Dialogic Pedagogy: Discourse in Contexts from Pre-school to University 2022055839, 2022055840, 9781032284095, 9781032284101, 9781003296744

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Dialogic Pedagogy

Taking a dialogic approach, this edited book engages in the analysis and description of dialogic discourse in a number of different educational contexts, from early childhood to tertiary, with an international team of contributors from Australia, Finland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The chapters focus mostly on dialogic face-­ to-­face discourse, with some examples of online interactions, and feature insights from educational linguistics, particularly the work of Michael Halliday. While the contributors come from a range of theoretical backgrounds, they all share an interest in language in use and engage in close analysis of transcripts of naturally occurring interaction. Taking inspiration from Alexander and other theorists, they employ a fine-­grained and analytic approach to the exploration of their data. The authors make use of the linguistic tools and models of language in society, in order to examine the turn-­ by-­ turn unfolding of the interaction. The authors relate their insights from disparate forms of linguistic analysis to elements of Alexander’s (2020) dialogic framework, situating the discourse in its contexts and discussing the pedagogical implications of the linguistic choices at play. In presenting this work from a range of situations and perspectives, the authors strive to demonstrate how dialogic discourse plays out in educational contexts across the world. The book aims to foster further research in this direction and to inspire educators to explore dialogic discourse for themselves. It will be of interest to a wide audience, including literacy researchers, linguists, teachers and teacher educators, as well as graduate students. Anne Thwaite is a Lecturer in Language Education in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia. Her research applies a functional perspective to spoken discourse analysis, including classroom discourse, critical discourse analysis and casual conversation. Alyson Simpson is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney in Australia. Her research projects focus on the role of children’s literature in education, the power of dialogic learning and the formation of teacher professional identity through the lens of educational linguistics. Pauline Jones is Associate Professor, Language in Education in the School of Education, at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Her scholarship focuses on educational linguistics/semiotics, which she applies to studies of pedagogic dialogue, advanced literacy skills and teacher development.

Routledge Research in Education

This series aims to present the latest research from right across the field of education. It is not confined to any particular area or school of thought and seeks to provide coverage of a broad range of topics, theories and issues from around the world. Recent titles in the series include: Lived Democracy in Education Young Citizens’ Democratic Lives in Kindergarten, School and Higher Education Edited by Rune Herheim, Tobias Werler, and Kjellrun Hiis Hauge Equity, Teaching Practice and the Curriculum Exploring Differences in Access to Knowledge Edited by Ninni Wahlström Narratives of Qualitative PhD Research Identities, Languages and Cultures in Transition Edited by Laura Gurney, Yi Wang, and Roger Barnard Pragmatist Philosophy for Critical Knowledge, Learning and Consciousness A New Epistemological Framework for Education Neil Hooley Climate Change Education Knowing, Doing and Being Chang Chew Hung Contemporary Perspectives on Cooperative Learning Applications Across Educational Contexts Edited by Robyn M. Gillies, Barbara Millis, and Neil Davidson Dialogic Pedagogy Discourse in Contexts from Pre-school to University Edited by Anne Thwaite, Alyson Simpson, and Pauline Jones For a complete list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Education/book-series/SE0393

Dialogic Pedagogy

Discourse in Contexts from Pre-school to University Edited by Anne Thwaite, Alyson Simpson and Pauline Jones

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Anne Thwaite, Alyson Simpson and Pauline Jones; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Anne Thwaite, Alyson Simpson and Pauline Jones to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Thwaite, Anne, editor. | Simpson, Alyson, editor. | Jones, Pauline, 1958- editor. Title: Dialogic pedagogy : discourse in contexts from pre-school to university / edited by Anne Thwaite, Alyson Simpson and Pauline Jones. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge research in education | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022055839 (print) | LCCN 2022055840 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032284095 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032284101 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003296744 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Interaction analysis in education. | Communication in education. | Language and education. Classification: LCC LB1034 .D53 2023 (print) | LCC LB1034 (ebook) | DDC 371.102/2--dc23/eng/20230120 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055839 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055840 ISBN: 978-1-032-28409-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-28410-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-29674-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744 Typeset in Galliard by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

To Professor Frances Christie, who taught us to approach classroom practice as discourse, who introduced us to Robin Alexander’s work, and whose own work continues to guide our scholarship. Thank you, Fran.

Contents

List of tables List of figures List of contributors PART 1

Theoretical framework 1 Research into dialogic pedagogy through the lens of

educational linguistics

x xii xiii 1 3

ALYSON SIMPSON, ANNE THWAITE AND PAULINE JONES

2 Classroom discourse analysis

17

ANNE THWAITE

PART 2

Dialogic pedagogy in Early Childhood contexts

33

3 Perceiving, labelling and knowing: Mediating educational

meanings through multimodal dialogue in Montessori early years classrooms

35

SUSAN FEEZ

4 The contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’ to successful literacy transitions in English curriculum

52

PAULINE JONES AND IRAM SIRAJ

5 “We’re going to do it together”: Dialogic discourse with young children in Western Australia ANNE THWAITE

69

viii Contents PART 3

Dialogic pedagogy in Primary School contexts 6 Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication

in primary schools

89 91

CHRISTINE EDWARDS-GROVES AND CHRISTINA DAVIDSON

7 Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised students in the middle years

109

HELEN HARPER AND BRONWYN PARKIN

8 The changing patterns of classroom interaction: Teacher interventions in students’ creative collaboration in makerspaces 124 KRISTIINA KUMPULAINEN, ANU KAJAMAA AND JASMIINA LESKINEN

PART 4

Dialogic pedagogy in Secondary School contexts 9 Writing talk: Investigating metalinguistic dialogue

about written texts

139 141

DEBRA MYHILL AND RUTH NEWMAN

10 Street Smarts: A developing critical thinking talk framework for adolescents

155

MAREE DAVIES, SIMON ESLING AND PATRICK GIRARD

11 When monologue isn’t: Towards a linguistic description of Alexander’s six principles

171

ERIKA MATRUGLIO

PART 5

Dialogic pedagogy in Tertiary Education contexts

187

12 Dialogic pedagogy: Blended learning in initial teacher

education 189 ALYSON SIMPSON AND TINGJIA WANG

13 A dialogic approach to teacher professional development

205

CAROLE BIGNELL

14 Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education MARION HERON

220

Contents  ix

15 Collaborative knowledge building: The dynamic life of ideas in online discussion forums

235

JANINE DELAHUNTY, PAULINE JONES AND IRINA VERENIKINA

PART 6

Epilogue

253

16 Epilogue 255 ROBIN J. ALEXANDER

Appendix: Transcription conventions260 Index261

Tables

2.1 Speech function 2.2 Exchange structure 3.1 Geometric solids – first period 3.2 Multimodal naming and defining 4.1 Examples of language and learning in the EYLF 4.2 Examples of language and learning in the AC: E (Foundation Level) 4.3 Sustained shared thinking Extract 1 4.4 Sustained shared thinking Extract 2 4.5 Kindergarten English Lesson Extract 1 4.6 Kindergarten English Lesson Extract 2 5.1 How the principles are expressed 6.1 Excerpt 1: Looking here, who can remember? 6.2 Excerpt 2: The IRF 6.3 Excerpt 3a: Who can add to that? 6.4 Excerpt 3b: No no no it doesn’t belong to her 7.1 Extract 1 7.2 Extract 2 8.1 Authoritative intervention strategy in use 8.2 Orchestrating intervention strategy in use 8.3 Unleashing intervention strategy in use 9.1 A framework for collaborative talk 9.2 Extract of group dialogue with coding symbols 9.3 The final set of themes derived from the inductive coding 9.4 The codes clustered in the discussion theme 9.5 A critical incident 10.1 Analysing Critical Thinking in Group Constellations Coding – Respect for Reasons 10.2 Analysing critical thinking in group constellations coding – respect for difference 10.3 Analysing critical thinking in group constellations coding – other (questions or discourse to foster interaction) 10.4 Example of students using ‘respect for reasons’ 10.5 Example of students using respect for difference

20 22 44 48 55 55 59 60 62 64 85 97 97 100 103 115 119 130 131 132 144 145 148 148 150 162 163 164 165 165

Tables  xi 10.6 Example of students using respect for difference with an ad hominem attack 11.1 Use of first person 11.2 Creating a collective environment 11.3 Evaluations, categories and targets in teacher talk 11.4 First and second person 11.5 Aggregating from reading 11.6 Structure of the discussion 11.7 Unpacking and elaborating on the syllabus terms 11.8 Technical concepts in CAFS 11.9 Mass and presence in the data 12.1 The Big Wave 12.2 A Small Wave 12.3 One loop in the Small Wave 12.4 Phase 4 optional question 12.5 Two types of dialogic learning 13.1 Research timeline 14.1 Contextual details 14.2 Coding system for linguistic features 14.3 Liberal arts seminar extract 14.4 SRI teacher A 14.5 Tourism management seminar extract 14.6 SRI teacher B 14.7 Health psychology seminar extract 14.8 SRI teacher C 15.1 Legend used in the findings 15.2 Forum 1, Discussion thread 1 15.3 Forum 5, Discussion thread 1

166 173 174 176 178 180 181 182 182 183 192 194 196 197 198 209 223 225 226 227 227 228 229 229 240 243 246

Figures

3.1 Lily using both hands to feel the triangular-based pyramid 3.2 Building angles with the ‘sticks’ 4.1 The analytic model (Source Rose, 2018) 6.1 Facing the front during a story retell 6.2a Positioning, orientation and gaze 6.2b Movement in the walk-and-talk 10.1 Simplified street smarts model showing circuitous, iterative process 11.1 Simplified appraisal system network 15.1 Forum 1 Case Study task (Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels) 15.2 Forum 5 Case Study task (Photo by Marta Klimczyk from Pexels)

43 47 57 96 99 102 157 175 241 244

Contributors

Robin J. Alexander is Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, Professor of Education Emeritus at the University of Warwick and Fellow of the British Academy. He has also held chairs in education at the universities of Leeds and York and visiting posts outside the United Kingdom. His Culture and pedagogy (2001) won the Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association, while Children, their world, their education (2010), and his work as director of the Cambridge Primary Review, won the SES Book Awards First Prize and the BERA/ Sage Public Impact and Engagement Award. Carole Bignell is a Lecturer in the School of Education and Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. Her scholarship focuses on educational linguistics, specifically pedagogic dialogue and teacher development. She is particularly interested in how teachers can be supported to act as peer coaches (using videos of their lessons as a focus for reflection) in the development of dialogic teaching skills. Recent publications include “Promoting NQT linguistic awareness of dialogic teaching practices: a dialogic model of professional development” (Bignell, 2018) and “School and university in partnership: a shared inquiry into teachers’ collaborative practices” (Oates and Bignell, 2019). Email: [email protected] Christina Davidson is an Associate Professor in Literacy at Charles Sturt University, Australia. Her research focuses on children’s social interactions in literacy lessons and during use of digital technologies at home and in preschools. Christina is a conversation analyst and the author of the highly cited article “Transcription: imperatives for qualitative research” (2009). She is the co-­author of Becoming a meaning maker: talk and interaction in the dialogic classroom (2017), with fellow CSU researcher Christine Edwards-­ Groves. In addition, Christina is a co-­editor of Digital childhoods (2018) with Susan Danby, Marilyn Fleer and Maria Hatzigianni. Maree Davies is a Senior Lecturer at The University of Auckland. Her scholarship includes discourse analysis within dialogical discussions that focuses on critical thinking.

xiv Contributors She is currently working on evaluating the project Street Smarts, a critical thinking model of talk especially designed for adolescent learners that is contexualised across high school curriculum. She has developed a coding scheme for analysing critical thinking in dialogical discussions that includes the philosophical, critical pedagogy and psychological aspects of critical thinking (with Katarina Kiemer and Adam Dalgleish) in Analysing critical thinking in group discussions: from discussion analysis to analyzing social modes of thinking (2018). Email: [email protected] Janine Delahunty is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Education (University of Wollongong) and an Adjunct Fellow of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (Curtin University). She has had sustained interest in educational equity, including the impact of asynchronous discussions in the online learning space, the complexities of discussion and the effect on the teaching-­learning experience. Janine has fostered her interests through involvement in a number of equity-­focused research projects and has published across higher education, linguistic and academic development journals, also making significant contributions to translating empirical data into practical end-­user resources. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Email: [email protected] Christine Edwards-­Groves is Professor (Literacy and Professional Practice) at Australian Catholic University, Australia. Christine researches classroom interaction and dialogic pedagogies in literacy, and middle leadership. With Christina Davidson she was recipient of the inaugural Literacy Research Project funded by the Primary English Teaching Association Australia; results are published in Becoming a meaning maker: talk and interaction in the dialogic classroom (2017). Christine has recently published two texts related to teacher learning and middle leadership – Middle leadership in schools (2020) and Generative leadership (2021). Email: christine.edwards-­[email protected] Simon Esling is a Senior eResearch Engagement Specialist at The University of Auckland. His research interests revolve around the support and enhancement of critical thinking for postgraduate students and research data management for academic staff. His current work is exploring the potential for collective critical thinking as a method of navigating novel information by indigenous researchers. Simon has co-­authored (with Maree Davies) The use of quality talk to foster critical thinking in a low socio-­economic secondary geography classroom (2020) and co-­presented (with Dahlia Han) Outreaching, collaborating and connecting: specialised services supporting researchers for the Performance-­ Based Research Fund (2017) at the eResearch Australasia Conference, Brisbane. Susan Feez is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education at the University of New England, Australia. Susan has worked as a classroom teacher specialising in English language,

