Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher
professional development in science education: a
selective review of the literature
Jaume Ametller and Phil Scott, University of Leeds
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
Contents
1.0: Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3
3.0: Approaches to analysing and characterising classroom discourse ................................................. 5
3.1: Systematic approaches ............................................................................................................... 5
3.2: Discourse analysis approaches ................................................................................................... 5
3.3: Interpretative approaches .......................................................................................................... 6
3.4: A multi-level approach ................................................................................................................ 7
3.4.1: Communicative approach .................................................................................................... 8
3.4.2: Patterns of interaction ....................................................................................................... 10
4.0: What do we mean by ‘dialogic teaching’? .................................................................................... 12
5.0: Implications of this literature for S-TEAM: Dialogic Teaching ..................................................... 17
6.0: Professional development initiatives in connection to dialogic teaching .................................... 18
6.1: Teacher training in classroom discourse in science .................................................................. 18
6.1.1: Professional development on argumentation in science classrooms ................................ 18
6.1.2: Professional development on the use of communicative approaches.............................. 19
6.2: Shaping in-service professional development for dialogic education ...................................... 19
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 22
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
1.0: Introduction
This literature review has been written with a number of purposes in mind. These
are to:

Consider different general approaches to analysing the talk of science
classrooms

Identify key features in classroom talk

Identify what insights can be gained from the teacher professional
development literature with regard to supporting teachers in using the
elements aforementioned as tools to reflect on and develop their own
pedagogical practices.
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
2.0: Setting the scene: an increasing interest in classroom talk
In recent years there has been a gradual growth of interest in studies of how
meanings are developed through language and other modes of communication in
the science classroom. Different studies have highlighted, from various points of
view, the importance of investigating classroom discourse and other rhetorical
devices in science education (see, for example, Lemke, 1990; Sutton, 1992; Halliday
and Martin, 1993; Ogborn et al, 1996; Roychoudhury and Roth, 1996; Mortimer,
1998; Scott, 1998; Kress et al, 2001; Kelly and Brown, 2003; Mortimer and Scott,
2003). This ‘new direction’ for science education research (Duit and Treagust, 1998)
signals a move away from studies focusing on individual student understandings of
specific phenomena towards research into the ways in which understandings are
developed in the social context of the science classroom.
The importance of language for learning has also been recognized in a number of
curriculum development initiatives. For example, in the UK, the Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority (QCA, 2003) strongly identifies ‘dialogic teaching’ with effective
whole-class instructional approaches, drawing on the comparative, cross-cultural
research of Alexander (2001) as a basis for doing so. In North America, there is a
powerful movement towards ‘inquiry-based’ science lessons, in which the students
work collaboratively on open-ended activities and are encouraged to talk their way to
solving problems (see, for example, Roychoudhury and Roth, 1996; Kelly and
Brown, 2003). On both sides of the Atlantic, moves are being made to engage
students in the patterns of talk, or modes of ‘argumentation’, which are characteristic
of science (see, for example, Driver, Newton and Osborne, 2000; Kelly et al, 2000;
Duschl and Osborne, 2002).
The notion of dialogic discourse seems to be a central part of all of these initiatives.
Duschl and Osborne (2002), for example, claim that argumentation must be dialogic
as it ‘requires the opportunity to consider plural theoretical accounts and the
opportunity to construct and evaluate arguments relating ideas and their evidence’
(p. 52). Kelly, Crawford and Green (2001) show the potential importance of
dissenting voices in the discursive construction of physics explanations by students
working in small groups. Ritchie and Tobin (2001, p. 295), suggest that genuine
consensus in science can only be achieved through dialogic discourse.
Despite this widespread interest in dialogic discourse, the fact of the matter is that
dialogic interactions are notably absent from science classrooms around the world
(Alexander, 2001; Fischer et al, 2002; Wells, 1999). In this review of the literature
we first of all map out approaches to analysing and characterising classroom
discourse. We then consider a range of different perspectives on what might be
entailed in, and meant by, ‘dialogic teaching’. Finally we consider parts of the
literature on teacher professional development which are relevant to extending
teachers’ pedagogical discursive practices, thereby supporting them in dialogic
teaching.
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
3.0: Approaches to analysing and characterising classroom
discourse
There has been an historical trend in research into analysing and characterising
classroom discourse which has seen a movement from systematic, quantitative
approaches to more interpretative qualitative approaches.
