Dialogic space interactions

Hammond, J. (2016). Dialogic space interactions between dialogic teaching and systemic functional linguistics. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 5-22. doi: 10.1080/02671522.2016.1106693

Background

Many researchers think that talk between students and teacher has an important role in students’ learning. Priority should thus be given to classroom talk. However, the author was worried that too much initial focus on classroom talk might detract from students’ learning of content.

Aims

The aim of thisarticle was to explore how educational linguistics, in particular systemic functional theory, can complement dialogic teaching to help students learn to talk and talk to learn.

Method

The author compared dialogic teaching with systemic theory. She also drew on research that she and her colleagues had completed concerning the education of students in mainstream Australian schools, whose first language was a language or dialect other than Standard Australian English, to illustrate how pedagogical practices could be designed to meet the needs of such students and how systemic theory could contribute to the design of such practices.

Findings

The author found many common points between dialogic teaching and systematic functional theory. They included the location of talk in social and cultural contexts and the important part language played in helping students think and learn more effectively. She pointed out that unlike dialogic teaching, the starting point of her research emphasized the identification of key curriculum constructs. She proposed first identifying curriculum concepts and planning challenging tasks to ensure student engagement. She also underscored that systemic theory provided the metalanguage that teachers and students needed to examine the relationship between text and context. She noted that systemic theory could predict the patterns of language features of spoken and written educational genres and these could be taught to students so that they could engage and talk about educational concepts. She explained that unlike dialogic teaching, the focus of systemic theory was learning to talk rather than talking to learn. She argued that although it was important for students to be given opportunities to engage in extended and dialogic talk, it was necessary for them to receive explicit support for their development of academic English.

Implications

The author recommended that resources available in systemic linguistics be used to analyse students’ needs and curriculum demands. She also recommended that the teaching of academic language and literacy be explicitly incorporated into the teaching of curriculum content. The teaching of language should include text organization, grammar, and vocabulary.

Original article retrieved from Taylor and Francis.