Contributors  xv literacy, EAL/D and Montessori education. She applies educational linguistics to her teaching and research in these fields. Susan co-­edited (with Helen Harper) An EAL/D handbook: teaching and learning across the curriculum when English is an additional language or dialect (2021) and (with Helen de Silva Joyce) Multimodality across classrooms: learning about and through different modalities (2019). Susan also authored Montessori and early childhood (2010) and Montessori: the Australian story (2013). Email: sfeez@une. edu.au Patrick Girard is a Senior Lecturer at The University of Auckland, with a PhD in philosophy from Stanford University (2008). He is an award-­winning philosopher with several publications in top-­tier logic and philosophy journals. His paper “Everything else being equal: a modal logic for ceteris paribus preferences” was chosen in the 2009 Philosopher’s Annual, a selection of the ten best philosophy papers published every year. Since then, it has been amongst the most cited recent works in the field. With Professor Tim Dare, Girard created Logical and Critical Thinking, a massive open online course on basic logical methodology hosted by FutureLearn. The course has been offered through the FutureLearn platform to nearly half a million students in 130 countries since 2015. Helen Harper is Senior Lecturer of English, Literacies and Languages Education in the School of Education at the University of New England in Australia. Her current research interests include collaborating with teachers to apply principles of scaffolding language across the school curriculum. She is co-­author (with Bronwyn Parkin) of Teaching with Intent: 2: literature-­ based literacy teaching and learning (2019) and (with Susan Feez) An EAL/D handbook: teaching and learning across the curriculum when English is an additional language or dialect (2021). Email: [email protected] Marion Heron is Associate Professor in Educational Linguistics in the Surrey Institute of Education at the University of Surrey. Her research focuses on higher education classroom discourse, classroom interaction, oracy skills and professional and academic writing. She is currently researching the relationship between dialogic teaching and teaching critical thinking, and classroom feedback talk. She is co-­ author (with Doris Dippold) of Meaningful Classroom Interaction at the Internationalised University (2021). Email: [email protected] Pauline Jones is Associate Professor, Language in Education in the School of Education at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Her scholarship focuses on educational linguistics/semiotics which she applies to studies of pedagogic dialogue, advanced literacy skills and teacher development. She is currently studying literacy transitions, subject-­ specific writing and representation in Science, history and English and literacy for active citizenship. She is co-­author (with Beverly Derewianka) of Teaching language in context

xvi Contributors (2022) and (with Alyson Simpson and Anne Thwaite) Talking the talk: snapshots from Australian classrooms (2018). Email: [email protected] Anu Kajamaa is a Professor of Education (continuous learning), at the Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Finland. She is also an Honorary Professor, University of Exeter, UK. She has conducted collaborative research projects in school-­based makerspaces, entrepreneurship contexts and other hybrid settings, and also in health care. She has published 100 publications and has received international awards. She is the co-­ editor (with K. Kumpulainen, O. Erstad, Å. Mäkitalo, K. Drotner, & S. Jakobsdottir) of the book titled Nordic childhoods in the digital age: insights into contemporary research on communication, learning and education (2022), Routledge. She is also the co-­editor (with K. Kumpulainen) of the double special theme issue Young people, digital mediation, and transformative agency (2019) published in the journal Mind, Culture and Activity. Email: [email protected] Kristiina Kumpulainen is Professor of Educational Technology and Learning Design at the Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada. She also holds a professorship at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her ongoing research focuses on children’s digital literacies, agency and learning in formal education and in communities. She has researched and developed pedagogies for children’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) learning, multiliteracies and environmental education. She is the co-­editor (with A. Blum-­Ross & J. Marsh) of Enhancing digital literacy and creativity: makerspaces in the early years (2020) and (with J. Sefton-­Green) Multiliteracies and early years innovation: perspectives from Finland and beyond (2019). Email: ­[email protected] Jasmiina Leskinen is a Doctoral researcher in the doctoral program in School, Education, Society, and Culture at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research is grounded on sociocultural theorising and her current research explores social processes of distributed leadership, students’ emergent leadership, and students’ and teachers’ collective innovation practices within a primary school’s makerspace. She is a member of the Playful Learning Center, and the Learning, Culture and Interventions expert group at the University of Helsinki. Email: [email protected] Erika Matruglio is Senior Lecturer, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in the School of Education at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Her research explores connections between language, knowledge, and values and disciplinary bases of these connections. Her scholarship employs complementary theories of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory to explore literacy practices in schooling, engaging with topics such as the nature of classroom discourse, conditions

Contributors  xvii enabling cumulative knowledge building, disciplinarity and the demands of writing in the disciplines. She is the editor (with Pauline Jones and Christine Edwards-­Groves) of Transition and continuity in school literacy development (2021). Email: [email protected] Debra Myhill is Professor Emerita of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Exeter. Her research has focused particularly on the inter-­ relationship between metalinguistic understanding and writing; the talk-­ writing interface; young people’s composing processes and their metacognitive awareness of them; and the teaching of writing. She is former Director of the Centre for Research in Writing, which promotes inter-­disciplinary research, drawing on psychological, socio-­cultural and linguistic perspectives on writing. Email: [email protected] Ruth Newman is Associate Professor in Education at the University of Exeter, where she leads on the MA Language and Literacy programmes. Her research interests centre around the role of talk in teaching and learning, the teaching of collaborative talk, the role of meta-­talk and emotional engagement in talk and the potential of dialogic pedagogies for writing. She is currently Principal Investigator on a grant researching metatalk in writing. Bronwyn Parkin is Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Her scholarship focuses on literacy education and pedagogy for marginalised students. She is currently working on pedagogies to support the development of academic oral and written language in the Primary years of schooling, with a focus on the learning areas of English and Science. She is co-­author (with Helen Harper) of Teaching with intent: scaffolding academic language with marginalised students (2018) and Teaching with intent 2: literature-­based literacy teaching and learning (2019) and (with Julie Hayes) Teaching the language of climate change ­science (2021). Alyson Simpson is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney in Australia. She lectures in pre-­service teacher programmes in English/literacy education. Her research projects in higher education and primary schools focus on the role of children’s literature in education, the power of dialogic learning and the impact of digital technology on reading practices and pedagogy. She is currently researching the impact of dialogic assessment on pre-­service teachers’ pedagogic reasoning. Her most recent co-­edited publication is Developing habits of noticing in literacy and language classrooms: research and practice across professional cultures (2020). Email: [email protected] Iram Siraj is Professor of Child Development and Education at the University of Oxford. She has co-­directed longitudinal research, including the Effective provision of pre-­school, primary and secondary education (DfE, 1997–2015)

xviii Contributors and the Effective early educational experiences in Australia (E4Kids, ARC, 2009–2015). Her recent studies on professional development are all cluster RCTs of evidence-­based interventions looking at the impact of evidence-­ based professional development to improve outcomes for young children, e.g., in NSW, Fostering effective early learning (2018). Amongst her many published works, she has authored an award-­winning book Social class and educational inequality: the role of parents and schools (2015). Anne Thwaite is a Lecturer in Language Education in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia. She has taught at three different universities in Australia, as well as at tertiary level in Singapore, China, Seychelles and Vietnam. Her current research deals with educational linguistics, spoken discourse analysis and teacher knowledge about language (KAL). She has recently published on Halliday’s theory of child language development (2019), classroom discourse analysis (with Pauline Jones & Alyson Simpson 2018, 2020) and assignment prompts for academic writing (with colleagues at ECU, 2021). Email: [email protected] Irina Verenikina is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Wollongong. Her research expertise is in the application of Sociocultural Psychology and Activity Theory to the study of the effective use of digital technologies in teaching and learning in various educational contexts such as early childhood, literacy, higher education and inclusivity. She is a leader in the international society of sociocultural and activity researchers; she chaired the 4th International Triennial Congress of the society in Sydney. She is an Associate Investigator at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Tingjia Wang is Assistant Professor in Hiroshima University, holding a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Sydney. Her research expertise spans over fields of Applied Linguistics, Initial Teacher Education, Multimodal Literacies and Social Semiotics. Her current leading research grant informs Initial Teacher Education in two domains. One is genre-­based pedagogy within the systemic functional linguistics theory. The other is multimodal literacies with a focus on the effective use of digital media in literacy practices. She is the Coordinator of Postgraduate Tutor Training program in Hiroshima University Writing Center, developing, implementing and assessing the pre-­service training in the field of English for Academic Purposes.

Part 1

Theoretical framework

1 Research into dialogic pedagogy through the lens of educational linguistics Alyson Simpson, Anne Thwaite and Pauline Jones

Introduction Alexander dedicates his 2020 volume on dialogic teaching thus: “For my grandchildren and those who teach them”. These few words encapsulate the place of dialogue in learning: its primacy, its cultural and social significance, and its power in the hands of the expert other. Literacy learning is said to “float on a sea of talk” (Britton, 1970, p. 164). Compelling as this metaphor is, it might also be taken to mean that talk is a kind of benign, supportive environment within which other activity takes place. As with any representation, there are limits and alternatives that need to be considered. Talk is not innocent. Talk is never ‘just talk’. Commentary from socio-cultural theory notes that power relations are always at play in any interaction. Indeed, in the context of political unrest in the 21st century, talk was seen both to spread misinformation and incite civil unrest and alternatively offer visions of ‘truth’. Though this book addresses dialogue in more localised, educational contexts, the contributors argue that more careful attention needs to be paid to talk because of its potential to control, to reproduce deeply entrenched prejudice and inequity, and to maintain existing hierarchies of power and authority. The proposition is, that without careful monitoring, deliberate planning and critical reflection, classroom talk is often far from benign. In his recent writing, Barnes (2010, p. 7) noted “some kinds of talk contribute to understanding without necessarily adding new material” (emphasis added). He contrasted this productive kind of talk with “right answerism” (2010, p. 7), where students merely parrot back to the teacher what has been told to them, noting that very little learning takes place in this kind of exchange. As Alexander (2020) has stated, talk is key to learning and teaching, to the development of critical awareness, talk is a means of building social relationships and talk contributes to the formation of personal and cultural identity. The reason it is important to pay attention to these claims is that the impact of limiting student participation in classroom dialogue exacerbates other differences caused by inequitable access to education. Giving children and young people the right to speak and multiple opportunities within which their voices are heard is key to democratic engagement. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-2

4  Alyson Simpson et al. So, we introduce this book by provoking consideration of language as social action. We claim that work that supports teachers to develop enriched insights into the situated use of dialogic pedagogy is crucial to scaffolding the learner agency so necessary to an engaged citizenry. Our approach is linguistically oriented, which means the book contributes to the field by focussing on talk through a close focus on language used in pedagogic interactions. It is important for scholarship on this topic to evolve and build momentum, as education policy in some contexts has been slow to recognise the essential value of talk and in others has devalued its inclusion in curriculum in favour of privileging reading and writing. Therefore, there is urgency for researchers to continue to press the case for the responsible use of talk and for evidence to be collected that broadens our views of what that might look like. While much previous work on dialogic discourse has been located in primary (elementary) school contexts, we are pleased to be able to include in our text investigations into the wide span of educational levels from preschool to tertiary settings, and from a range of countries, comprising the United Kingdom, Finland, New Zealand and Australia. The team of researchers assembled to address this topic share the same commitment to revealing through metalinguistic commentary the power of talk to shape learning and the need for “active student engagement and constructive teacher intervention” (Alexander, 2020, p. 13). The authors come from a variety of theoretical backgrounds but all have been influenced by the work of Alexander on making the characteristics of rich educational discourse more visible. The other major inspiration for most of us has been the linguist Michael Halliday, whose view of language as a social semiotic has been applied internationally and who taught us the centrality of “learning how to mean” (Halliday, 1975). The strength of using Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in conjunction with Alexander’s approach is that it enables the ‘realisation’ or expression of how teachers and students use talk to negotiate meaning to be explored as several contributors to the book do. Many of the authors whose work is presented here come from a functional linguistic background or work with SFL. Of course, we recognise that sociocultural approaches to learning that focus on language (perhaps less strongly linguistically oriented) also have similar potential and thus contributors to the volume are drawn from this field more broadly, to represent a wide range of views, united by their commitment to enhancing educational dialogue. The authors adopt a range of analytical perspectives, often alongside those discussed above. These include multimodal discourse analysis (see Feez), Practice Architectures (see Edwards-Groves and Davidson), Lefstein and Snell (derived from Alexander) (see Heron), Interaction Analysis (see Kumpulainen, Kajamaa and Leskinen) and Critical Incident Technique (see Myhill and Newman); some authors have also devised their own means of analysis. As stated above, the motivation for each study reported, and, for this book, is to support social justice and “equitable learning outcomes” (Simpson, this volume) for all. For this reason, the Australian studies here, in particular, look at educational contexts where there are multicultural,

Research into dialogic pedagogy through educational linguistics  5 multilingual and Indigenous students; after all, approximately 25% of Australian school students speak Standard Australian English as an additional language or dialect (Harper & Feez, 2021). Dialogic discourse, especially in regard to Alexander’s principles of collective, supportive and reciprocal dialogue (see Harper and Parkin, this volume), can help marginalised students participate in educational contexts. We, along with Lefstein and Snell (2014), believe that there is no such thing as ‘best practice’ but rather that educators need to be informed and empowered to effectively engage with their students, scaffold and negotiate through a range of dialogic repertoires so as to support their growth into agentive meaning makers.