3.1: Systematic approaches
Systematic observation of classroom talk using some form of interaction analysis has
a long history and was initially developed to investigate the quantity and quality of
teacher-student interactions (Amidon & Flanders, 1961; Amidon & Giammatteo,
1967; Anderson, 1939; Cogan, 1956; Flanders, 1967a, 1967b; Lewin, Lippitt, &
White, 1939; Pankratz, 1967; Soar, 1965; Withall, 1949).
Such systematic approaches typically involve some kind of ‘tick-box’ protocol which
the researcher uses to code the interactions of the lesson against a pre-defined set
of categories. By assigning the observed interactions to these categories, the
observer can record their frequency and the whole lesson is reduced to a set of
entries on a coding sheet. A major criticism of this kind of approach has been made
in terms of its limitations in revealing the subtleties of the purposes and practices of
classroom talk:
‘The kind of data obtained from systematic observation studies does not
allow researchers to reconstruct the course of any given lesson; the only
information available about the course of events after the lesson has
finished is in the form of numerical frequency coding. One feels, therefore,
that there was surprisingly little of the right kind of information available to
researchers wishing to explain why teachers did one thing rather than
another, or why certain patterns of classroom interaction seemed to work
better in the teaching of some topics rather than others’ (Edwards &
Mercer, 1987, p. 25)
3.2: Discourse analysis approaches
Under the banner of 'discourse analysis', Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) took a rather
different approach in analysing, from a sociolinguistic perspective, the structure of
classroom talk in secondary classes. A significant contribution from this work is their
description of the moves in the 'I-R-F' exchange structure, which refers to an
initiation by a teacher that elicits a response from a pupil, to be followed by feedback
from the teacher.
As part of his ethnographic study of the social organisation of classroom lessons,
Mehan (1979) also focused on analysing the structure of the teacher-student
interaction. He used the exchange structure 'I-R-E' (where E refers to evaluation) to
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
describe the turns of talk between the teacher and pupils, before using the frequency
of the 'moves'; I, R or E to characterise the classroom talk of the whole lesson.
These studies followed a systematic analysis of the classroom interaction, based on
defining categories and measuring frequencies. These studies can be seen as
starting the movement from 'systematic observations' towards 'insightful
observation'. They took a progressive step towards more insightful analysis when
they started to direct the attention to the structure of the discourse itself.
However, these studies faced the criticism of the supporters of sociocultural tradition
with their orientation towards quantitative approaches to analysis. The emphasis of
these two studies on the forms of the discourse, as I, R or F, without giving real
concern to the meanings embodied in these forms, is what stimulated Edwards &
Mercer (1987) to describe this approach to analysis as to merely 'scratch the
surface'. They argued that it deals with the form of what is said rather than with what
is said; the words uttered by people and the understanding they convey. In this
respect, Christie (2002) wrote also:
‘Ironically, a great deal of classroom discourse analysis has had a lot to
say about the structuring of talk in terms of the IRE and related moves,
but it has often neglected to look at the nature of the meanings in
construction, the relative roles and responsibilities of teachers and
students at the time of constructing those meanings, and the placement of
such patterns in the overall larger cycle of classroom work’ (p.5)
In spite of this, the IRE/F pattern was to become the subject of interest of a wide
range of studies since Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) and Mehan (1979) introduced it.
For example, it has been used to criticise the teaching practices that restrict the
participation of students to the ‘R’ move in the pattern that is controlled by the ‘I ‘and
‘F’ moves from the teacher. Consequently, there was a call for more exploratory
patterns of talk in which the initiation and feedback from the teacher might be more
open and elaborative and where the student might stimulate the talk by making the
initiation for example (Alexander, 2004; Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott,
1994; Lemke, 1990). On the other hand, there has been a call to look at the total
patterns of talk in which the IRF/E exchange occurs rather than merely rejecting it as
reflecting a constraint on students' intellectual involvement in building a solid
understanding (Wells, 1999). Today, the triadic coding of talk as I, R or F/E is
difficult, if not impossible, to be ignored in the analysis of any discipline of classroom
talk.
3.3: Interpretative approaches
A seminal contribution in taking the research of classroom discourse from systematic
to insightful analysis is the work of Douglas Barnes (e.g. Barnes, 1971, 1973, 1976).
