Analyzing and Scripting Classroom Talk

Question

Task: In this task, you will identify and design strategies that a teacher uses in his/her lesson to stimulate collaborative dialogue. Draw on dialogic teaching principles discussed in weeks 5 and 6, and reflect on the quality of classroom talk that is used to encourage and extend students’ classroom participation. You might the reading by Alexander helpful https://ereadings-uow-edu-au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/alexanderr2.pdf This task will comprise two components:

Description
1. Analysing Classroom Talk
• Select one of the video clips featuring a language lesson (see assessment task 1 for clips). Do not use the same clip you used for assessment task 1.
• Identify three dialogic principles that are used to facilitate classroom talk in the video clip (provide the exact time in the video where a strategy occurs).
• Briefly define each principle, and then describe how each principle informs teaching that encourages and extends the learners’ classroom participation. The best submissions integrate quotes from the video to support their argument.
• Reflection: For experienced teachers: In light of your analysis, critically reflect on your own teacher talk in the classes you’ve taught. What worked well? What didn’t work so well? What aspect of your teacher talk could you improve to enhance student participation?
• For inexperienced teachers: think about a context in which you’d like to teach English as an additional language. How would you manage your teacher talk? What strategies would you like to use in your classroom? What difficulties may you encounter when using those strategies?

2. Scripting ESL/EFL Classroom Discourse
Using the principles of dialogic teaching, design a teaching and learning episode that would stimulate collaborative dialogue between a teacher and a second language learner. Include two dialogic teaching strategies including IRF (Initiation Response Feedback) and one other of your choice.

Annotate your script to show where the dialogic teaching inform teaching strategies employed by the teacher.

Answer

1. ‘Classroom Talk’ Analyzation
The used video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv_Ud2lq-Ww&list=PLrk8hPUvXUfdiGRDlT4-vgaxYn9_idEe
a. ‘Dialogic Principle’ Identification and Analyzation
I. Surface Feelings and Confront the Student’s Perception with Honesty
(time stand - 1:19)

Student: We think that, you saw this on the internet…
Teacher: …on the internet?

S: yes
T: okay…and meaning?
S: and the wife look for husband.
T: okay… do you agree wife looking for a husband?
S: no, it’s the opposite
T: The husband looking for a wife.
S: (agreeing on the same sentence)
T: Okay. Okay. Alright…

The above-mentioned video clip suggests a classroom scenario where the teacher is eager to understand the student's perception of random English words and the possible background of those words by imagining the meaning. The implementation of certain ‘dialogic principle’ during the conversation in a classroom enhances the engagement between the teacher and the student (Alexander, 2018). It helps the teacher to change their elaboration ability supported by some epistemological and cultural aspects. The above-mentioned scenario suggests that the teacher is trying to engage the student by letting them answer the discussion from their imagination. The teacher confronted them politely and let them make the correction for themselves. It will enhance the students to engage in the class more and learn fast.

II. Establishing a ‘Safe Place’ at the Classroom
(time stand - 2:51)

T: I’m gonna give you some questions to think about, try to imagine what this man is like… here are your questions. I give one between two, so you can work together with your group. It is important to make the students comfortable in engaging themselves in the on-going conversation within a classroom. The 'dialogic principle' for making the classroom a 'safe place' for the students by letting them discuss the learning outcomes from the class among each other. The above-mentioned dialogue from the teacher expressed that the teacher wanted to engage the students in the learning process by discussing with their partners. It will help the teachers and students in establishing a strong bonding between themselves and encourage each other to share their honest opinions(Sedova, A case study of a transition to dialogic teaching as a process of gradual change, 2017). The factors of a 'dialogic principle' helps a teacher to improve themselves with the gradual changes in their 'teaching' practices. It enhances the learning programs to be developed by implementing the accurate ‘dialogic principle’ by the teachers and increase the student’s participation.

III. Impose the Dialogues for Learning Purpose
(time stand - 7:55)

T: …and I like you to imagine a new personality for yourself. So perhaps just think of some life experiences and some characteristics, some hobbies, some skills…
One of the main aspects of imposing 'dialogic principle' into a teaching conversation is to transform a normal interaction process filled with learning scopes and opportunities. The above-mentioned scenario indicates that the teacher is letting the students imagine a situation and learn from that imagination. That will help them in understanding the practical outcome of their lessons. The ‘dialogic teaching’ (DT) is an effective way to develop the ‘professional development program’ of the teachers to encourage the students in learning sessions (Van De Pol, Brindley, & Higham, 2017). It is important for the teachers to use carefully their dialogs during a class that can influence the students to only focus on the learning aspect without having any stress. The friendly interactive session between teachers and students always makes the learning process smooth and successful.

b. Reflection for Experienced Teacher
During the classroom, the effective interaction process by using various 'dialogic principle' from the teachers helped in understanding the lessons clearly. The experienced teachers know the hard and easy learning areas in a particular lesson. They can divide the areas into two part and gradually teach the students easier one at first and hard one later. In the present scenario, the teachers are interested in conducting an interactive conversation with the students to encourage them in participating in the class more.

Researchers have been pointed out that ‘dialogic teaching’ is viable in the process of language learning to establish an interactive relation between the teacher and students (Teo, 2019). It worked during the class to question any confusion freely. However, one of the concerning areas is the lack of obtaining information from the students. The students can contribute to the learning outcome by expressing their viewpoint. The teachers can take the information to improve their understanding and perspective of the students.