Section 1 – Dialogic pedagogy through the lens of educational linguistics Theoretical background. Our particular approach to explorations of classroom talk is framed by both dialogic theory and educational linguistics. Dialogic theory “argues that education more generally takes place within dialogic human relationships in which students learn to see things from at least two perspectives at once, their own point of view and that of their teacher” (Wegerif, 2008, p. 353). Through the process of identifying some of the prior work in this area, our goal is to avoid the usage of the term to refer simply to dialogue, and, rather, establish a nuanced appreciation of dialogic approaches to discourse analysis. We aim to avoid reductionism but encourage a "creative space for reflection" (Wegerif, 2008, p. 358) from which we work toward a collective understanding of the meaning of ‘dialogic’. Below is a list of some of the key researchers in the field who have variously investigated dialogic talk. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia entry on Dialogic Education by Wegerif (2019) discusses the topic of dialogic talk and dialogic teaching approaches from a broad range of perspectives. The purposes of dialogic talk can be classified, according to Mercer et al. (2020), by pedagogic purpose as, for example, exploratory talk (e.g., Barnes, 1976, 2008, 2010), accountable talk (e.g., Michaels et al., 2002; Resnick et al., 2015) cumulative talk and disputational talk (e.g., Mercer, 1995, 1996, 2000), collaborative reasoning (e.g., Chinn & Anderson, 1998; Reznitskaya et al., 2012), joint exploration (e.g., Roschelle & Teasley, 1995; Schwartz, 1995), deliberative discourse (e.g., Felton et al., 2009; Mercer, 1995), academically productive talk (Michaels & O’Connor, 2015) and ‘talk moves’ (e.g., O’Connor et al., 2015). We note that few contributors to this encyclopedia draw on linguistic approaches, particularly those from the field of educational linguistics in which much attention has been paid to interaction and its place in learning. Alexander is one of the best-known scholars to use the term dialogic. His original core text, Towards Dialogic Teaching (2004), set out five ‘principles’ to inform pedagogic approaches to the use of talk in classrooms. The principles through which teachers enable students to build ‘coherent lines of thinking and enquiry’ (Alexander & Wolfe, 2008, p. 8) are well known and

6  Alyson Simpson et al. include (1) Collective: the classroom is a site of joint learning and enquiry; (2) Reciprocal: participants listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints; (3) Supportive: participants feel able to express ideas freely, without risk of embarrassment over “wrong” answers, and they help each other to reach common understandings; (4) Cumulative: participants build on their own and each other’s contributions and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and understanding; (5) Purposeful: classroom talk, though open and dialogic, is structured with specific learning goals in view. More recently, Alexander has added a sixth principle, that dialogic talk should be (6)‘Deliberative’. By this he suggests that “Participants discuss and seek to resolve different points of view, they present and evaluate arguments and they work towards reasoned positions and outcomes” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). Alexander recommends teachers become adept at encouraging fluid dialogue that is responsive to context, which depends on the pedagogical strategy of matching communicative approach to teaching purpose through a repertoire of talk types (Alexander, 2020). Though less well known, importantly, the concept of repertoire for dialogic teaching recognises that successful classroom discourse, which supports equitable curriculum outcomes, depends on appropriate contributions from all participants, including both teachers and students. That is, “there is no single ‘best practice’ formula” (Alexander, 2020, p. 133) for designing classroom discourse. Rather, in order to address the challenge of teaching in all its complexity, the interaction must meet the educational intent and choices made will be dependent on the intellectual judgement of the teacher. To help provide guidance to the deliberations and support learner agency, Alexander proposed eight dialogic repertoires, including: (1) An Interactive Culture: the shared “discourse norms” for classroom talk (2020, p. 138); (2) Interactive Settings: the organised facilitation of students in space and time; (3) Learning Talk: the patterns of exchange between speaker and listener associated with “education tasks of learning and making sense” (2020, p. 143); (4) Teacher Talk: the talk that triggers and shapes dialogic learning opportunities (p. 144); (5) Questioning; (6) Extending: the talk that “prompts reasoning and further talk” (2020, p. 150); (7) Discussing; and (8) Arguing. While some of his early work was richly conceptual, a more recent project incorporating a Random Control Trial (Alexander, 2018) has demonstrated the positive impact of the approach on student learning. In the editors’ earlier work we have shown the productive benefits of incorporating SFL in explorations of dialogic learning and teaching (Jones & Hammond, 2016; Thwaite et al., 2020). We argue that SFL provides a theoretical model through which any stretch of discourse may be interrogated for its linguistic components. The benefit of the analytic tools associated with SFL is that they make visible the interaction patterns that occur as a result of dialogic discourse, while taking a holistic approach to describing any text (spoken, written or multimodal) in terms of its genre (patterns of language that enable the text to achieve its social purpose) and register (the situation in which

Research into dialogic pedagogy through educational linguistics  7 the interaction takes place). Register is described in terms of the Field (what is being discussed or the activity that is being undertaken), the Tenor (­ relationships being constructed among the participants) and the Mode (spoken/written and the medium of communication). See Chapter 2 for further information. To date, little work has been carried out on the realisations of Alexander’s work in relation to the SFL model of discourse. This is one area in which we hope the chapters in this volume will make a contribution. For example, as the concept of genre refers to “a staged, goal-oriented social process” (Martin, 1992, p. 505), it clearly relates to Alexander’s Purposeful principle, where talk is seen as working towards a goal. Reciprocity may be investigated by examining patterns of Initiation and Response in the Speech Function analysis (see Halliday, 1985, pp. 68–70); the Supportive principle is well illustrated by dynamic moves in the Exchange Structure analysis and the Appraisal framework (see Berry 1981a, b, c; Martin, 1992, pp. 46–50; Martin & Rose, 2007; Martin & White, 2005); and various types of Cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) lend themselves to tracking the Cumulative principle. The Collective principle will be tied up with Tenor, including how other participants in the discourse are addressed; and the Deliberative principle, which relates to argumentation, is concerned, among other things, with turn-taking in interactions. In relation to the Repertoires, the linguistic tools of SFL analysis also support the exploration of classroom discourse. For example, Register analysis supports an exploration of Repertoires 1, 3 and 4, tracing the realisation of culture, sense making and learning opportunities negotiated between teacher and students. Exchange Structure analysis can make clear the management of Repertoire 5, Questioning. Chapters in the book explore these repertoires in different ways.

Section 2 – Our approach to classroom discourse studies The studies in this volume cut across educational settings, across geographical locations and across age-groups, thus providing a cross-sectional view of pedagogic practice. Different types of dialogic pedagogy, as well as metalinguistic talk (see Myhill et al., this volume) are examined, so too are educational philosophies including Montessori (see Feez, this volume). They describe the learning that takes place as participants negotiate activities relevant for educational goals of the particular context – be it prior to school or secondary subject classrooms or the tertiary seminar. In this way, we glimpse the full range of participation structures that can constitute dialogic pedagogy, avoiding the tendency identified by Myhill and Newman (2019) to position dialogic and monologic teaching as binaries in the research. In this research, dialogic teaching is often valorised as ‘better’ learning talk than the tightly controlled, teacher-dominated triadic discourse characteristic of monologic teaching. Instead, here the contributions reflect the wave-like nature of pedagogic practice; the movement between more strongly framed teacher-fronted episodes and more loosely framed learning activities (Martin, 2005).

8  Alyson Simpson et al. The linguistic study of classroom talk is painstaking work. The task of collecting data involves much negotiation, careful design and strong relationships between the researcher and the participant. With this in mind, we acknowledge the participants whose daily work of teaching and learning is reported on in the following chapters: the educators and students whose contributions shape the learning environments described, who allow the researchers into their spaces, and who frequently are called upon to contribute their accounts of events via interviews. The researchers who contribute to this volume have spent many hours in educational settings: establishing and maintaining relationships, working shoulder to shoulder with educators, gathering data, acting as a conduit between the study setting and the academy, often data collecting and then sitting with that data for many hours in order to better understand how educational dialogue ‘works’. This volume captures the variety of tools that classroom discourse analysts use, tools which work with varying degrees of formality, at varying levels of specificity and that have differing technical languages. Despite this variety, what is common to the analysts is the transcript, central to rendering talk visible and for focussing our attention on the dynamics of educational interactions at the micro level. And while contributors work with different conventions for marking up transcripts, most labour is undertaken by hand, there are few automated tools for analysing discourse patterns. Thus, we acknowledge the highly precise nature of the research, the technical and theoretical know-how represented here. As a result of the time-consuming nature of linguistic analyses of classroom discourse and despite the considerable interest in pedagogic dialogue, it remains an under-researched area. Most studies are small scale and, while they deliver detail, they cannot be generalised to larger populations. However, in the specialised nature of the studies in this volume, in their attention to detail, lies their strength: their depth of observation and analysis, and the richness of their description. While data from some contexts is increasingly hard to come by, due to ethical sensitivities and the increasing pressures on educational sites, it is pleasing to note that many of the authors here have made use of not only audio- but also video-recorded data. This enables the representation of multi-modal (including embodied) meaning making and includes discourse from online educational interactions. Individually and collectively, the chapters present data and interpretations offering readers unique opportunities to gain insights into the daily work of ‘those who teach’ as well as those who learn, and the place of language – that most powerful but often ‘taken-for-granted’ means through which learning takes place.

Section 3 – Overview of the book Following an introduction to classroom discourse analysis in Chapter 2, this book is organised chronologically in terms of the age of the interactants involved in the discourse, from early childhood to tertiary level.

Research into dialogic pedagogy through educational linguistics  9 Early childhood Much of the current interest in dialogic theory derives from efforts to improve classroom talk and hence students’ literacy outcomes in primary and secondary schools (e.g., Edwards-Groves & Davidson, 2017; Thwaite et al., 2020). Yet prior to school settings are often overlooked in these endeavours (Jones & Siraj, this volume). The chapters in this section aim to address this issue. Susan Feez reports on a study which investigates how a three-stage dialogic pedagogy first described by Montessori in 1909 (Montessori, 1965/1909) is applied in present-day high-fidelity Montessori classrooms. The three-part lesson is a multimodal dialogic routine through which young children learn to perceive and label phenomena in ways that lead them incrementally into the domains of educational knowledge (Feez, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2019, 2020). This dialogic routine remains a pedagogic strategy used in Montessori classrooms around the world today, showing a positive impact on student outcomes (Lillard, 2012). Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj address this issue by looking at the concept of sustained shared thinking (SST) (Siraj et al., 2015). SST refers to interactions in which two or more individuals (e.g., an adult and child, or peers) cooperate “in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate activities, or extend a narrative” (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009, p. 79), that is, dialogue that extends thinking. This chapter explores interactions in which learners in preschool and early school are enculturated into the ways of thinking and acting valued in English curriculum. In a chapter analysing spoken discourse in various early childhood contexts, Anne Thwaite revisits classroom interactions from a number of projects engaged in by the author and colleagues, re-analysing them from both a dialogic and an SFL perspective. The data drawn upon is from projects in Western Australia with children aged from approximately five to eight years in primary (elementary) classrooms. The author illustrates some of the synergies between the two frameworks of analysis and demonstrates how Alexander’s principles may be realised linguistically. Thus, by exemplifying and analysing the kinds of classroom discourse that could be considered dialogic, the chapter has practical applications for pre-service and in-service teacher education. Primary This section explores the discourse of primary (elementary) students in various contexts in both Finland and Australia. Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson focus on dialogic discourse in primary school learning experiences, drawing attention to what teachers and learners notice about the nature and influence of the ‘practice architectures’ of primary classroom lessons where there is dialogic talk. This chapter considers how embodied features of interaction such as gaze,

10  Alyson Simpson et al. gesture, positionality and physical set-ups influence the nature of dialogic talk, and variously reflect Alexander’s (2020) conceptual framework. It is argued that noticing and attending to embodiment in lessons helps teachers and learners understand and develop the efficacy of the talk and interaction that comprise their classroom discussions. Considering the constancy of international research on efficacy in pedagogical dialogues, the chapter argues for the need to revisit dialogicality in terms of practice architectures in lessons and its related aspects of embodiment. Focussing on marginalised students, Bronwyn Parkin and Helen Harper build on their recent research on the dynamic nature of dialogic pedagogy (Parkin & Harper, 2018). Their interest is in how teachers build ‘common knowledge’ (Edwards & Mercer, 1987) with students who are at risk of being marginalised in classroom dialogue, whether because they are learning English as an additional language and/or because they are not tuned in to the purposes of academically oriented interaction. To participate in classroom talk on an equal footing with their peers, such students require highly nuanced, contingent support from the teacher (Harper et al., 2018). In particular, they need support to make and express meaning in academic disciplines. As reflected in Alexander’s six principles (2020), the overarching challenge is for teachers to be purposeful (or ‘intentional’) in managing classroom dialogue for social and academic ends. The authors report on work with a small group of teachers in a primary school context with high numbers of EAL/D and Indigenous students, exploring implications for teacher professional learning. Kristiina Kumpulainen, Anu Kajamaa and Jasmiina Leskinen look at educational makerspaces, novel technology-rich learning environments, which are changing traditional patterns of classroom interaction. Despite the educational potential of makerspaces in enhancing students’ interest, engagement and learning in STEM fields (e.g., Peppler et al., 2016), so far relatively little research has focussed on teacher–student and student–student interaction in makerspaces and how these interactions mediate engagement and learning opportunities. Drawing on sociocultural and dialogic approaches (Alexander, 2020; Mercer et al., 2020) and interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995), the chapter addresses this gap by discussing two studies from a larger program of research on the educational potential of makerspaces in Finnish primary schools. Secondary In secondary and tertiary contexts students encounter increasingly specialised subject areas and the discourse associated with them. In this section, the authors look at some secondary classrooms in England, New Zealand and Australia. Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman describe different analytical processes for examining talk in secondary classrooms in England, focussing on how close scrutiny of classroom interaction can illustrate and illuminate students’

Research into dialogic pedagogy through educational linguistics  11 metalinguistic learning about written language. To establish a contextual framing for the chapter, the authors first outline the concept of metalinguistic talk and its relationship with dialogic talk, explaining how metalinguistic talk is a tool for verbalising our understanding about how language works in written texts, thus making learning visible for shared exploration (Chen & Jones, 2012; Chen & Myhill, 2016; Myhill & Newman, 2019). The research shows that students’ linguistic decision-making is facilitated through opportunities to verbalise their metalinguistic thinking about choices in writing (Myhill et al., 2020; Myhill & Newman, 2016). In a New Zealand context, Maree Davies, Simon Esling and Patrick Girard describe a developing model of talk, called Street Smarts, specially designed for high school-aged students, using it to investigate different aspects of critical thinking. The model comprises two sections focussing on different aspects of critical thinking: Respect for Reason (Facione, 1990), which focuses on the psychological attributes, and Respect for Difference, which focuses on the critical pedagogy aspects (Freire, 1970; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006). While previous models of talk, such as Exploratory Talk (Wegerif et al., 1999), Accountable Talk (Michaels et al., 2008) and Collaborative Reasoning (Chinn et al., 2001), tend to focus on primary-aged students, this model addresses the increased cognitive challenges of adolescence. The context for Erika Matruglio’s chapter is the subject Community and Family Studies (CAFS) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, a subject that is more strongly associated with lower student outcomes than other senior secondary subjects (Matruglio, 2018; Roberts et al., 2019). Being an interdisciplinary course aiming towards social change, CAFS has the potential to equip students for critical civic and social engagement (Alexander, 2019). The research highlights the importance of classroom talk for knowledge-building and educational success (Freebody et al., 2008; Macnaught et al., 2013). Working with both dialogic pedagogy (Alexander, 2018) and SFL, the author demonstrates that talk is not just a pedagogical tool but part of the epistemology of school subjects. This makes the study of subjectspecific dialogic teaching practices critical in understanding how educational knowledge can be accessible to all. Tertiary Despite the rich body of literature examining dialogic interaction and opportunities for learning in a compulsory school context, there is little focus on what disciplinary higher education discourse looks like and what opportunities for ‘dialogic space’ are afforded. Here, we investigate this question in tertiary contexts in both England and Australia. In Australia, Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang report on research tracking a cohort of pre-service teachers as they develop teaching practices through a repertoire of talk types focussing on content knowledge, pedagogic strategies and pedagogic rationales. In recognition of Alexander’s reminder that teacher agency makes dialogic talk possible (2018), the teacher