Based on his belief of the fundamental role of classroom talk in learning, he
attempted to explore the relationship between the features of the talk and learning in
relation to the social context in which this talk was taking place. He did this by
recording episodes of talk from various disciplines in secondary classes and making
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
observational notes of events in these classes that might help him to understand the
context. The advance in the recording facilities at that time enabled him to examine
in detail the teacher-pupil talk and the pupil-pupil talk in group discussion which
constituted in later years a main focus of his studies (see Barnes & Todd, 1977;
Barnes, Todd, & Barnes, 1995). Barnes is prominent, in fact, in pioneering the
tradition of transcribing the talk of lessons and using extracts of it as data to be
analysed, interpreted and reflected on to reach some findings, where different
features of classroom talk are organised in larger scale analytical categories. Despite
the criticism of lacking objectivity and reliability as ‘the approach seems altogether
too subjective, involving unsystematic 'interpretive leaps' from data to conclusion’
(Edwards & Mercer, 1987, p. 28), this tradition of research has extended widely
throughout classroom discourse studies. As a result of this wide implementation and
the emergence of cheap video recording devices, there has been a development in
the research of classroom talk to focus deeply on the content of the discourse. The
work of Edwards and Mercer (1987) represents a good example of such
development.
Edwards and Mercer (1987) considered the development of ‘common knowledge’
through classroom talk as problematical because of different attributes, most
important of which is the issue of ‘control’ over knowledge and learning between
teachers and pupils. They argued that because of the teacher’s control over what is
done, said, and understood education actually plays the function of ‘cognitive
socialization’ (p.161). They talk, in fact, about their surprise of the extent to which the
teacher controls the mental and the physical activities in the classroom during the
lessons that were based on more progressive sorts of teaching. They argued,
subsequently, that under teacher control, the process of education in ‘pupil-centred’
classes is of cognitive socialization rather than of individual discovery. Based on an
increasing level of teacher control, they identified the following features of classroom
discourse: elicitation of students’ contributions, significance markers, joint-knowledge
markers, cued elicitation of students’ responses, paraphrastic interpretations of
students’ contributions, reconstructive recaps, and direct lecturing.
3.4: A multi-level approach
Mortimer and Scott (2003) have proposed a multi-level framework to characterise the
nature and patterns of teacher-student discursive interactions in science classrooms.
This framework is based on socio-cultural theory and was developed from empirical
analyses of classroom talk. The framework has been widely used (see for example:
Aguiar Jr & Mortimer, 2005; Amos & Simon, 2007; Scott et al, 2007; Hennessy,
Deaney & Ruthven, 2006; Mortimer & Scott, 2000; Southerland et al, 2005; Scott,
Mortimer & Aguiar, 2006; Tachoua, 2005; Viiri, Saari & Sormunen, 2003), in probing
how teachers help students to construct meanings in science classrooms by using
different forms of discourse and patterns of interaction.
Mortimer and Scott’s framework was developed to analyse the speech genre
(Bakhtin, 1986) of science classrooms and, in particular, the ways in which the
teacher acts to guide meaning making interactions on the social plane of high school
science classrooms. The framework is the product of an ongoing research program
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
conducted over a number of years (see, Mortimer, 1998; Scott, 1998; Mortimer and
Scott, 2000) and a detailed description of its development is set out elsewhere
(Mortimer and Scott, 2003).
The analytical framework (Mortimer and Scott, 2003) is based on five linked aspects,
which focus on the role of the teacher, and are grouped in terms of teaching Focus,
Approach and Action:
Aspect of Analysis
i. Focus
1. Teaching Purposes
3. Communicative approach
ii. Approach
iii. Action
2. Content
4. Teacher interventions
5. Patterns of Interaction
Fig 1: The Analytical Framework: A tool for analysing meaning-making interactions in
science classrooms
Central to the framework is the concept of ‘communicative approach’ which was first
developed by Mortimer and Scott (2003), and provides a perspective on how the
teacher works with students to develop ideas in the classroom. The different classes
of communicative approach (see next section) are defined in terms of whether the
classroom discourse is authoritative or dialogic in nature and whether it is interactive
or non-interactive (Mortimer and Scott, 2003, p.33). The different communicative
approaches are put into action through specific Patterns of Interaction and Teacher
Interventions. A common Pattern of Interaction (ibid, p.40) is the triadic I-R-E form
(referred to in the previous section), whilst a common form of Teacher Intervention
(ibid p.42) involves marking key ideas, possibly by use of repetition. The different
communicative approaches are also linked to specific Teaching Purposes (ibid,
p.28), such as developing the scientific story, and to the nature of the Thematic
Content (ibid, p.28) which is the focus of the teaching. The content might be:
everyday or scientific; descriptive, explanatory or generalised; empirical or
theoretical, in nature.
