critical at the same time, which discourages students from making mistakes in a climate of ‘trial and error’. Cumulative - true dialogic discussion needs to build on and extend the thinking of others. This is not always evident in the classroom. Discussion tends to be incoherent and uncumulative.

Purposeful - A teacher will often teach with a specific learning objective in view. It requires much skill, plenty of time and space to cover the curriculum and excellent subject knowledge to cope with spontaneous points arising in discussion which divert the course of the lesson. An open-ended lesson plan is not fit nor suitable for all teachers working under these constraints of external assessment and curriculum pressures.

However, despite feeling that “the concept of dialogic teaching is a satisfactorily developed theory, yet it is only infrequently realised in everyday teaching at Czech schools,” the Czech team concluded that discourse was evidenced in embryonic form as a stage of transition to dialogic teaching.

C o n c l u s i o n :

It would appear that, whilst dialogic classrooms are something to aim for, certainly for democratic, moral, social and academic reasons, in practice a truly dialogic classroom may not yet be achievable in entirety. Without wishing to dismiss the evidential progress made by students in primary schools - two months’ attainment in English and science is not to be undervalued - certain practices may have to change in the

secondary classroom to promote dialogic teaching. These would need to be wholescale and widespread over a sufficient period and involve excellent training, modelling and mentoring of participants.

The researchers have noted no resistance to the idea of dialogic teaching. Educationalists are already convinced of its benefits, but to manage a truly dialogic classroom, considerations must be duly given to aims, time, space, student groupings, curricular demands and the outcomes desired by teachers.

Perhaps Freire should have the last word in the debate: “education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition.” With that in mind, perhaps we need to continue to strive for a more democratic and discursive climate in our classrooms today.

M Henderson 2021

Bi b l i o g r a p h y :

Handbook of Discourse Processes - Graesser, Gernsbacher, Goldman (2003) London

Great Teaching Techniques: A Culture of Speech. Sherrington and Stafford 2019

Student Thought and Classroom Language: Examining the Mechanisms of Change in Dialogic Teaching. Reznitskaya and Gregory

Role Classroom Language plays in Shaping Students’ Thinking - Cazdan 2011, Halliday 1993, Vygotsky 1981, Wells 1999

Dialogic Teaching - Evaluation Report and Executive Summary July 2017 EEF Sheffield Hallam University

Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking Classroom Talk: R J Alexander Dialogos

Developing Dialogic Teaching: Process, Trial, Outcomes - R J Alexander, 2017, University of Cambridge, UK

Appendix i)

I n s u f f i c i e n t a r g u m e n t a t io n - E x t r a c t 1

T: So, you are twelve or thirteen years old, you have heard a lot of different opinions, you certainly watch television and there are various programmes on this, you read books, scientific publications, so what do YOU think of the origins of the world? How did we end up being here? (Teacher looks at the students) Honzo, go on, tell me.

S Honza: (has been leaning on his hands up to that point, once asked he changes his position and sits straight): Well, so I...

T: Yes, what do you think?

S Honza: I guess I prefer the scientific explanation.

T: (observes Honza intently) The scientific explanation?

S Honza: Yep.

T: So you mean the so called big bang theory?

S Honza: Well, probably.

T: (looks at other students in the classroom) We will not go into details today, we can keep that for some science lesson, Biology, Chemistry or Physics. (Looks back at Honza) So you prefer the scientific explanation, of course, I wouldn’t want you to think that if you prefer some other theory, for example the one described in the Bible, about which we will be talking today, that anybody’s gonna

be laughing at you (gestures with hands)...So just tell me what you have heard, what you think, so Honza prefers the scientific theory (observes the classroom)...

S Jindra: (raises his hand half way)

T: So what about you, Jindra?

S Jindra: It’s the scientific theory for me, too. T: So you mean the scientific theory, or a bit from this theory and a bit from another theory or what? (is looking at Jindra)

S Jindra: No, the scientific one.

T: Sure.

S Jindra: Because had God existed, you know, ripping ribs out of people just hurts...