12  Alyson Simpson et al. educator deliberately employs a focus on meta-talk with these early career teachers so they become more alert to the impact of their language use in their future practices. Their learning “through dialogue” has been designed as teaching “for quality dialogue” (Phillipson & Wegerif, 2020, p. 32). Analysis of online synchronous classroom interactions using educational linguistics reveals how supportive professional dialogue cumulatively scaffolds purposeful pedagogic discourse about teaching literacy through children’s literature (Wang & Simpson, 2020). Carole Bignell considers how teacher educators can support in-service teachers to develop dialogic teaching in their settings. In doing so, she draws upon research from a one-year project undertaken with three newly qualified primary teachers in England. This project sheds light on the affordances and challenges of adopting a longer-term dialogic approach to continuing professional development (CPD) for promoting dialogic teaching. With reference to teacher interviews and transcripts from videoed classroom discourse, the chapter explores the role of the teacher educator as expert pedagogical mentor (Yaffe, 2010) in supporting teachers to undermine normative classroom talk behaviours in favour of adopting a more dialogic stance. Marion Heron uses Lefstein’s (2010) conceptual framework of dialogic dimensions to explore the interaction of six disciplinary seminars at a university in England, examining (1) Dialogue as interactional structure. This is reflected in interactional forms such as question and answer routines and exemplified by Mercer’s Ground Rules (Mercer, 2000); (2) Dialogue as cognitive activity, where it is used as a tool for thinking. This is exemplified by the talk moves reflected in the dialogue, such as accountable talk (Michaels et al., 2008); (3) Dialogue as relations, where it is used to develop classroom relationships and foster an inclusive community. This is reflected in how the classroom dialogue builds interpersonal relationships and is exemplified by Alexander’s (2018) dialogic principle of Support. The findings will help teachers and students better understand how the classroom talk and dialogic interaction can support or impede the co-construction of disciplinary understanding. Janine Delahunty, Pauline Jones and Irina Verenikina examine dialogue in an online asynchronous discussion forum in an undergraduate education subject. Revisiting an earlier study informed by Halliday (1980/2004) and Vygotskyan (1986) theories of language and learning, they demonstrate the importance of teachers’ repertoires of talk in orchestrating dialogue that builds common understandings and fosters disciplinary knowledge. In doing so, they remind us of the importance of teachers’ expertise in designing and fostering productive dialogue in the online environment. We trust that the work in this volume will be of use in initial teacher education and teacher professional learning; indeed, many of the authors are already involved in these areas. As we have seen, the range of contributions extends from early childhood through primary, secondary and tertiary education and involves multimodal affordances as well as spoken discourses in face-to-face and online contexts. We are fortunate to have an international

Research into dialogic pedagogy through educational linguistics  13 cohort of authors and intend this volume to have an influence on curriculum and policy in different parts of the world, much as the work on dialogic discourse has already achieved in England, through the contributions of Alexander and others. Further, it is our sincere wish that the research presented here will itself be used in the form of dialogic discourse among and between researchers, educators, curriculum writers and policy makers.

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14  Alyson Simpson et al. Feez, S. (2008). Multimodal representation of educational meanings in Montessori pedagogy. In L. Unsworth (Ed.), Multimodal semiotics: Functional analysis in contexts of education (pp. 201–215). Continuum. Feez, S. (2010). Montessori and early childhood. Sage. Feez, S. (2011). Discipline and freedom in early childhood education. In F. Christie & K. Maton (Eds.), Disciplinarity: Functional linguistic and sociological perspectives (pp. 151–174). Continuum. Feez, S. (2019). Multimodality in the Montessori classroom. In H. de Silva Joyce & S. Feez (Eds.), Multimodality across classrooms: Learning about and through different modalities (pp. 30–48). Routledge. Feez, S. (2020). Bringing more than a century of practice to writing pedagogy in the early years. In H. Chen, D. Myhill, & H. Lewis (Eds.), Developing writers across the primary and secondary years: Growing into writing (pp. 60–77). Routledge. Felton, M., Garcia-Mila, M., & Gilabert, S. (2009). Deliberation versus dispute: The impact of argumentative discourse goals on learning and reasoning in the science classroom. Informal Logic, 29(4), 417–446. Freebody, P., Maton, K., & Martin, J. R. (2008). Talk, text and knowledge in cumulative, integrated learning: A response to ‘intellectual challenge’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 31(2), 188–201. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Learning how to mean: Explorations in the functions of language. Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1980/2004). Three aspects of children’s language development: Learning language, learning through language, learning about language. In J. J. Webster (Ed.), The language of early childhood (pp. 308–326). Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Longman. Harper, H., & Feez, S. (2021). An EAL/D handbook. Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA). Harper, H., Lotherington, M., & Parkin, B. (2018). Carrying the conversation in my head: Classroom dialogue in a remote Aboriginal setting. In P. Jones, A. Simpson, & A. Thwaite (Eds.), Talking the talk: Snapshots from Australian classrooms (pp. 75–87). Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA). Jones, P., & Hammond, J. (2016). Talking to learn: dialogic teaching in conversation with educational linguistics. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 1–4. Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(1), 39–103. Ladson-Billings, G. J., & Tate, W. (2006). Education research in the public interest: Social justice, action, and policy. Teachers College Press. Lefstein, A. (2010). More helpful as problem than solution: Some implications of situating dialogue in classrooms. In Littleton, K. & Howe, C. (Eds.), Educational Dialogues: Understanding and promoting productive interaction (pp. 170–191). Routledge. Lefstein, A., & Snell, J. (2014). Better than best practice: Developing teaching and learning through dialogue. Routledge. Lillard, A. S. (2012). Preschool children’s development in classic Montessori, supplemented Montessori, and conventional programs. Journal of School Psychology, 50(3), 379–401. Macnaught, L., Maton, K., Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2013). Jointly constructing semantic waves: Implications for teacher training. Linguistics and Education, 24(1), 50–63.

Research into dialogic pedagogy through educational linguistics  15 Martin, J. R. (1992). English text: System and structure. Benjamins. Martin, J. R. (2005). Mentoring semogenesis: Genre-based literacy pedagogy. In F.  Christie (Ed.), Pedagogy and the shaping of consciousness: linguistic and social processes (pp. 123–155). Bloomsbury. Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause 2nd ed. Continuum. Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan. Matruglio, E. (2018). The Community of CAFS: Capacity-building and cultural capital. Paper presented at the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association National Conference, University of South Australia, Adelaide. Mercer, N. (1995). The guided construction of knowledge: Talk amongst teachers and learners. Multilingual Matters. Mercer, N. (1996). The quality of talk in children’s collaborative activity in the classroom. Learning and Instruction, 6(4), 359–377. Mercer, N. (2000). Words and minds: How we use language to think together. Routledge. Mercer, N., Wegerif, R., & Major, L. (Eds.). (2020). The Routledge international handbook of research on dialogic education. Routledge. Michaels, S., O’Connor, M. C., Hall, M. W., & Resnick, L. B. (2002). Accountable talk: Classroom conversation that works. University of Pittsburgh. Michaels, S., & O’Connor, C. (2015). Conceptualizing talk moves as tools: Professional development approaches for academically productive discussions. In L. B. Resnick, C. S. C. Asterhan, & S. N. Clarke (Eds.), Socializing intelligence through academic talk and dialogue (pp. 347–361). American Educational Research Association. Michaels, S., O’Connor, C., & Resnick, L. B. (2008). Reasoned participation: Accountable talk in the classroom and in civic life. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 27(4), 283–297. Montessori, M. (1965 [1909 Italian/1912 English]). The Montessori method. Robert Bentley. Myhill, D., & Newman, R. (2016). Metatalk: Enabling metalinguistic discussion about writing. International Journal of Education Research, 80, 177–187. Myhill, D. & Newman, R. (2019). Writing talk – developing metalinguistic understanding through dialogic teaching. In Mercer, N. Wegerif, R., & Major, L. (Eds.), International handbook of research on dialogic education (pp. 360–372). Routledge. Myhill, D. Newman, R., & Watson, A. (2020). Going meta: Dialogic talk in the writing classroom. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 43(1), 5–16. O’Connor, C., Michaels, S., & Chapin, S. (2015). ‘Scaling down’ to explore the role of talk in learning: From district intervention to controlled classroom study. In L. B. Resnick, C. Asterhan, & S. N. Clarke (Eds.), Socializing intelligence through academic talk and dialogue (pp. 111–126). American Educational Research Association. Parkin, B., & Harper, H. (2018). Teaching with intent: Scaffolding academic language with marginalised students. Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA). Peppler, K., Halverson, E., & Kafai, Y. (Eds.). (2016). Makeology: Makerspaces as learning environments. Vol. 1. Routledge. Phillipson, N., & Wegerif, R. (2020). The thinking together approach to dialogic teaching. In E. Manalo (Ed.), Deeper learning, dialogic learning, and critical thinking: Research-based strategies for the classroom (pp. 32–47). Routledge.

16  Alyson Simpson et al. Reznitskaya, A., Glina, M., Carolan, B., Michaud, O., Rogers, J., & Sequeira, L. (2012). Examining transfer effects from dialogic discussions to new tasks and contexts. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 37, 288–306. Resnick, L., Asterhan, C., & Clarke, S. (Eds.). (2015). Socializing intelligence through academic talk and dialogue. American Educational Research Association. Roberts, P., Dean, J., & Lommatsch, G. (2019, Dec 13). Still winning? Social inequity in the NSW senior secondary curriculum hierarchy. Centre for Sustainable Communities. Roschelle, J., & Teasley, S. D. (1995). The construction of shared knowledge in collaborative problem solving. In C. E. O’Malley (Ed.), Computer-supported collaborative learning (pp. 69–197). Springer-Verlag. Schwartz, D. L. (1995). The emergence of abstract dyad representations in dyad problem solving. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(3), 321–354. Siraj, I., Kingston, D., & Melhuish, E. (2015). The Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Wellbeing (SSTEW) scale (available from www.ucl-ioepress.co.uk). Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2009). Conceptualising progression in the pedagogy of play and Sustained Shared Thinking in early childhood education: A Vygotskian perspective. Educational and Child Psychology, 26(2), 77–89. Thwaite, A., Jones, P. T., & Simpson, A. (2020). Enacting dialogic pedagogy in primary literacy classrooms: Insights from systemic functional linguistics. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 43(1), 33–46. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. MIT Press. Wang, T., & Simpson, A. (2020). Facilitating effective pedagogic design in initial teacher education through dialogic learning. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 43(3), 193–204. Wegerif, R. (2008). Dialogic or dialectic? The significance of ontological assumptions in research on educational dialogue. British Educational Research Journal, 34(3), 347–361. Wegerif, R. (2019). Dialogic education. Oxford research encyclopedia of education. Oxford University Press. Wegerif, R., Mercer, N., & Dawes, L. (1999). From social interaction to individual reasoning: An empirical investigation of a possible socio-cultural model of cognitive development. Learning and Instruction, 9(6), 493–516. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/S0959-4752(99)00013-4 Yaffe, E. (2010). The reflective beginner: Using theory and practice to facilitate reflection among newly qualified teachers. Reflective Practice, 11(3), 381–391.

2 Classroom discourse analysis Anne Thwaite

In this chapter, we outline theories and approaches to classroom talk, beginning with the seminal work of Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) on classroom discourse analysis (DA), which has been continued in the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) work of Halliday, Martin and Rose and others. We also include work on conversation analysis (CA), such as that of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) and continuing work in this tradition, for example, Liddicoat (2022) and Mondada (2018). While DA began in the United Kingdom and CA originated in the United States, today work from both methodological perspectives continues internationally. DA, and SFL in particular, has had a major influence on the teaching of English around the world. Following the descriptions of DA and CA, we will briefly mention some other approaches to the study of talk. In our discussion, we will touch on some of the concepts and terminology from the various theories of spoken interaction; however, we will assume a knowledge of grammatical terms such as ‘clause’ and general linguistic concepts such as intonation.

Discourse analysis A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text … the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another. (Halliday, 1994, p. xvi)

Background The DA tradition is usually considered to have begun with an analysis of classroom discourse (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) before broadening to other registers. Sinclair and Coulthard were strongly influenced by the work of Halliday, in relation to both the structure and function of language, as they acknowledge (p. 24). While it is not possible to describe SFL theory in any depth here, there are some basic concepts which need to be introduced. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-3

18  Anne Thwaite First is the metafunctional hypothesis, already mentioned in Chapter 1 of this volume. For SFL, the meaning potential of language is reflected in its underlying organisation. Simply put, language has three main functions: the ideational metafunction, which represents experience, the interpersonal metafunction, which enacts relationships, and the textual metafunction, which organises text (Martin & Rose, 2007, p. 7f). Any instance of language is shaped by the context in which it is produced. Although all texts are multifunctional, when we look closely at any text (spoken or written or in any medium) it is possible to identify aspects of language associated with each metafunction. In dealing with classroom discourse, we are of necessity concerned with the interpersonal metafunction, as relationships among educators and students are crucial, but of course, the content of the learning experience (ideational metafunction) and how the parts of the lesson unfold and connect to each other (textual metafunction) are also vital. The second fundamental SFL concept which needs to be introduced here is Genre, already mentioned in Chapter 1 as “patterns of language that enable the text to achieve its social purpose”. Martin and Rose (2007, p. 8) define a genre as: a staged, goal-oriented social process. Social because we participate in genres with other people; goal-oriented because we use genres to get things done; staged because it usually takes us a few steps to reach our goals. Structurally, a genre can be divided into stages and phases, stages being the “relatively stable components of its organization” that can be recognised in many examples of the genre, while phases are more variable and only occur in some texts (Martin & Rose, 2007, p. 10). Genres may be grouped together into ‘macro-genres’ such as books and chapters (Martin & Rose, 2007, p. 261). Specific macro-genres related to educational contexts have been identified, as will be discussed below. The third important SFL concept related to our work here is that of Register, already mentioned in Chapter 1 as describing the context of a situation and consisting of Field, Tenor and Mode. These three register variables correspond to the Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual metafunctions, respectively. The SFL model of Register relates the context of situation to linguistic variables. According to the metafunctional hypothesis, various parts of language in context are more closely related to each of the register variables of Field, Mode and Tenor. For example, subject-specific vocabulary in different learning areas is related to Field (ideational metafunction); multimodality and material affordances of an interaction, as well as systems of Reference, are related to Mode (textual metafunction); and Speech Functions (Statements, Questions, Commands and Offers) and Mood (declarative, interrogative and imperative) are related to Tenor (interpersonal metafunction). In this way, SFL relates the situation in which language is used to the actual linguistic choices through which the context is co-constructed by participating speakers. We do not imply here that there is a one-to-one relationship between a principle/concept and its expression in a particular feature;