The teachers of the modern age are tending to use ‘dialogic teaching’ to develop the student’s learning process and their argument on a specific topic(Wilkinson, et al., 2017). The similar experience has been encountered during the classroom from the experienced teachers to encourage the students to achieve the answers by engaging them into a unique conversation process called “inquiry dialogue”. It helped the students to reach the answers by themselves with the help of some hints from the teachers.

c. Reflection for Inexperienced Teacher
The upcoming and inexperienced teachers are stressed in implementing structural teaching methods to make the teaching process widely acceptable. 'Dialogic teaching' technique can be worked as an initial structure in any teaching field by maintaining a convenient conversation flow among the teachers and students and acquiring opinions from a diverse perspective (Muhonen, Rasku-Puttonen, Pakarinen, Poikkeus, & Lerkkanen, 2016). The language teaching session is hectic for a teacher to their students from a non-English background.

The effective interactive session is the only way to understand the learning ability and outcome from the students. The common teaching strategies or 'dialogic principle' in teaching session can be establishing a safe environment for the students, use proper conversation skill, accept questions and opinions from the students, and not avoiding any hard question. It will enhance a teacher’s ability to understand their classroom and provide appropriate guidance towards the language learners.

The development programs for a new or inexperienced teacher is to convert the interaction session with the students into normal conversation process by implementing ‘dialogue teaching’(Sedova, Sedlacek, & Svaricek, Teacher professional development as a means of transforming student classroom talk, 2016). However, it can be difficult for inexperienced teachers who can be underprepared sometimes to answer every possible questions. One can also face the difficulties in using appropriate presentation strategy or engage into a reliable conversation with the students to make them encourage for the learning process.

2. ESL/EFL Classroom Discourse Script
Robin Alexander, the pioneer of implementing ‘dialogic teaching’ has been indicating the implementation of the talking mechanism during the teaching session to understand the student’s perspective, ideas, and empower them to produce argument with the learning outcomes. It mainly emphasized on the linguistic teaching method to use a systemic theory to obtain the desired result (Hammond, 2016). It is important for the teachers to implement the specific ‘dialogue teaching’ strategies, such as pair the students into groups to make a friendly bond between them, encourage them to clear their doubts, take the student’s opinion, and maintain a set of rules to manage classes effectively.

a. Teaching and Learning Episode
I. Episode Overview
The teaching and learning episode in encouraging a student who has English as their second language to learning the language in-depth. The episode will enhance the students to discover their ability in learning a language by participating in an interactive classroom session. The session will include real-life incidents and understand the motive of different dialogues. The students will be able to express their opinion on the learning outcome to clear any potential doubts in the classroom.

II. Learning Outcomes
The episode is consisting of following learning and teaching outcome to enhance the ‘dialogic principle’ in a language teacher to teach their second language learners,

• Implementation of "initiation response feedback" to encourage the students to participate in the class actively
• Implementing a "creative problem-solving" technique to the L2 students to let them understand the lesson effectively
• Provide complete guidance and encouragement to make an argument with the learning outcome

III. ‘Dialogic Teaching’ Strategies and Implementation
"Initiation feedback principle" (IFP) generally stands for when the teacher will initiate a conversation with the students to understand whether they have learned from the lesson or not, and give feedback to clear their doubts. However, in many cases, it becomes a dominant characteristic of the teachers to engage the students into the interaction without their will and make them uncomfortable. The teachers need to observe their students and maintain an effective friendly conversation with the students to implement the (IFP) strategy properly (Rustandi, 2017). It is important in clearing doubts and answer the enquiries of the students, and measure their learning outcome at the end of every class.

“Creative problem-solving” (CPS) technique is effective for enhancing the L2 students in participating in the classroom activity positively. It enhances the student’s thinking ability, idea generation factors, and make them fluent with their ‘second language’ (Wang, 2019). It is mainly consisting of a learning session by providing a ‘creative writing’ class to understand their depth in their ‘second language’. It will help the teacher to organize their teaching module according to the student’s existing gap. The implementation of this technique can also disseminate with dialogue in enhancing the students to solve specific problems by understanding their creative thinking and participation level.

3. Bibliography
Alexander, R. (2018). Developing dialogic teaching: Genesis, process, trial. Research Papers in Education, 33(5), 561-598. Hammond, J. (2016). Dialogic space: intersections between dialogic teaching and systemic functional linguistics. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 5-22.

Muhonen, H., Rasku-Puttonen, H., Pakarinen, E., Poikkeus, A.-M., & Lerkkanen, M.-K. (2016). Scaffolding through dialogic teaching in early school classrooms. Teaching and teacher education, 55, 143-154. Rustandi, A. (2017). AN ANALYSIS OF IRF (INITIATION-RESPONSE-FEEDBACK) ON CLASSROOM INTERACTION IN EFL SPEAKING CLASS. EduLite: Journal of English Education, Literature and Culture, 2(1), 239-250. Sedova, K. (2017). A case study of a transition to dialogic teaching as a process of gradual change. Teaching and teacher education, 67, 290.

Sedova, K., Sedlacek, M., & Svaricek, R. (2016). Teacher professional development as a means of transforming student classroom talk. Teaching and Teacher Education , 57, 125. Teo, P. (2019). Teaching for the 21st century: A case for dialogic pedagogy. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 21, 170-178.

Van De Pol, J., Brindley, S., & Higham, R. (2017). Two secondary teachers’ understanding and classroom practice of dialogic teaching: a case study. Educational Studies, 43(5), 497-515. Wang, H.-c. (2019). Fostering learner creativity in the English L2 classroom: Application of the creative problem-solving model. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 31, 58-69. Wilkinson, I., Reznitskaya, A., Bourdage, K., Oyler, J., Glina, M., Drewry, R., . . . Nelson, K. (2017). Toward a more dialogic pedagogy: changing teachers’ beliefs and practices through professional development in language arts classrooms. Language and education, 31(1), 65-82.