3.4.1: Communicative approach
The communicative approach focuses on questions such as whether or not the
teacher interacts with students (either taking turns in the discourse or simply
presenting material), and whether the students’ ideas are taken into account as the
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
lessons proceed. In developing this aspect of analysis four fundamental classes of
communicative approach were identified, which are defined by characterising the talk
between teacher and students along each of two dimensions, dialogic-authoritative
and interactive-non interactive.
The dialogic-authoritative dimension
The distinction between authoritative and dialogic functions has been discussed by
Wertsch (1991), and was used by Mortimer (1998) in analysing discourse from a
Brazilian classroom. It is based on the notions of authoritative and internally
persuasive discourse, as outlined by Bakhtin (1981), and on the functional dualism of
texts introduced by Lotman (1988) (quoted by Wertsch, 1991, p. 73-74).
Dialogic discourse is defined as being that which is open to different points of view.
At different points in a sequence of science lessons dialogic talk inevitably takes on a
different character. Thus at the start of a lesson sequence, the science teacher
might elicit students’ everyday views about a particular phenomenon. Later on in the
sequence, the teacher might encourage students to discuss how to apply a newlylearned scientific idea in a novel context.
By way of contrast, authoritative discourse does not allow the bringing together and
exploration of ideas. Here the teacher focuses attention on the school science point
of view. If ideas or questions, which do not contribute to the development of the
school science story, are raised by students they are likely to be reshaped or ignored
by the teacher. Alternatively, if a student idea is perceived by the teacher as being
helpful to the development of the scientific story it is likely to be seized upon and
used. In these ways authoritative discourse is closed to the points of view of others,
with its direction having been set in advance by the teacher. More than one voice
may be heard, through the contributions of different students, but there is no
exploration of different perspectives, and no explicit interanimation of ideas, since
the student contributions are not taken into account by the teacher unless they are
consistent with the developing school science account.
The interactive-non interactive dimension
An important feature of the distinction between dialogic and authoritative approaches
is that a sequence of talk can be dialogic or authoritative in nature, independent of
whether it is uttered individually or between people. What makes talk functionally
dialogic is the fact that different ideas are acknowledged, rather than whether it is
produced by a group of people or by a solitary individual. This point leads to the
second dimension to consider in thinking about the Communicative Approach: that
the talk can be interactive in the sense of allowing for the participation of more than
one person, or non-interactive in the sense of excluding the participation of other
people.
Four classes of communicative approach
Combining the two dimensions, any episode of classroom talk can be identified as
being either interactive or non-interactive on the one hand, and dialogic or
authoritative on the other. We can represent this combining of the two dimensions in
the following way:
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
INTERACTIVE
DIALOGIC
A. Interactive /
B. Non-interactive /
Dialogic
AUTHORITATIVE
NON-NTERACTIVE
Dialogic
C. Interactive /
D. Non-interactive/
Authoritative
Authoritative
Fig 3: Four classes of communicative approach
The four classes, as they appear in the classroom, can be exemplified as follows:
a. Interactive/dialogic: teacher and students consider a range of ideas. If
the level of interanimation is high, they pose genuine questions as they
explore and work on different points of view. If the level of interanimation is
low, the different ideas are simply made available.
b. Non-interactive/dialogic: teacher revisits and summarises different points
of view, either simply listing them (low interanimation) or exploring
similarities and differences (high interanimation).
c. Interactive/authoritative: teacher focuses on one specific point of view
and leads students through a question and answer routine with the aim of
establishing and consolidating that point of view.
d. Non-interactive/authoritative: teacher presents a specific point of view.
Although these aspects were developed in relation to the teacher’s role and actions,
they can also be used to characterise student-student interactions in the classroom.
3.4.2: Patterns of interaction
This second aspect of Mortimer and Scott’s multi-level analysis relates to the
structure of the interactions between teacher and students in the classroom. The
most distinctive pattern of interaction reported in the literature is the three-part
exchange structure which Lemke (1990) refers to as triadic dialogue. As outlined
earlier, this pattern was first described as IRF (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975) or as
IRE (Mehan, 1979).