Classroom discourse analysis  19 the examples are given as an indication of what may be ‘at stake’. While there is as yet little research in this area, it is hoped that this volume will contribute to the discussion of the realisations of Alexander’s work. The above explanation is a highly simplified account of some relevant aspects of SFL. Readers who would like to explore further are directed to the work of Halliday himself (e.g. Halliday, 1993, 1980/2008; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). We will return to some of these basic concepts in later chapters, including when discussing Alexander’s principles and repertoires (2020). With this background in mind, we now turn to a discussion of some of the fundamentals of a functional approach to spoken discourse analysis as applied in educational contexts. Lessons, transactions and exchanges In this section, we describe the development of the Initiation, Response, Evaluation/Feedback approach to talk (Mehan, 1979; Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975; Stubbs, 1983; Tsui, 1989). Sinclair and Coulthard make use of the structural terms Lesson, Transaction, Exchange, Move and Act to describe classroom discourse (1975, p. 24). For them, a lesson is “the highest unit of classroom discourse, made up of a series of transactions”. If the students are “responsive and cooperative” the lesson will unfold in a similar manner to what the teacher has planned. However, as we well know, “a variety of things can interfere in the working out of the teacher’s plan” (p. 59). Here, we have the beginnings of a dynamic analysis of classroom discourse, as captured in an Exchange Structure analysis and in the ‘interactive trouble’ of CA (see below). Within Sinclair and Coulthard’s Lesson, the basic concept of genre comes into play: Lessons are made of Transactions, which “normally begin with a Preliminary Exchange and end with a Final Exchange”. Within the transaction, there are a series of “medial exchanges”; the authors identify eleven different types of these, the first of which is either an Inform, Direct or Elicit exchange. The selection of one of these predicts how the transaction will typically develop (1975, p. 56). Exchanges are of two main classes: Boundary exchanges, which signal the stages in the lesson, and Teaching exchanges, which represent the individual lesson steps. Sinclair and Coulthard identify eleven different classes of Teaching exchanges, of which six are ‘Free’ and five are ‘Bound’. The free exchanges have four main functions: informing, directing, eliciting and checking (1975, p. 49). The structure of each exchange is expressed in terms of Initiation (I), Response (R) and Feedback (F) (p. 50); some later writers use Evaluation (E) rather than feedback. This description of the exchange has had a far-reaching influence on classroom discourse analysis. Speech function The notion of Speech Function, which relates to all spoken discourse, not only that of the classroom, is fundamental to SFL analysis of interaction and

20  Anne Thwaite hence is part of the interpersonal metafunction. In order to discuss Speech Function, we need to introduce two important aspects of the architecture of SFL here: the ‘system’ and the ‘system network’. In SFL, a system is “(a)ny set of alternatives, together with its condition of entry” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 22). A system network is simply “a very large network of systems” (2014, p. 23). Here, we have the concept of choice, which is so important in the theory and in its educational applications. To describe linguistic selections as ‘choices’ does not imply that the speaker chooses deliberately; in fact, it is likely that most choices are below the level of consciousness. In the Speech Function network, the primary selection is between addressing another person or expressing oneself, realised as an Exclamation. If addressing another, the speaker makes a choice between initiating and responding, depending on the conversational context. As well as this, the speaker must select a combination of giving or demanding AND “goods and services” (things or actions) or information (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). Table 2.1 displays these choices and the resulting Speech Function labels. The first line in each category represents an Initiation and the second line shows the preferred responses. Abbreviations for the functions are given in brackets. Further nuances are available when we combine Speech Function with the system of Mood (declarative, interrogative and imperative). There are congruent (marked) and incongruent (unmarked) realisations, and these choices make a meaning difference. Statements are congruently expressed as declaratives, Questions as interrogatives and Commands as imperatives. Offers do not have a particular unmarked realisation but are often imperatives or interrogatives. A well-known example of the interpersonal meanings at play here is that a Command is seen as less ‘direct’ when expressed as an interrogative or a declarative. A further development comes from Ventola (1987, p. 90), who introduced the concept of the “linguistic service”, an utterance that can be classified as “goods and services” but is realised linguistically, for example, doing someone a favour by passing on information. In the hypothetical exchange: Speaker A: “Air mail is more expensive.”, Speaker B: “Thank you.”, Speaker A’s utterance is being treated as a linguistic service, indicated by Speaker B’s response. Table 2.1  Speech function Address Other: Give information Demand information Give goods and services Demand goods and services EXPRESS SELF

Statement (S) Acknowledge Statement (AS) Question (Q) Response Statement to Question (RSQ) Offer (O) Acknowledge Offer (AO) Command (C) Response Offer to Command (ROC) Exclamation (Ex)

Classroom discourse analysis  21 Exchange structure While the Speech Function analysis is rather binary, making use of pairs of Initiations and Responses, the development of Exchange Structure enables more complexity in the analysis, both going beyond two-part structures and also introducing unpredictable moves in the exchange. Berry’s view of the exchange with its concepts of synoptic and dynamic moves (Berry, 1981a, 1981b, 1981c) has been applied in many different contexts, including in the work of Ventola on service encounters (1987) and Martin (e.g. 1992) on casual conversation and other registers; both of these linguists developed Berry’s original work into the model described here. As mentioned above, Exchange Structure deals with both predictable (synoptic) and unpredictable (dynamic) moves. Synoptic moves are those that fit the Exchange Structure formula:

( ( DX1) X2) X1 ( X 2F ( X1F ) )

X is the only obligatory element, and each element, if it occurs, must appear in the given order. If X = A, the exchange is of goods and services (i.e. an action exchange). If X = K, the exchange is of information (i.e. a knowledge exchange). 1 = the primary knower/actor’s move and 2 = the secondary knower/ actor’s move. These moves position the speaker as (temporarily) of either primary or secondary importance in terms of what they know or what they do. D is a delaying move, of the type often used in ‘teacher knows the answer’ or ‘display’ questions. F is a follow-up move of the type that Sinclair and Coulthard describe in their IRF model. Unproblematic and predictable exchanges involving Statements, Questions, Offers and Commands can often be described by this formula, which captures the expected unfolding of an exchange. However, discourse would not be interesting if it always evolved in predictable ways. This is where the dynamic moves come in; they are of two types, tracking and challenging moves. Tracking moves follow the progress of the discourse, giving minimal feedback or asking for clarification of certain points so that the conversation can proceed. Challenging moves include challenges, which threaten the progress of the discourse, and justifications, which often respond to challenges or anticipated challenges and work towards the discourse progressing. The moves and their abbreviations are listed in Table 2.2. Some moves have expected responses (shown here) and some do not. Following Berry, Martin and Ventola’s work, other linguists such as Eggins & Slade (2006), working on casual conversation, and Rose (e.g. Martin & Rose, 2007), working with school discourse, applied and developed the model. Work on intonation, an often neglected area (e.g. Halliday & Greaves, 2008) should also be included in a functional discourse analysis where appropriate. The work of Halliday (1975), Painter (e.g. 1984/2015, 1985, 1999, 2009; Painter et al. 2007) and Torr (1997, 2005, 2015; Torr & Simpson, 2003) on child language development

22  Anne Thwaite Table 2.2  Exchange structure Tracking Moves Backchannel Forward channel Replay/Response to replay Confirmation/Response to Confirmation Clarification/Response to Clarification Check/Response to Check Collocational prompt Self-correct

bch fch rp/rrp cf/rcf cl/rcl ck/rck cp Sc

Challenging Moves Challenge/Response to Challenge Justification

ch/rch jst

presents an ontological perspective that demonstrates the basis for child, student and adult interaction. The contributions of Halliday, Sinclair & Coulthard and others mentioned here have laid the foundations for the application of much of the spoken discourse analysis in this book. Functional classroom discourse analysis Functional work specifically on the classroom builds on general SFL discourse analysis, beginning with Sinclair & Coulthard (1975). An early model for spoken language use at primary school was devised by Tough (1976, 1979), who was interested primarily in function rather than structure. She describes children’s language in terms of Self-Maintaining, Directing, Predicting, Reporting, Reasoning, Projecting and Imagining utterances; she also has a framework for what she calls teacher dialogue strategies, which include Orienting and Concluding, thus showing an awareness of the unfolding of dialogue through time. Another example of early work is that of Derewianka (1992), who describes a student-constructed list of what they did with spoken language in class: asking questions, making suggestions, giving instructions, sharing information, making observations, asking what someone means, explaining, giving reasons, comparing, building on each other’s ideas, predicting and hypothesising (p. 92). A problem, as raised by both Searle (1965/72, 1969) and Martin (1981), is that there is a potentially infinite number of speech acts or functions that may be used to describe what we do with speech. For this reason, it is helpful to have specific descriptions that can relate both to the context and the grammar. As well as Speech Function and Exchange Structure, as outlined in the previous section, the concepts of genre and register are very important for systemic approaches to classroom discourse. Christie (2005), highlighting the structured nature of classroom interactions, describes what happens in

Classroom discourse analysis  23 the classroom as “curriculum genres” that can be part of larger units of work or “curriculum macro-genres” (pp. 96–124). Within each curriculum genre are typical stages, which may be expressed as various phases. Christie (2005) also describes a regulative register, associated with the management of the classroom, and an instructional register, related to the content of the discourse. Christie & Derewianka (2008) investigate discourse involved in learning to write at school. Hammond and Gibbons (2005) and Hammond (2014) especially focussing on English learners, deal with the role of talk in scaffolding challenge and support for students across the curriculum. In the United States, Schleppegrell and colleagues (e.g. Schleppegrell, 2004) have applied functional discourse analysis to educational issues, also particularly focussing on English learners. Martin’s work (e.g. Christie & Martin, 2007; Martin, 1992; Martin and Rose, 2007) has greatly contributed to functional classroom discourse analysis, both in theory and in practice. The association of different linguistic systems at the discourse level with the metafunctions has great potential for enabling more specific examination of the realisations of different types of meaning. For example, the interpersonal metafunction is expressed in the system of Appraisal, a way of negotiating attitudes; the ideational metafunction is realised in the system of Conjunction (a type of cohesion), a means of connecting events; and the textual metafunction is expressed in the system of Reference (another type of cohesion), a way of tracking people and things. For more examples see Martin and Rose (2007, p. 8). The theory and associated metalanguage of the ‘Sydney School’ language and literacy pedagogy has enabled functional linguists and literacy educators to collaborate in action research on classroom discourse and teaching methodologies. For an elaboration and an explanation of the ‘Reading to Learn’ pedagogy, see Rose & Martin (2012). An associated development is the work using Legitimation Code Theory, for example, Martin & Matruglio (2013). In the United Kingdom, Myhill (e.g. 2006), inspired by SFL discourse analysis, has been working for some time on classroom discourse and “oral rehearsal”, the inspiration for the popular “Talk for Writing” program. In some of their more recent work, Myhill and colleagues examine features of the dialogic practice that can facilitate and inhibit learning about language in the classroom; knowledge about grammar was a crucial variable here (Myhill et al., 2016). More recently, Jones and Chen (2016) have developed the Speech Function network from Eggins and Slade (2006, pp. 191–213) to specify some of the functions used by children at school. Eggins and Slade’s network primarily distinguishes between opening and sustaining moves in the discourse, and they have quite a developed network for these sustaining moves that keep the conversation going, including those that ‘continue’ the dialogue and those that ‘react’. While the network was first devised for casual conversation, Jones and Chen have elaborated on it for the school context. This appears to be a promising direction, as it enables moves in the discourse to be described in a situation-specific way while relating them back to the original Speech Function network (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 136).

24  Anne Thwaite Through using these elaborated Speech Function networks, we can relate what the child says in class to the grammar of the language as a whole. This is a contextually appropriate description of children’s talk, identifying moves such as ‘elaborating’, ‘extending’ and ‘monitoring’. Jones & Hammond (2016a) have collected a number of papers together about the place of dialogic talk in learning and in literacy education, originally published in Research Papers in Education. They include the aforementioned paper by Jones & Chen (2016), as well as work by Hammond (2016, p. 5), who emphasises the need for “talking to learn” as well as “learning to talk”; Newman (2016), who foregrounds interpersonal dimensions of ‘collaborative’ talk; Klingelhofer & Schleppegrell (2016), who particularly focus on English learners using purposeful and cumulative talk, which they believe are “the features of dialogic teaching that facilitate content learning” (p. 70); and Simpson (2016), who, as well as observation, uses reflective interview as a technique to obtaining the views of both pre-service and in-service teachers on the dialogic discourse in which they are engaged. See the present volume for related work by Jones, Simpson and their colleagues. Functional multimodal discourse analysis Functional DA began with a focus on language but recently has developed to include other semiotic systems, for example, multimodal and online discourse. Halliday’s pioneering Language as Social Semiotic (1978) laid the foundation for this work. Kress and van Leeuwen’s work on reading images (1996, 2001, 2006) and, later, van Leeuwen’s research on music and film (e.g. 2005), developed social semiotics, influenced by (1) Halliday and other linguists; (2) the discipline of semiotics (e.g. Kress, 2014; Kress & Hodge, 1979, 1988); and (3) critical linguistics, now more commonly known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA – referred to below) (Jewitt et al., 2016). The term ‘multimodality’ was first coined in the mid-1990s (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 1) and emphasises the interactivity among semiotic systems that had previously been studied individually, viewing these systems, alone or in combination, as social and cultural resources for making meaning. Multimodal analysis in the functional tradition recognises that a wide variety of semiotic resources are used in communication and that these resources differ from each other in their nature, affordances and constraints. When making meaning, we select different semiotic systems and combine them appropriately for our purpose; the different systems “almost always appear together” rather than individually (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 3). Therefore, it is necessary to analyse the function of instances of multimodality in terms of their place in the multimodal text as a whole. This has become increasingly obvious with the development of new technologies where different semiotic systems, such as moving images along with written text, coexist and can be produced and accessed by large numbers of people (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 3). As systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis has developed, it has become known as SF-MDA (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 8) and is particularly

Classroom discourse analysis  25 linked with the work of Kay O’Halloran (e.g. O’Halloran, 2011, 2013; O’Halloran et al., 2017). Multimodal discourse analysis is clearly applicable in many different contexts, including the classroom. For example, Kress et al. (2001) have looked at Science classrooms. Jewitt & Kress (2003) reconceptualise learning and literacy in terms of their multimodal character. Jewitt has analysed the secondary English classroom as a designed space in terms of the metafunctions: the ideational metafunction enables a focus on how the classroom design “presents ‘the world’: what is included and excluded and how what is displayed shapes curriculum knowledge”. The interpersonal metafunction helps us explore “how the classroom design positions learners in relation to knowledge” and the textual metafunction enables us to assess “how the arrangement of elements in the classroom organizes the discourse” (2005, p. 312). Recently, Rowsell (2013) has looked at multimodal digital learning, including haptics; Walsh & Simpson (2014) have examined the use of gesture and touch with digital technology; and De Silva Joyce & Feez (2019) have investigated multimodality across classrooms in a range of different contexts. Capturing the data and transcription are issues. That is why it is useful to have software such as O’Halloran’s Multimodal Analysis Video (2011, 2013) and O’Donnell’s UAM Corpus Tool (2011), which present a multimodal interface for analysis. With advances in technology, software from other disciplines can be used in multimodal analysis, such as the eye-tracking technology used by Holsanova (2014) to describe how people read newspapers. For SFL, language is not just one of many semiotic systems but is the only one that enables us to talk about the others. However, as Jewitt et al. caution (2016, p. 7), there is a risk that in describing another semiotic system it might be made to look too much like language, a little like traditional descriptions of English made it look like Latin. Each semiotic system may have affordances that the others do not share and needs to be described in its own right. But “(a)s meta-functions are a higher order of meaning, it is reasonable to assume that these are in play in communication whatever mode is used” (Jewitt, 2005, p. 311). This emphasises the crucial place of metafunctions in analysing multimodality. The metafunctions can be related to all semiotic systems. Each metafunction points to specific elements of classroom discourse, whether it be the content (experiential), insertion of participants into the discourse (interpersonal) or unfolding of the lesson in time (textual). In turn, Alexander’s dialogic pedagogies can be related to specific aspects of classroom discourse, as will be investigated in this volume.