T: (is laughing) OK, so that is your opinion. What about you, Katka?

S Katka: I prefer the scientific one.

T: Aha, the scientific one (is nodding her head). OK, well, and what about you, Jana?

S Jana: I...

T: (interrupts the student) So you have been thinking, but you don’t have to think, you know everything already (is standing in front of the benches with folded arms and is looking at Jana) K. Sedova et al. / Learning, Culture and Social Interaction

S Jana: Well, I don’t really know...I think I don’t believe in any theory, I believe in . . . (pauses for two seconds), well, I just think that I cannot imagine anything of that.

T: Huh (is nodding her head approvingly) So you have not given it much thought, you just take it for granted.

C o m m e n t :

Asking for opinions which are not connected to each other

No focus on scientific explanations or on what ‘scientific’ means Jana is incorrectly paraphrased by the teacher

Only attempt at argumentation seen by Jarda in line 16

If we use indicators developed by Resnitskaya et al. (2009), the missing indicators are connecting ideas, explanation and collaboration

No encouragement made to explain responses

No ideas are connected in any way or explored

A p p e n d i x i i ) - S e m a n t i c N o i s e

The extract describes a sequence recorded in a Czech language lesson which was observed at the Blue school in a class of eighth graders. At the moment of recording, Jan had been teaching for five years, out of which three had been spent with teaching in this particular class. He had not completed

his degree in Teaching of the Czech Language and hence was teaching the class as a teacher without a degree in teaching. Apart from teaching this subject, he also teaches some of the students in an optional subject on Drama. There are 20 students present in the classroom, 10 out of which are boys. The topic of the class is science writing. The teacher informs the students that they are to write a short science text on the universe. They go on and brainstorm an outline of the text and the students proceed to write their texts. The teacher then encourages them to read their texts aloud. Only those students who volunteer to read are chosen to read. The second student reading is Matěj who starts speaking during the 28 minute out of 45.

S Matěj: There are eight planets in our solar system and one of the planets is Earth. There used to be nine planets, but one of them was dropped. Its name was Pluto. The planets spin around axis and the Sun is the heart of our solar system. The planets are listed as follows: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uran, Neptun. 280 K. Sedova et al. / Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 3 (2014) 274–285

T: Well, this is not that bad, but there are two descriptions that do not fit (he stands up and is moving towards the board) The first one is the thing about . . .

S Michal: Dropping.

T: you said that “it was dropped” (writes the clause on the board). And I also didn’t like the spinning around axis. Imagine that you have a planet here and an axis there (draws a planet on the board and an axis located away from the planet). So you think that the planet could spin like that? (is using his hands to gesture the movement)

S Matěj: No. T: So what about the axis?

S Katka: ITS axis.

T: Exactly, it spins around ITS axes, right? So it spins around its axis, it needs to be precise. Why don’t I like you saying that “it was dropped?” S Michal: Cause it’s nonsense. S Gábina: Because it is not scientific.

T: It is not nonsense and I don’t mind that it is not scientific. S Michal: It hasn’t got the meaning it is supposed to have. T: I’m more interested in the formulation. S Filip: How could it possibly drop away?

T: The words Matěj used are tinged. How? S Hanka: Emotionally.

T: Of course! If we start saying that, well, they are subjective, aren’t they? S Nikola: The words do not sound right.

T: “was dropped” suggests that the whole action is in a way, perhaps, expressive, right?

S Petr: But “was dropped” is not suggestive. (says in a low voice) T: So it is not nonsense. OK, well, will anybody else try to read it?

Comment:

➢ Collaboration is evident: teacher is eliciting students to elaborate their arguments further ➢ Participants do not reach mutual understanding by end of sequence ➢ Petr’s response - line 20 - neither he nor the teacher share the same understanding ➢ First example of semantic noise - Matej’s mention of “dropped” which is understood differently by students ➢ Teacher remains unaware of this misinterpretation and guides students towards improper phrasing ➢ Teacher does not understand the meaning of the responses and is not satisfied with any of them ➢ Learning does not take place as the teacher and students understand their responses differently