Wells (1999) stresses the point that the third move from the teacher can serve
different functions. In some contexts it has a dominant evaluative function, in others
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
‘the third move functions much more as an opportunity to extend the student’s
answer, to draw out its significance, or to make connections with other parts of the
students’ total experience during the unit’ (Wells, 1999, p. 200). An important
contribution of Wells is to show that triadic dialogue is neither intrinsically good nor
bad. ‘Its merits – or demerits - depend upon the purpose it is used to serve on
particular occasions and upon the larger goals by which those purposes are
informed’ (idem, p. 169).
Mortimer and Scott (2003) extend this analysis in terms of triads by distinguishing
between triadic IRE patterns and chains of interaction which are generated when the
third move of the interaction is made to prompt elaboration of the student’s point of
view.
The open and closed chain patterns
According to Mortimer and Scott (2003) an alternative form of interaction occurs
when, instead of making an evaluation of a student’s response, the teacher feedsback the response to the student, in order to prompt further elaboration of their point
of view (‘that’s interesting, tell me a little more…’) and thereby to sustain the
interaction. In this way the student is supported in elaborating and making explicit
their ideas.
This alternative pattern of interaction normally generates interaction chains which
take an I-R-P-R-P-R- form (where P stands for Prompt). Here the prompt move by
the teacher is followed by a further response from the student [R] and so on. Some
chains of interaction are closed by a final evaluation from the teacher (I-R-P-R-P-RE) whilst others remain open without any final evaluation (I-R-P-R-P-R-). Some
teacher prompts involve only single words taken from the student’s response, whilst
others involve further elaboration by the teacher.
There are other ways in which non-triadic patterns might appear in the classroom.
For example, students (rather than the teacher) can initiate a sequence by posing a
question. Alternatively, different students can answer the same question from the
teacher, generating an: I-Rs1-Rs2-Rs3- form, where Rsn indicates a response from a
particular student. In this latter pattern, the response from student 3 (for example)
might not necessarily address the initial question posed by the teacher; it might be a
comment on a previous student’s response. In such cases, the pattern of interactions
can become relatively complex.
In the above ways Mortimer and Scott’s (2003) ‘multi-level approach’ seems to draw
upon the strengths of previous approaches in conceptualising the interactions of the
science classroom, allowing for both systematic quantitative analyses (perhaps in
relation to communicative approach) and also underpinning interpretative
approaches, making links to content and teaching purposes.
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
4.0: What do we mean by ‘dialogic teaching’?
The term ‘dialogic teaching’ is one which has relatively wide usage in both
professional, school focused circles and the research community. As might be
expected, this usage is consequent upon significant variation in meaning.
In some studies, approaches to teaching would be defined as dialogic as long as
there is a kind of discourse that reflects the conventional meaning of ‘engaging in a
dialogue’. For example, Wells (1999) refers to dialogic inquiry, where students can
contribute to the progression of a community understanding of the topic in
discussion. For him, this happens when the students go through 'progressive
discourse' in which they are allowed to refine and work on their ideas to generate a
general understanding.
Likewise, Alexander (2004) has assigned the concept of 'scaffolded dialogue' to his
model of dialogic teaching, defining this concept as lying along the line between
'transmission' and 'discovery' approaches (telling children as opposed to
encouraging them to find out for themselves)' (Alexander 2000c, p.526). In the latest
edition of his book on dialogic teaching, Alexander (2008) describes both, discussion
and scaffolded dialogue as the kinds of teaching talk having the greatest cognitive
potential and likely to ‘meet the criteria of dialogic teaching’ (p.31).
Taking a related but different approach, Nystrand (1997), and later on Nystrand,
Lawrence et al (2001), developed a scale, according to which episodes of talk from
investigated English and Social Studies classes can be classified as dialogic or
monologic. The scale was designed base on their view of classroom discourse as:
 Monologic: ‘to the extent that the main speaker, typically the teacher, operates
from a pre-determined ‘script’’ and:
 Dialogic: ‘to the extent that the participants expand or modify the
contributions of the others as one voice ‘refracts’ another’ (Nystrand et al.,
2001).
Consequently, for those events of talk classified as dialogic, the instruction would be
described as dialogically-organised and vice versa.