Conversation analysis Discourse analysis within the Ethnomethodological tradition (see, for example, Goffman, 1967) is known as Conversation analysis (CA). CA developed out of American interactional sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology and aims to recognise order in the way people organise themselves through

26  Anne Thwaite interaction. As Liddicoat puts it, “For ethnomethodologists, the social order is not a pre-existing framework, but rather it is constructed in the minds of social actors as they engage with society” (2022, p. 3). A key principle in CA is “recipient design” (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974), “the idea that participants in talk design their talk in such a way as to be understood by an interlocutor” Liddicoat (2022, p. 5). Early work in CA, for example, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) and Goodwin (1981), began with casual conversation but it soon moved to other registers such as institutional contexts (e.g. Antaki, 2011; Drew & Heritage, 1992; Heritage, 1997, 2004). As well as verbal output, it began looking at non-verbals such as laughter and silence, with a strong emphasis on intonation, volume and voice quality. The CA approach is characterised by very detailed transcripts, originally using conventions developed by Gail Jefferson (see Jefferson, 2004). Transcription, according to Hepburn & Bolden (2017, cited in Mondada, 2018, p. 87) “provides a textual representation that stabilizes the fleeting flow of talk”. The level of detail included is determined by what is made relevant by the participants (Mondada, 2018, p. 91). Along with an in-depth transcription, CA scholars provide an equally detailed explication of their texts. Perhaps due to this, work in CA sometimes deals with shorter stretches of discourse than other approaches. The conventions have been adapted for languages other than English such as Russian and Danish. Conversation analysts are interested in the timing and sequence of interactions; each social action is understood in relation to what happens before and after in the text. They also analyse elements of generic structure such as ‘Openings’ and ‘Closings’. They also have a strong interest in ‘adjacency pairs’ (which have, however, been critiqued as not always being adjacent and not always pairs) and the ‘moment-by-moment’ unfolding of the discourse, as well as dynamic aspects such as turn-taking, turn allocation, interruption and overlap, ‘interactive trouble’ and repair. They take into account participants’ attitudes only as revealed in the text in hand, not from any post-text discussion; Mondada mentions “the importance of the question “why that now?” for participants” (2018, p. 87) and refers to “an emic perspective (that is, the perspective of the participants)” (2018, p. 90). From examining linguistic and ‘non-verbal’ discourse, CA soon moved on to include other semiotic systems such as gaze, gesture and movement, beginning with the Goodwins’ work on film. For example, Heath (1986) has looked at body movement. The approach has now become more expansively multimodal, taking into account such aspects as embodiment and body arrangements, material environments, mobile settings, silent activities and animal encounters (e.g. see the work of Mondada (2018), who has developed her own method of transcription). However, CA “looks at artefacts only insofar as these artefacts are being oriented to in observed interactions” (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 12). While SF-MDA recognises meanings that are made outside of interactions, for example, looking at textbook structure

Classroom discourse analysis  27 without necessarily recording those who are reading the textbook, CA does not do this, therefore excluding some areas of research such as the layout of buildings as a topic in itself. According to Mondada (p. 94), multimodal analysis in the CA tradition is currently expanding in two directions: firstly, by looking at previously neglected multimodal details such as steps and feet position and secondly by examining complex phenomena that were previously hard to handle without adequate video, for example, mobility, multiactivity, materiality, the use of technologies at work, objects in talk-in-interaction, writing, typing practices and sensoriality. (See Mondada (2018) for references.) The set of multimodal details is “potentially infinite” (p. 95), a situation which is problematic for the analyst. While multimodal analysis in the CA tradition is developing, it does not yet have its own disciplinary title, as SF-MDA does (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 8). While appreciating that we use a range of semiotic resources in our interactions, CA theorists rarely use the term ‘mode’(Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 10). Current work in Australia in the CA tradition includes that of Liddicoat (2022), who states that CA “allows order to emerge from the data without an intervening layer of theoretical constructs” (2022, p. 7), seeing itself as “data-driven” (p. 13). This raises the question of whether a lack of any pre-existing theory or model of language is an advantage or not. In terms of classroom discourse analysis in Australian settings, Edwards-Groves et al. (2014) and Edwards-Groves & Davidson (2017) take a CA approach, while Ludwig (1996) primarily uses DA and SFL but finds the CA concept of interactive trouble useful. Some similarities between the two main traditions (DA and CA) are: • They both take actual talk in interaction (what Halliday calls “language as action” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) as their data. • Both are embracing multimodality, although the range of modes examined may differ, as CA specifies that multimodal texts must be analysed in relation to human interaction with them. Some differences between the two main traditions (DA and CA) are: Underlying theory/theories of language. • • Views about ‘context’ and what this consists of. CA only focusses on those aspects of the context that are referred to in the interaction. • Transcription (related to the issue of what features are seen as meaningful) • Units of analysis: CA has turns. DA has exchanges and moves; ‘turn’ is used in a general sense. • Attitudes to time and sequence: “sequentiality is the fundamental principle of social interaction” (Mondada, 2018, p. 94). • Structure of the exchange, for example, whether it is seen as binary or not. • Differing views of what ‘mode’ is.

28  Anne Thwaite • Views of the relationships among different semiotic systems. For CA, “the relevance of resources is locally achieved” (Mondada, 2018, p. 88) – ‘relevance’ being a technical term for them. For DA and SFL, links are made to overarching theories. While there are several important differences between the traditions, they do have the same interest in talk-in-interaction and, indeed, serve to complement each other.

Other approaches While we have focussed on the two main approaches to the analysis of talk, DA and CA, we also acknowledge other traditions, such as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2013; Toolan, 2002; van Dijk, 1985), developed out of “critical linguistics” (Jewitt et al., 2016, p. 13). Other approaches include “Interactional Sociolinguistics” (Gumperz, 1982, 2003, 2015; Rampton, 2010), which combines insights from linguistics and anthropology and emphasises how cultural presuppositions shape our talk and understanding; therefore, ‘background’ information from outside the interaction, for example, sourced from interviews and focus groups, is important to take into account when doing an analysis. The work of Lefstein & Snell (2014) on classroom discourse, which is closely associated with that of Alexander, should also be mentioned, although there is insufficient space to explore their approach here. As do all of the scholars mentioned above, Alexander emphasises paying close attention to what students and teachers actually say as the discourse unfolds in educational settings (e.g. Alexander, 2001, 2008, 2020). Indeed, Jones & Hammond state, “educational linguistics provides powerful tools for making dialogic moves more visible” (2016b, p. 1). Whether the tools of analysis derive from DA, CA, another approach or a combination of approaches, we trust that the following chapters will demonstrate these tools in action in educational settings and go towards answering the question: ‘What are the affordances, realisations and impact of dialogic pedagogy in different contexts?’. We believe that an ongoing dialogue between educational linguistics and proponents of dialogic pedagogy will be beneficial for participants from both perspectives.

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Part 2

Dialogic pedagogy in Early Childhood contexts

3 Perceiving, labelling and knowing Mediating educational meanings through multimodal dialogue in Montessori early years classrooms Susan Feez Introduction Montessori first presented her educational method to the world in a 1909 publication where she describes a naming lesson structured in three parts (Montessori, 1964/1909; see also Montessori, 2013/1913). The lesson, called the ‘three-period lesson’ by Montessori educators, comprises a multimodal dialogic routine through which young children learn to perceive and label phenomena in ways that lead them incrementally into domains of educational knowledge (Feez, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2019, 2020). The three-­ period lesson remains a pedagogic strategy used today in Montessori early childhood settings and classrooms worldwide. Implementing Montessori pedagogy with fidelity has been shown to have positive impacts on student learning, while also addressing educational disadvantage (Lillard, 2012, 2018, 2019, 2021; Lillard et al., 2017; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006). The naming lesson arguably contributes to these positive outcomes, first, as a means to ‘engineer’ talk for learning, described by Alexander (2020, p. 14) as one of the “principal tasks of the teacher”, and second, by supporting an equitable student ‘voice’, which Alexander (2020, p. 52) describes as an “essential ingredient of dialogue” in educational settings. All descriptions and examples of Montessori learning environments, materials and practices below reflect Montessori materials and teacher training endorsed by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), the organisation founded by Maria Montessori in 1928 to promote and disseminate her pedagogy. For an accessible account of Montessori environments, materials and practices, see Feez (2010). The Montessori three-period lesson is a multimodal dialogic routine through which young children learn to name elements of the material environment in culturally valued ways. The lesson aligns children’s perception of educational concepts embodied in manipulable objects with language for thinking and talking about these concepts so they can transfer what they are learning to other contexts. Children in the preschool years tend to show interest in classifying their sensory experience – what they see, hear, touch or taste – in ways that can be shared with others in the wider cultural context (Painter, 1999). Montessori DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-5

36  Susan Feez educators recognise this interest as a developmental opportunity they call a sensitive period. When small children show interest in a sensory quality – ­colour, texture, shape, volume, size or sound – the teacher shows them how to interact with and re-arrange a set of manipulable objects in which that quality is isolated and varied incrementally. Interest sustains children’s attention and interaction with the objects long enough to refine their perception of the variations embodied in the material. Children learn “to associate the language with these perceptions” through the three-period lesson (Montessori, 1964/1909, p. 177). Learning through movement to perceive and discriminate between increasingly fine sensory variations, to name and recall these distinctions, and to talk and think about analogous variations in any number of other contexts leads children into domains of educational knowledge and skill that embrace writing and reading, arithmetic, geometry, grammar, history, geography, the sciences, the creative arts, and physical education (Feez, 2010, 2011). As its name indicates, the naming lesson has three stages. At each stage, the child’s attention is directed towards the objects embodying the target knowledge. Each part of the lesson is delivered with the most economical use of language possible, in very limited but specific dialogic moves. The three-period lesson: a blueprint During their training, Montessori teachers are given a blueprint for the three-period lesson. This blueprint is exemplified here with the lesson for teaching children from the age of three to name colours. In this lesson children are shown how to match, grade and array three sets of small tablets of identical shape and size that vary only in colour. The first set contains six tablets, one pair of each of the primary colours: red, blue and yellow. After mixing up the tablets on a mat, the teacher chooses one, asks the child to find one just like it, and shows the child how to arrange the matching tablets as a pair, before inviting the child to choose and match the remaining tablets independently. A child who imitates the teacher by trying to match the tablets, “assumes a certain understanding of the significance of the action of another” (Vygotsky, 2004, p. 372), a learning opportunity within the zone of proximal development, a concept Vygotsky (1986/1934) acknowledged he derived from Montessori’s account of sensitive periods. Imitation understood in this way is an interactive activity in which meaning is shared and constructed collaboratively, in other words, a type of dialogue. When the child has matched all the tablets, the final array displays the child’s choices as a system, the system of primary colours. Increasing the level of challenge, the second set of tablets contains eleven pairs of matching tablets representing the systems of secondary and tertiary colours. When children complete the final array of matching tablets in each set, they are given the names of the colours in a three-period lesson. Once children know the names of the colours in the first two sets, they mix up, grade

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  37 and play memory games with tablets in the third set comprising sixty-three tablets in seven graded shades of each of three primary, three secondary and three tertiary colours. The first period: association In the first period of the naming lesson, the teacher points at each pair of tablets in turn, and says: This is red. This is blue. This is yellow, thus associating language (what we say) with the child’s perception of colour (what the child sees). Each word is pronounced very clearly and repeated, “without adding anything else” and in a way “that the various sounds that make up a word may be clearly and distinctly heard by the child” (Montessori, 1967/1948, p. 156). The second period: recognition To initiate the second period, the teacher pauses for a few moments, mixes up the tablets, spreads them out, and then asks the child to perform a series of actions which demonstrate the child can recognise each colour by name, for example: Give me the red. Show me the blue. Where is the yellow? Put the red back in the box. Can you find the yellow? Would you like to find the blue? Occasionally the teacher asks the child to repeat the name, in this way checking that the child has heard and can articulate all the sounds intelligibly. The third period: recall Having judged the child’s readiness for the third period, the teacher points at each tablet and asks the child to recall the name: What’s this? Do you remember what this is? Can you tell me what this is? The lessons are successful when children begin to imitate both the movements and the language modelled by the teacher, the starting point for extended, interactive activity with the objects, and thus, with the meanings the objects encode. From recitation to multimodal dialogue At first glance, the three-period dialogic routine can resemble recitation, described by Alexander (2020, p. 15) as “closed teacher questions, brief recall answers and minimal feedback, which requires children to report someone else’s thinking rather than think for themselves and to be judged on their accuracy or compliance in doing so”. The language component, however, does not account for all the meanings that are exchanged in this type of lesson. The full meaning potential emerges when the lesson is viewed as a multimodal dialogue in which concrete objects (the colour tablets in the above example), gesture and movement, as well as language, are all recognised as contributing to the meaning (see Chapter 6, this volume). In other words, in this lesson, dialogue as “the deliberative handling of information,

