Implementing dialogic teaching in a Singapore English language classroom

Lee, R. (2016). Implementing dialogic teaching in a Singapore English Language classroom. RELC Journal. doi: 10.1177/0033688216631171

Background

The author hypothesized that the lack of Singaporean employees’ confidence in articulating their views in the workplace might be attributed to the practice of teacher-fronted and monologic classroom discourse as it did not provide opportunities for teachers and students to construct and build knowledge together during curriculum time.

Aims

Through an intervention, the study examined how classroom talk could be made more dialogic to enhance students’ talk opportunities and to build up literacy skills.

Sample

The participants were 39 students from a Secondary 3 class in a Singapore government school and their English language teacher.

Method

The data comprised nonparticipant observations, interviews and video recordings of classroom lessons. The nature of teacher-student talk before and during the intervention was analysed.

Findings

The results indicated a significant increase in exploratory talk time, i.e., student talk that allowed them to develop their level of understanding by giving them more opportunities to discuss and build on information that had been shared. Whole class lecture time also decreased. However, the Initiation-Response-Evaluation sequence, through which the teacher questioned students and evaluated their response, increased significantly, suggesting that there were more turns of talk between teacher and students during the intervention. Teacher-talk time decreased compared to that before the intervention, which implied that there had been more student-talk time in the intervention lessons.

Implications

Although the findings were not generalizable to the national education landscape, the author suggested that dialogic teaching could achieve the aims of the 2010 English Language Syllabus. To support teachers’ implementation of dialogic teaching, the author recommended that school leaders would need to address teachers’ concerns such as the lack of curriculum time to conduct dialogic teaching, introduce teachers to the benefits of dialogic teaching through pre-service and in-service training, and provide opportunities for them to understand this pedagogy in group conversations.

Original article retrieved from Sage.