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
Features
Monologically Organised
Instruction
Dialogically Organised
Instruction
Paradigm
Recitation
Discussion
Communication
model
Transmission of knowledge
Transformation of
understanding
Epistemology
Objectivism: knowledge
is a given
Dialogism: Knowledge
emerges from interactions
of voices
Source of valued
Knowledge
Teacher, textbook
authorities: Excludes
students
Includes students’
interpretations and personal
experience
Texture
Choppy
Coherent
Table 1: Comparison of Monologically/Dialogically Organised Instruction, Nystrand (1997,
p.19)
This kind of analysis based on a 'dialogic/monologic' classification has a significant
history. For example, in some studies from the sixties and earlier, the form of
interaction has been described as; Integrative/Dominative (Anderson, 1939),
Democratic/Authoritarian (Lewin et al., 1939), Student-centred/Teacher-centred
(Withall, 1949), Inclusive/Preclusive (Cogan, 1956), and Indirect/Direct (Flanders,
1967b). See, for example, Table 2:
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
The Integrative pattern
The Dominative pattern
a) Accepts, clarifies and supports the
ideas and feelings of pupils
a) Expresses or lectures about own
ideas or knowledge
b) Praises and encourages
b) Gives directions or orders
c) Asks questions to stimulate pupil
participation in decision making
c) Criticises or deprecates pupil
behaviour with intent to change it
d) Asks questions to orient pupils to
schoolwork
d) Justifies his own position or
authority
Associated attitudes of teachers
Associated attitudes of teachers
outgoing, good-natured, friendly,
cheerful, trustful, patient, selfeffacing, self-submissive, responsive
Antisocial, surly, spiteful, dour,
hostile, impatient, self-assertive, selfcentred, aloof
Table 1: Characterisation of Integrative/Dominative interaction, Flanders (1967, p.106)
A recurring finding in all the aforementioned studies is that monologic, traditional,
dominative, authoritarian, teacher-centred, preclusive and direct approaches
dominates teaching practice (as outlined earlier in this review). Against this backdrop
of ‘authoritarian’ approaches to teaching, there is a growing body of evidence for the
effectiveness, in relation to supporting learning, of more ‘dialogic’ approaches.
Examples of such dialogic approaches include:

dialogic instruction, characterised by the teacher’s uptake of student ideas,
authentic questions and the opportunity for students to modify the topic
(Nystrand, 1997);

dialogic inquiry, which stresses the potential of collaborative group work and
peer assistance to promote mutually responsive learning in the zone of
proximal development (Wells, 1999);

dialogical pedagogy, in which students are invited to retell stories in their own
words, using paraphrase, speculation and counter-fictional utterances
(Skidmore, 2000);
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development

dialogic teaching, which is collective, reciprocal, supportive,
cumulative and purposeful (Alexander, 2004).
The kind of classification which is set out above runs the risk of characterising
teaching as either ‘authoritative’ (monologically organised instruction) or ‘dialogic’
(dialogically organised instruction). The distinction is not made between dialogic
teaching as a whole and dialogic talk as part of this teaching, and so there is the
implicit assumption that dialogic teaching must consist of dialogic episodes of talk
only, and can not allow space for monologic talk.
Dialogic talk / Dialogic teaching distinction
A recent contribution to research on dialogic teaching is the work of Scott et al
(2006) which builds on their earlier work (Mortimer and Scott, 2003). Their concept
of communicative approach (see earlier) breaks the bond between the dialogicity of
the talk and the verbal interactivity; that is, for the talk to be dialogic, it does not
necessarily need to be exchanged between teacher and students. The talk can be
dominated verbally by the teacher, but yet be dialogic. Likewise, students can
participate in answering the teacher's questions, and yet the talk can be
authoritative. In addition, the communicative approach places the authoritative and
dialogic approaches together in one dimension, which leads to the possibility of the
talk being authoritative or dialogic and moving between them within a certain episode
or a certain lesson. In fact, this has led to the view of dialogic teaching, presented by
Scott et al (2006), in which shifting between communicative approaches is
fundamental to teaching for meaningful learning.
Thus, case studies of teaching sequences analysed by Mortimer and Scott (2003)
and Scott et al (2006) illustrate shifts in using the four communicative classes. Scott
et al (2006) focuses specifically on investigating these shifts, referred to a tension
between the dialogic/authoritative and interactive/non-interactive communicative
approaches. They argued that the tension is ‘an inevitable part of teaching whose
purpose is to support meaningful learning of scientific knowledge’ (p.605), and so
dialogic teaching is conceptualised in terms of such movement between the different
approaches. This means that in dialogic teaching, there is no preference of one type
of interaction over the other because each one can have a certain function in a
certain context and for a certain purpose. Adopting such a view of dialogic teaching
contributes to the literature on the dialogicity in classroom by bringing more stability
to its meaning; firstly, by making a distinction between dialogic talk and dialogic
teaching, and secondly by breaking the approach of visualising the teaching as
having to be all dialogic or not dialogic.