38  Susan Feez ideas and opinions” is achieved not only through “oral exchange” (Alexander, 2020, p. 128) but also through interaction with manipulable objects. Alexander (2020) warns against thinking about recitation and dialogue in binary terms. Accounting for the full meaning potential of the Montessori naming lesson reveals that this type of lesson blurs the distinction between recitation and dialogue in ways that shift the lesson into the realm of dialogic teaching, defined by Alexander (2020, p. 128) as teaching that “harnesses the power of dialogue … to stimulate and extend students’ thinking, learning, knowing and understanding, and to enable them to discuss, reason and argue”. In common with dialogic teaching, the naming lesson “unites the oral, cognitive, social, epistemic and cultural, and therefore manifests frames of mind and value as well as ways of speaking and listening” [emphasis added]. Association: first period dialogue In the first period of the lesson, the teacher uses a pointing gesture, described by Martin and Zappavigna (2019) as ‘pointing deixis’, to indicate each pair of colour tablets. The meaning of this gesture converges with the meaning expressed in the language, for example, the teacher pointing at a red tablet while stating: This is red. The type of meaning that is pivotal in this statement is relational meaning, realised simultaneously in the pointing gesture indicating the red tablet and in the verb is. Relational meaning can be used to identify the objects by name, as well as to relate them to attributes and relative values (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). In the three-period lesson, all three types of relational meaning are interwoven for pedagogical effect by exploiting their “rich potential for ambiguity” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 298), but without causing confusion because the objects isolate a single variable sensory quality, in this case, colour. When the teacher points to the colour tablet while saying This is red, the pointing and the pronoun ‘this’ together identify a physically present object (a red colour tablet) while also attributing the object with both a quality (red) and membership of a class (red objects). In other words, the word ‘red’ represents both a visible quality and a transportable abstract concept that can be assigned to any number of items that belong to the class of ‘red objects’. Initially, the child is likely to be using the name ‘red’ to identify a single physically present object (the red tablet) in the way the word Red might be used as a proper name for a toy or a pet. In other words, the child is using the word ‘red’ as a “signal” only (Hasan, 2005, p. 81), rather than as an attribute of all red objects, but this is enough to enable the adult and the child to talk about their shared experience with mutual understanding. In the meantime, the child interacts with the colour tablets in an extended series of games. These interactions have the potential to shift the child’s use of the word ‘red’ along a pathway from signal (the proper name for a single object) to shared attribute (of all red objects) to relative value in a knowledge

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  39 system (the system of primary colours). In this way, colour labels used as context-dependent signals become a gateway for the child towards future control of a context-independent, culturally salient system of colour values. The relations that give the word ‘red’ its meaning in the system of primary colours (not blue, not yellow) are materialised, and captured in the array of colour tablets, no matter where the child’s use of the meaning ‘red’ is located on the developmental pathway from a context-dependent signal for a physically present object, to decontextualised, transportable attribute, to abstract value in a culturally meaningful knowledge system. This pathway has its origin in the teacher’s indication of the salient colour tablet (realised through the pointing gesture and the word ‘this’) located in the teacher’s and child’s shared field of attention, further reinforced by the stress on the words ‘this’ and ‘red’ in the teacher’s intonation. The way indication is used in the Montessori naming lesson echoes the claim by Vygotsky and Luria (1994/1930) that indication is the origin of a developmental trajectory which over time transforms the function of indication (signalling) into the function of signification, or symbolising. Recognition: second period dialogue In the second period of the naming lesson the work of indication is now shared between teacher and child because they now share a vocabulary for labelling physically present objects in the field of shared attention. The teacher initiates the exchanges in this period with a command, expressed either as an imperative or as a request using modal interrogative (Give me the red; Put the blue back in the box; Can you find the yellow? Would you like to find the red one? Can you show me the red?) or asking a question (Which one is blue?). If “the name has remained associated with the object in the child’s memory” (Montessori, 1967/1948, p. 156), the child responds with an action, either selecting and moving a tablet in response to a command or pointing in response to a question. If the child is not able to associate the name with the object, the teacher returns seamlessly to the first period or draws the lesson to a close without any suggestion that the child has not succeeded. The second period is the most extended period of the lesson; in the Montessori tradition, this is the period when children consolidate their recall of the names and what they represent. The increase in the variety of moves when compared with the first period can be interpreted as a further opening of the gateway towards the child’s control of the meaning system materialised by the colour tablets. Recall: third period dialogue In the third period, responsibility for labelling is handed over to the child. The teacher points to specific tablets and asks questions using interrogatives in which the name is missing (What’s this? Do you remember what this is? Can

40  Susan Feez you tell me what this is?). When an object ‘within one’s control’ is used to stimulate recall in this way, the act of remembering is no longer a matter of chance, but instead is “socially mediated” (Hasan, 2005, p. 132). The Montessori teacher’s repertoire of initiating moves in the third period includes projecting clauses realised as prefaced interrogatives (Do you remember …? Can you tell me…?). Projecting clauses used in this way have been identified by Hasan (2004) as a key characteristic of the exchanges in everyday contexts between mothers and children from social groups with higher levels of social and cultural autonomy. These mothers use prefaced interrogatives to mediate explicitly culturally salient meanings for their children, a type of mediation Hasan found appeared much less frequently in everyday exchanges between mothers and children from social groups with lower levels of social and cultural autonomy. When mothers provide their children with “sustained explicit information in emotionally supportive environments”, Hasan (2004, p. 174) argues, they develop in their children ‘an orientation to decontextualised knowledge’, a feature of school education. This is one means through which children from some social groups achieve a mental disposition orienting them more favourably to educational knowledge. Arguably, the Montessori naming lesson recontextualises in incremental steps critical aspects of the informal, everyday language of caregivers whose interactions with their children facilitate early success in school and, thus, may represent an approach with the potential to redistribute such success more equitably. Using knowledge gained in the naming lesson Children often arrive at preschool knowing the names of colours, as well as the names of many of the objects and sensory variations that feature in Montessori exercises. The multimodal naming lessons confirm and systematise this knowledge so it can be applied in other contexts. The significance of the colour tablets, for example, is that they systematise the child’s perception of colour (gained informally and unsystematically in everyday life) in a culturally valued knowledge system. As the colour tablet presentations unfold, a whole colour system is given to the child, revealing the relations between already familiar as well as unfamiliar colours, and hence their value within culturally meaningful embodied (concrete) and linguistic (abstract, recontextualisable) systems. As Lillard (2017, p. 204) points out: “A great deal of vocabulary is taught [in Montessori settings] through [three-period] lessons, and they give the teacher an opportunity to evaluate whether a child has mastered key concepts”, including auditory discrimination and articulation of the sounds within the words (to prepare for later writing and reading these words) alongside the educational concepts embodied in the materials. The vocabulary is not taught in isolation but incrementally in the context of knowledge structures, either classification (e.g. types of colours, types of angles) or composition (e.g. parts of a plant), embodied in the precise design specifications

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  41 of the objects. Background knowledge and vocabulary children build in the years before they arrive at school, in tandem with spoken language development, are strong predictors of later reading success and academic achievement (Djonov, et al. 2018). Vocabulary learned in three period lessons recurs in memory and extension exercises that incrementally increase the level of challenge. Children discover these exercises themselves by imitating classmates, or the teacher might introduce them to sustain children’s interest. Activities include children matching and comparing specific colour tablets with items or images in the room, applying their knowledge of colour values to talk and think about the colours of leaves, flowers or creatures in the garden, and to think about and discuss colour choices in artworks, including their own. In Montessori learning environments, children are free to move around the classroom and to interact with others, to choose their own work, to ask for lessons, and to choose where they work, for how long, and with whom they interact. This freedom is limited by the features of the physical space designed to support children’s independence and safety, and the need to maintain conditions that support learning and the harmony of a small community of children spanning a three-year age range. In this type of learning community where dialogue emerges organically as children move and interact freely, vocabulary learned in naming lessons becomes a shared tool for thinking and talking about experience. Vocabulary used to label the arrays of colour tablets, for example, becomes knowledge children can use to describe, compare and contrast, reflect on, evaluate and discuss in terms of colour any number of phenomena across domains of everyday and educational knowledge. In this way, the naming lessons are directed “towards the expansion and application of … repertoires for talking, thinking and reasoning” (Alexander, 2020, p. 133). The provenance of the Montessori three-period lesson The naming lesson teaches children in Montessori classrooms “sophisticated terminology that many an educated adult does not know, but that children appear to learn easily” (Lillard, 2017, p. 204). These words are learned “in the presence of … real objects (or miniatures of them)” allowing children “to precisely describe objects in the classroom and the world” (p. 239) and allowing teachers to monitor children’s progress without it being “obvious to the children that they are being evaluated” (p. 203). The Montessori naming lesson emerged from an educational tradition with ancient origins revisited during the European Enlightenment and formalised in 19th-century France by Edouard Séguin. Séguin’s naming lesson accompanied the use of manipulable objects devised to support the education of children suffering physical, intellectual, and social barriers to development. Séguin’s objects and naming lesson were prototypes for the pedagogy still in use in Montessori schools today (Feez, 2008, 2011). In this pedagogy, the naming lesson weaves together manipulable objects, images,

42  Susan Feez movement, gesture and language into unified multimodal dialogues. The children’s interest, and, therefore, attention, is captured and held, Montessori (1982/1949) argued, by the precise design and use of the objects, and by giving the children accurate names for each element. Precision in design, use and naming ensures children are in dialogue with salient meanings only and that their attention is not diverted by meanings irrelevant to the target knowledge. Lessons in which children learn to label embodied educational knowledge accurately ‘with no guessing, and no unrelated chatter’ establish a shared starting point so all children can participate fully in subsequent talk for thinking about, applying and expanding the knowledge. In contrast, conventional lessons often begin with the teacher eliciting from children prior knowledge about what is to be taught. Some children may have relevant prior knowledge, but others can only share personal experiences of uneven relevance, or simply guess, “and it soon becomes apparent if they are wrong” (Feez, 2010, p. 83). From a Montessori perspective, this type of lesson begins unhelpfully with the third period. In regional Australia, the Montessori naming lesson was used in an independent Aboriginal secondary school to “interweave Aboriginal knowledge with … school science” (Rioux et al., 2019, p. 5). A study of vertebrates began with elders teaching traditional knowledge about local vertebrates. The same animals were located in a Linnaean classification system using manipulable charts, pictures, labels and short descriptions. The materials, which the students could engage with freely at any time, “generated interest in learning” about school science (p. 9). The teacher used the Montessori naming lesson as a ‘micro-sequence’ to introduce individual students to zoological terms matched to the material “according to their interest of the moment” (p. 8). These deliberately unhurried and informal lessons were delivered “as a conversation … rather than a question-answer routine” (p. 6). The use of the micro-sequence ‘reassured’ students because they knew “what to expect” (p. 5). Freedom to engage with the Montessori materials and lessons in response to interest and the repeated use of the naming lesson in a culturally responsive environment strengthened students’ Aboriginal identity as well as their identity as students of science. Evidence of the effectiveness of high-fidelity Montessori education is accumulating but more studies are needed to determine whether Montessori education “could be a useful alternative model for schooling in the twenty-first century” (Lillard, 2019, p. 959). Designing large-scale experimental studies to compare Montessori and non-Montessori schools in meaningful ways is difficult (Marshall, 2017), partly because of the ‘incommensurability’ of Montessori education with “the culture of conventional schooling” (Lillard, 2019, p. 955). Lillard (2012, p. 397), however, suggests that “more closely observing the micro level interactions of teachers and students” in high-fidelity Montessori environments can provide insights into what makes Montessori pedagogy effective. This approach was taken in the study reported in Feez (2020) and in the following account of two sample naming lessons.

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  43 The Montessori naming lesson as multimodal dialogue Two naming lessons were recorded in a suburban Montessori school located in an Australian state capital city, one in a preschool setting for children aged from three to six years, and one in an early years primary school classroom for children aged from six to nine years. Both teachers have Association Montessori International (AMI) qualifications and extensive Montessori teaching experience. All names used in the account below are pseudonyms. Because of pandemic restrictions, approval was not given for the researcher to visit the school, so lessons were recorded by the teachers themselves. Sample lesson 1: Naming the Geometric Solids Lily, aged four, is introduced to knowledge about three-dimensional geometric shapes. This knowledge is embodied in a set of solids made of wood and painted blue, the only variable being their shape: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, square-based prism, triangular-based prism, square-based pyramid, triangular-based pyramid, ellipsoid, and ovoid. The sphere, ellipsoid and ovoid sit on small wooden bases. Lily already knows how to examine each shape closely by feeling it with both hands (Figure 3.1). The lesson starts with Diana, the teacher, selecting three contrasting shapes – cylinder, sphere, triangular-based prism – and placing them on a mat. Lily is excited and easily distracted, but Diana never responds to Lily’s

Figure 3.1 Lily using both hands to feel the triangular-based pyramid.

44  Susan Feez Table 3.1  Geometric solids – first period 1 2 3

Diana Lily Diana

4

Lily

5 6

Diana Lily

7

Diana

8

Lily

9 10 11

Diana Lily Diana

12 13 14

Lily Diana Lily

Today we’re going to learn some names of the geometric solids [squeal of excitement] [picking up object] The first one is going to be [pauses] cyl-in-der [attending to another object] I am going to have a little.. Cylinder [very quietly] cyl-in-der And we can do this with it? [laughter] [places object on the mat] cylinder [pointing to object] This one over here is called a [pauses] sphe-re … sphere [attending to another object] And we can do this with it! [laughs] Sphere sphere [barely audible] [pointing] And this one here is called the [pauses] triangular-based prism tri-ang-ular [pauses] … based prism … that’s right … triangular-based prism [interrupting] And you can do this..

irrelevant gestures and comments (Turns 4, 6, 8, 14), instead methodically indicating the three objects by pointing or picking them up one at a time one by one, and naming them (Turns 3, 5, 7, 9). While Diana departs from the ‘This is ….’ blueprint, her variations (Turns 3, 7 and 11 – see highlighted text) still represent relational meanings identifying each object as both signal and value (Hasan (2005), as explained above). Diana’s use of is called highlights that the object has been ‘assigned’ this value by the wider culture (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). Integrating gestures and manipulable objects into Diana’s turns contributes to the dialogue capturing Lily’s attention, as does pausing theatrically before emphasising each name. The first period (Table 3.1) takes 60 seconds. When Lily has repeated each name once, demonstrating she has begun to associate the objects and their names, Diana moves seamlessly in Turn 15 to the second period, perhaps judging – correctly as it turns out – that the more challenging second period will more effectively hold Lily’s attention. The second period takes 2 minutes 18 seconds with 40 turns. During that time Lily’s responses are sometimes fulfilled with gestures or movement alone, as for example, Lily placing the object in Turn 16. 15

Diana

16

Lily

[gesturing] Can you please put the [pauses] triangular-based prism over here? [places object]

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  45 In Turn 19, Diana requests a response from Lily that combines both gesture and language, a type of exchange repeated several times. 19 20

Diana Lily

Can you feel the cylinder [pauses] and say ‘cylinder’? [feeling object with both hands] cyl-in-der

Lily reveals her familiarity and comfort with the dialogic routine in the following exchange: 31

Diana

32

Lily

33 34

Diana Lily

[gesturing] Can you move the triangular-based prism to here? [moves object] You read my mind! I was going to put it there! [expressing surprise] Were you? Yeah!

