Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom

Abstract

The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise. The will to learn becomes a "problem" only under specialized circumstances like those of a school, where a curriculum is set, students confined, and a path fixed. The problem exists not so much in learning itself, but in the fact that what the school imposes often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learningcuriosity, a desire for competence, aspiration to emulate a model, and a deep-sensed commitment to the web of social reciprocity.-Jerome Bru ner. Toward a Theory of Instruction CHAPTER 2

Implications for Social Impact of Dialogic Teaching and Learning

“…One of the proposals studied and developed to advance scientific knowledge and progress in this regard is dialogic teaching, which aims at using talk in effective ways for children's learning and development. Several authors, such as Nystrand et al (1997); Wells (1999), Alexander (2008); Resnick et al (2015), or Mercer (1995 have been influential for the development of dialogic teaching. Such authors argue for the need to engage teachers and students in dialogue for the construction of knowledge and the understanding of the curriculum content, instead of knowledge and curriculum content being transmitted from teachers to students.…”

“…Mehan and Cazden (2015) note that the classrooms which have followed this pattern have excluded many minority students, as it does not encourage them to actively participate in the classroom talk. Similarly, the initiation-response-feedback (IRF) format, originally recorded by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), has been reported to be a common practice in classrooms worldwide (Nystrand et al, 1997;Wells and Arauz, 2006). This has been conveyed by observational studies by Howe and Abedin (2013), who note that the most effective forms of productive classroom dialogue are not as strongly rooted in daily classroom practice.…”

Using global observation protocols to inform research on teaching effectiveness and school improvement: Strengths and emerging limitations

“…In contrast, many fine-grained approaches to classroom observation, as well as measures of assignment quality, measure instruction more agnostically. For example, in Nystrand and Gamoran's program of research on ELA instruction, classroom time-use is exhaustively coded, but no a-priori judgement is made about the most appropriate ratio of say, small group work to whole-class instruction (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1997). Likewise, assignment quality protocols like the Intellectual Demand Assignment Protocol, do not privilege particular teaching practices, or do so less inherently (Joyce et al, 2018;Wenzel et al, 2002).…”

“…Historically, fine-grained measures of instruction, observational or otherwise, have been critical in documenting important basic features of American schooling, such as the low prevalence of genuine discussions in American classrooms (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1997), the wide variability in content and test standards in the US (Porter et al, 2011), or more recently, the content of texts read by diverse students (Northrop et al, 2019).…”

Discourse Patterns at Laboratory Practices and the Co-Construction of Knowledge by Applying SDIS-GSEQ

“…There is international evidence that suggests that the IRE style remains the dominant discourse, for example, in elementary classrooms in the United States, Russia, India, France and England (Alexander, 2000), and in the teaching of English in high schools of the US (Gutiérrez, 1994;Nystrand et al, 1997). Given the extensive knowledge base on these classroom processes and the availability of publications with ideas for altering the IRE as a dialogue pattern for IRF (Baddeley, 1992;Dawes et al, 2000;Morgan & Saxton, 1991;Norman, 1992), this would cause teachers to have a repertoire of different strategies to develop their teaching practice.…”