In more recent work on investigating dialogic teaching (Mercer, 2007), the following
key features of dialogic teaching, building on the above perspectives, were identified:
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
1. Working on knowledge
a. students make own ideas explicit
b. developing the scientific view
c. juxtaposition of views
d. linking explanations and events
e. temporal management of construction of knowledge
f. handing over responsibility to students
2. Shifts in
communicative
approach
a. authoritative
b. dialogic
c. reciprocating
3. Teacher actions
4. Student engagement
a. purposeful
a. articulate own points of view
b. monitors student understandings
b. refer/respond to views of others
c. asks for reasons and justifications for
views
c. take extended turns
d. raise relevant questions
d. encourages student comments
e. attend to interactions
e. responds to student understandings
f. allows time
g. supportive working atmosphere
Fig: Key features of dialogic teaching.
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Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
5.0: Implications of this literature for S-TEAM: Dialogic Teaching
This research literature provides a range of fundamental tools and stepping off points
for our work with teachers on the S-TEAM, ‘Dialogic Teaching’, project:
Dialogic teaching:
This will be conceptualised in the terms set out by Scott et al (2006) and will thereby
involve shifting between communicative approaches according to teaching purpose.
Approaches to analysing classroom talk
The following concepts will be used in working with teachers and developing
materials to support that work:

communicative approach: with 4 classes of communicative approach

patterns of discourse: I-R-E and I-R-P-R-P- and other related patterns

content of talk: everyday/scientific

teaching purposes
General descriptors of dialogic/authoritative talk

drawing on descriptors such as Nystrand (1997):
dialogically organised instruction

Alexander descriptors of Dialogic Teaching
17
monologically and
Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
6.0: Professional development initiatives in connection to dialogic
teaching
Teachers´ professional development in science education, both pre- and in-service,
has paid little attention to dialogic teaching and, more particularly, the aspects
related to the use of classroom discourse. Furthermore we have found few teacher
training initiatives in the literature focusing on the issue of classroom discourse in
science teaching. Nevertheless the importance of communication in defining good
practice is more widely accepted now and there are a large number of programmes
that provide insights on the shaping of such courses.
6.1: Teacher training in classroom discourse in science
The literature offers few examples of professional development activities closely
related to classroom discourse in science education. We present here two different
lines of interest for dialogic education.
6.1.1: Professional development on argumentation in science classrooms
Argumentation is one of the aspects of discourse in science classrooms that has
received more attention in research, especially since the seminal paper by Driver
and colleagues (2000). Most of the research in this field has dealt with the study of
the use of argumentation in the classroom and of ways to improve it (Osborne et al.,
2001). Much less has been done in relation to the teacher training needed to equip
practitioners with the necessary tools to face this endeavour.
The conceptualisation of argumentation of some authors (see for instance Zohar &
Nemet, 2002) does align with a cognitive perspective of learning and hence does not
easily fit with the socio-cultural perspective of dialogic education. As Sadler (2006)
argues:
“Viewed from this framework [sociocultural perspective] argumentation
is no longer just the expression of reasoning, which implies that
reasoning is the significant process and argumentation is just a
reporting mechanism. In a sociocultural framework, argumentation
assumes a fundamental position in the collective process of making
meaning and affecting learning.” (p. 325)
The research in this latter perspective presents many points of contact with dialogic
education and, hence, the insights coming from professional development initiatives
to improve teachers’ use of argumentation are very useful when approaching the
professional development on dialogic teaching.
We know that argumentation, in one way or another is already part of the curriculum
of many teacher training programmes. Nevertheless we suspect that in most cases
these courses focus on formal aspects of argumentation rather than on helping
18
Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
teachers develop a mastery of its discursive use. Furthermore there are few
examples in the literature where these courses are clearly presented and/or
researched. Two exceptions to this rule are the material IDEAS (Osborne et al.,
2004) and the research by Sadler (2006) on pre-service teacher training.
The work by Osborne and colleagues (2004) presents an in-service workshop
material based on video recordings of instances of use of argumentation in the
classroom. This material is the result of a research project by the same authors on
assisting science teachers develop their skills to teach about ideas, evidence and
argument. The work by Sadler (2006), on the other hand is a research on the
delivery of a course for pre-service science teachers that has as one of its foci the
use of argumentation in the classroom. Sadler’s work show some positive results
but also suggests that changes in this area of teaching take time because of their
transformative perspective and poses the question of the need for studies that follow
the progression of teachers during their practice in schools to better assess the long
term effects of the professional development programmes on classroom discourse.
6.1.2: Professional development on the use of communicative approaches
As we have mentioned before argumentation shares some characteristics with
dialogic education. A perspective more centrally related to dialogic education that
has also been the subject of research and development on teacher training is the
idea of communicative approaches (Mortimer and Scott, 2003).
The use of this concept in connection to teacher development started with EPSE
(Millar et al., 2006) by introducing information on this topic for the teacher in the
designed teaching material. Even though this was intended to support the teachers
in using the material it falls short of a professional development programme.
Nevertheless, the teachers who used the material were positive about the
information contained in the text. A similar approach was used in the Interactive
Teaching project (Scott et al., 2007) with exemplary classroom videos
complementing the written material (see next section). Nevertheless the impact of
this material has not been yet assessed.
Jouni Viiri and colleagues have worked on pre-service courses for science teachers
that have as one of their main foci the use of communicative approaches to plan and
analyse the teachers’ own practice. Their research (Viiri and Saari, 2006;
Lehesvuori et al., unpublished manuscript) suggest that teachers benefited from the
use of this concept and pointed to the importance of being able to analyse more
experienced teachers’ talk with this tool. Furthermore it coincided with Sadler (2006)
on the fact that changes in teachers’ discourse take time.
6.2: Shaping in-service professional development for dialogic education
Any initiative on teacher professional development, especially for in-service
practitioners must consider the continuing professional development (CPD) context
in which it will be implemented. Since 2005, the main push in in-service teacher
19
Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
training in England has been provided by the Regional Science Learning Centres,
which are spread across England, and the National Science Learning Centre,
(http://www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk) based in York in the North of England
(Ametller et al., 2006)
Science learning centres are a national network for professional development in
science teaching. The centres support teachers in enhancing their professional skills
by learning more about contemporary scientific ideas and in experimenting with
effective teaching approaches and gaining experience of modern scientific
techniques.
According to the consortium in charge of the National Centre, the
“Centres will (...) provide a career-long programme of continuing
professional development (CPD) for science teachers, and others such
as technicians and classroom assistants who contribute to science
education” (White Rose Consortium, 2005)
The National and Regional centres are based on a cascade model (Gilpin, 1997;
Hayes, 2000), which we think would be useful for an in-service professional
development initiative in dialogic education. Nevertheless we agree with Brown
(2005) on the importance of teachers’ professional networks.
An aspect of teacher training courses that has been seen to be effective in the
development of complex skills is the use of video recording of classroom practice
(Brophy, 2004). The use of video material has become commonplace in professional
development material in England. An example of this is the material generated by
the Interactive Teaching Project (Scott et al, 2007). This material was developed for
the National Strategies of the Department for Children, Schools and Families
(http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk) which has made it available to all the
secondary schools in England. This material uses excerpts from classroom practice
and teachers’ comments on, for instance, the use of dialogic and authoritative
communicative approaches in the teaching of particular science topics.
Research on the user of this type of material suggests it can be effective (Giza et al,
2008) nevertheless videos from other practitioners are limited when it comes to
reflection on one’s own practice. Reflection on the teachers’ own practice achieves
higher levels when lead by video recordings of their own practice (Rosaen et al.,
2008). Such reflection must be part of any professional development programme that
aims at changing aspects of the teaching, as entrenched in personal beliefs
(Desimon, 2009), as the use of discourse in the classroom.
All these reasons for the use of video in professional development resonate strongly
with the idea of dialogic education. Any programme of in-service teacher training in
this area will probably benefit therefore, from an intensive use of video material, both
exemplary and from the participant teachers, in order to introduce and reflect about
the discursive practices in an environment prone to dialogic engagement.
20
Classroom discourse, dialogic teaching and teacher professional development
Acknowledgement: This review, apart from the work of the two authors, draws on
the scholarship of Asma Almahrouqi, doctoral student at the University of Leeds
21
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