Turns 45–47 echo the ‘archetypal three-part’ IRF exchange, described by Alexander (2020, p. 6) as “disguised recitation”. 45 46 47

Diana Lily Diana

[pauses] Can you put the cylinder in my hand, please? [puts object in Diana’s hand] Thank you

Turn 47, however, is not an evaluation. Diana would say Thank you whether Lily’s response was correct or not. In a Montessori setting, saying ‘thank you’ when you are given something is modelled constantly as an expression of the ‘grace and courtesy’ expected of teachers and students alike. Correction has no place in a three-period lesson; a ‘wrong’ answer signals a child needs more, and better targeted, opportunities to learn. When Lily hesitates in response to Diana’s request in Turn 50, Diana pauses and casually repeats the request. Her response in Turn 53, That’s it!, reflects Lily’s visible excitement at working out how to place the sphere on its base successfully so it does not roll away. 49 50 51 52 53 54

Diana Lily Diana Lily Diana Lily

Can you put the sphere on its base? [hesitates] Can you put the sphere on its base? [puts the object on its base] That’s it! I can put the sphere in there.

46  Susan Feez In Turn 55, Diana transitions without pausing to the third period (Turns 55–60), in which Lily recalls all the names within ten seconds. The minimalist dialogue includes two gesture-only turns, this time by Diana. 55

Diana

56 57 58 59 60 61

Lily Diana Lily Diana Lily Diana

62 63

Lily Diana

[no pause, casually while pointing] Lily, what is it? [no hesitation] sphere [points] [no hesitation] triangular-based prism [points] [no hesitation] cylinder Fantastic Would you like … [interrupting] Three more! .. three more?

The whole lesson was completed in 3 minutes 28 seconds. During the second period, Lily’s attention wandered only twice, including in Turn 26 when she asks: Can we learn three more?. Diana responds Sure! before returning their joint attention to the initial three objects. At the end of the third period, Lily knows that she can rely on Diana to teach her three more names as promised. This time Lily guides Diana’s selection by pointing and saying, This one! and What’s this one? When selecting the cone, Lily says, This is my favourite one, so Diana begins the first period by pointing to the cone, and saying That’s a cone, initiating the following exchange. 84 85 86

Diana Lily Diana

That’s a cone [pause] cone for ice-cream cone Yes, exactly It looks like an ice-cream cone

In Turn 86, Diana acknowledges Lily can recognise the shape in the environment. When Diana holds the ellipsoid and names it, This is an ellipsoid, Lily notices its properties: So that’s got the big … round end like that and a turn later excitedly holds the ellipsoid and cone together and says Ooh! This is the ellipsoid on top like that … like ice-cream …. Diana responds with a laugh to acknowledge Lily’s exploration without allowing it to distract from the unfolding lesson. Similarly, in the second period, when Lily responds to Diana’s request Can you give me the cube and say ‘cube’? by giving her the cube and saying cube … like that one … cube. Diane recognises what Lily is trying to refer to and says: an ice cube before returning Lily’s attention to naming the objects. The second lesson concludes with a ten-second third-period dialogue in which Lily recalls the name of each object without waiting for Diana to ask What’s this? This second part of the lesson was slightly longer than the first, completed in 3 minutes and 50 seconds. Both parts comply with Montessori’s emphasis on ‘brevity’ and ‘simplicity’ with the child’s attention at each stage constantly directed

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  47 towards engagement with the objects embodying the target knowledge (Montessori, 1964/1909, p. 108). In the second half of the lesson, Lily begins to apply her perception of the shapes and recall of their names more widely, a cue for Diana to ensure there are objects in the environment that Lily, and classmates who have had the same lesson, can identify and talk about. All children who participate in these lessons are learning to recall the same culturally valued set of names for 3D geometric shapes. This means they can all now participate equally in emerging exploratory talk and discussions about these shapes, no matter whether the names are being used as signals for physically present objects, or to identify attributes of those objects, or as abstract values in an entry-level knowledge system. Sample lesson 2: Naming types of angles In the lesson recorded in the classroom for children aged from six to nine years, three seven-year-old children learn to name different types of angles. The teacher, Lauren, reported that “the three girls would all have seen others working with angles and overheard constant conversation including angle terminology in the classroom”. The opening dialogue reveals the children’s excitement because it was their turn to have this very popular lesson. During the lesson, Lauren demonstrates how to manipulate two wooden ‘sticks’ pinned together at one end to represent six different types of angles:

Figure 3.2 Building angles with the ‘sticks’.

48  Susan Feez whole angle, straight angle, right angle, acute angle, obtuse angle and reflex angle. The sticks are taken from a box of precisely calibrated, colour-coded ‘sticks’ used to construct and analyse angles and plane shapes and to guide the drawing of these shapes. This small knowledge system is represented for the children using multiple modes: sticks, movement, spoken language, as well as images and written labels. The lesson takes 20 minutes, concluding with an array of the angles. Lauren described her lesson as being ‘loosely based’ on the three-period lesson blueprint, but with a more conversational approach. The lesson is structured as a series of exchanges. The first exchange ‘defines’ an angle multimodally. As Lauren manipulates the sticks and draws images, she verbalises her actions so the language alone does the pointing (I’m getting this … and this … and this; I’m going to join these here and I’ll put the pin in here). Relational meanings are used to label (first period) the parts of angles (those are rays, this is the vertex …), and to transform what she and the children are looking at (the space between the two rays) into a definition (which is an angle) (Table 3.2). This first exchange establishes the pattern that recurs in subsequent exchanges. Lauren repeats the definition of an angle using a projecting clause (Remember, an angle is the space between two rays), then makes each type of angle with the sticks setting up a visual definition (… this one goes the whole way around!), names it (So it’s called a whole angle) and writes the name on a label (first period). As the lesson unfolds, the children become familiar with the dialogic pattern and they begin to share some of the turns, for example, selecting, joining and pivoting the sticks to make bigger or smaller angles, asking to learn about the next angle in the series (What about the right angle? We need to learn about the right angle), and echoing and interrupting Lauren to share the work of labelling and defining the physically present arrangement of sticks. This shows they have progressed to the second ‘recognition’ stage of learning about angles. Table 3.2  Multimodal naming and defining 13

Lauren

14 15

Georgie Lauren

16 17

Selena Lauren

So [pauses] [selecting two sticks] I’m getting this .. and this .. and this .. and this Those are rays. I’m going to join these here [joining two sticks] and I’ll put the pin in here [pauses] like this [pauses] So [pauses] this is the vertex where it starts and this is the ray that goes on and on and on and on and this black one is also a ray that goes on and on and on and on [very quietly] onanonanon And we’re going to look at the space between the two rays [pauses] [excitedly] Ooo-ooh .. which is [pauses] an angle

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  49 The children also begin to ask questions and contribute ideas (Why’s this called rays? There is no such thing as a left angle. That’s the half one. That’s the quarter one). Each of these contributions generates an exchange that approximates the type of learning talk Alexander (2020) argues stimulates and extends students’ thinking and enables them to reason and eventually achieve mastery. It could be argued that this is only possible in a meaningful and equitable way because these children now share a vocabulary to talk and think about angles within guide rails provided by the teacher and the predictable lesson structure. Lauren concludes her lesson with a third period that echoes yet extends the blueprint. She indicates different angles in the multimodal array and poses questions that variously ask the children to recall the name based on the type (What sort of angle is this?) or on the definition (What’s this that’s bigger than the right angle?), as well as prefaced interrogatives checking children’s recall of both the name and the definition (What can you tell me about this angle?).

Conclusion While Diana and Lauren each adapted their naming lesson to match a specific teaching situation, both lessons retain indexical features of the three-period lesson blueprint. Both lessons can be described as multimodal dialogic routines through which young children learn to perceive, interact with and label objects (colour tablets, geometric solids, sticks) in ways that lead them into domains of educational knowledge (primary colours, 3D geometric shapes, types of angles). The provenance of this lesson, spanning more than a century, provides clues to its potential for bringing all students to a shared starting point from which they can participate equitably in the type of dialogue valued at school and beyond.

Note The recordings were made with approval from the University of New England Human Research Ethics Committee (HE20-194).

References Alexander, R. J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Djonov, E., Torr, J. & Stenglin, M. (2018). Early language and literacy: Review of research with implications for early literacy programs at NSW public libraries. Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University and State Library of New South Wales. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/early_literacy_ literature_review_feb2018.pdf Feez, S. (2008). Multimodal representation of educational meanings in Montessori pedagogy. In L. Unsworth (Ed.), Multimodal semiotics: Functional analysis in contexts of education (pp. 201–215). Continuum.

50  Susan Feez Feez, S. (2010). Montessori and early childhood. Sage. Feez, S. (2011). Discipline and freedom in early childhood education. In F. Christie & K. Maton (Eds.), Disciplinarity: Functional linguistic and sociological perspectives (pp. 151–171). Continuum. Feez, S. (2019). Multimodality in the Montessori classroom. In H. de Silva Joyce & S. Feez (Eds.), Multimodality across classrooms: Learning about and through different modalities (pp. 30–48). Routledge. Feez, S. (2020). Bringing more than a century of practice to writing pedagogy in the early years. In H. Chen, D. Myhill, & H. Lewis (Eds.), Developing writers across the primary and secondary years: Growing into writing (pp. 60–77). Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. M. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th edition). Routledge. Hasan, R. (2004). The world in words: Semiotic mediation, tenor and ideology. In G. Williams & A. Lukin (Eds.), The development of language: Functional perspectives on species and individuals (pp. 158–181). Continuum. Hasan, R. (2005). Speech genre, semiotic mediation and the development of higher mental functions. In J. J. Webster (Ed.), Language, society and consciousness: The collected works of Ruqaiya Hasan Volume 1 pp. 68–105). Equinox. Lillard, A. S. (2012). Preschool children’s development in classic Montessori, supplemented Montessori, and conventional programs. Journal of School Psychology, 50(3), 379–401. Lillard, A. S. (2017). Montessori: The science behind the genius (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Lillard, A. S. (2018). Rethinking education: Montessori’s approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27, 395–400. Lillard, A. S. (2019). Shunned and admired: Montessori, self-determination and a case for radical school reform. Educational Psychology Review, 31(4), 939–965. Lillard, A. S. (2021). Montessori as an alternative early childhood education. Early Child Development and Care, 191(7–8), 1196–1206. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03004430.2020.1832998 Lillard, A. S., & Else-Quest, N. (2006). Evaluating Montessori education. Science, 313(5795), 1893–1894. Lillard, A. S., Heise, M. J. R., Eve, M., Tong, X., Hart, A., & Bray, P. M. (2017). Montessori preschool elevates and equalizes child outcomes: A longitudinal study. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01783 Marshall, C. (2017). Montessori education: A review of the evidence base. npj Science of Learning, 2(11), 1–9. Martin, J. R., & Zappavigna, M. (2019). Embodied meaning: a systemic functional perspective on paralanguage. Functional Linguistics, 6(1), 1–33. https://doi.org/ 10.1186/s40554-018-0065-9 Montessori, M. (1964/1909 Italian/1912 English). The Montessori method. Schocken Books. Montessori, M. (1967/1948 Italian). The discovery of the Child. Ballantine Books. (A revision of The Montessori Method first published in 1909.) Montessori, M. 1982/1949. The absorbent mind (8th ed.). Kalakshetra Publications. Montessori, M. (2013/1913). The 1913 Rome Lectures: First international training course - by Maria Montessori S. Feez, L. Quade, C. Montessori, & J. Verheul (Eds.), Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company. Painter, C. (1999). Learning through language in early childhood. Continuum.

Multimodal dialogue in Montessori classrooms  51 Rioux, J., Ewing, B., & Cooper, T. J. (2019). The Montessori method, Aboriginal students and Linnaean zoology taxonomy teaching: Three-staged lesson. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 50(1). https://doi.org/10.1017/ jie.2019.10 Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). The structure of higher mental functions. In In R. W. Rieber & D. K. Robinson (Eds.), The essential Vygotsky. (pp. 359–373). Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986/1934). Thought and language. The MIT Press. Vygotsky, L., & Luria, A. (1994/1930). Tool and symbol in child development. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 99–174). Blackwell.

4 The contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’ to successful literacy transitions in English curriculum Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj Introduction English is the only subject compulsory for all Australian students from the first year of school to the final and to be successful in English, students must master the ability to respond to, appreciate and create literary texts in different modes and media (ACARA, 2022). The lines below are from a text collaboratively written by year 5 and their teacher after reading The Coat (Hunt & Brooks, 2013), a contemporary children’s picture book which tells the story of an individual’s transformation as a result of encountering a coat with magical powers. The shoes hung on a hook at the back of an old dusty studio. They were tied up tightly, old and worn and they were lonely. “What a waste of us!” the shoes sighed to the dance floor and the props and the mirrors. “What an unbelievable waste!” Then they suddenly fell silent because someone was making their way through the stage door. … (From Derewianka & Jones, 2023, p. 75) The children’s version is an instance of a creative response, and innovates on the language patterns and ideas of the original, substituting a pair of tap shoes that take a lonely passer-by on a similarly transformative adventure. The children’s text is a result of a good deal of discussion, reading, and close examination of the picture book as well as activities to build children’s control of the descriptive language similar to the original choices in the text. Importantly, the teacher and child engaged in imaginative play with different types of shoes (tap shoes, high-heeled shoes, sports shoes, work boots) in which the children speculated as to the personalities and experiences of such shoes. Their final text demonstrates how literary texts are used by many teachers to apprentice children into subject English, initially by encouraging learners to adapt the forms used by expert others before they produce more original responses. The most successful of these earn their young writers the highest accolades in high-stakes assessments (e.g., Sayer, 2022). Not all children, however, manage the move to independent DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-6

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  53 control of the form successfully and many find creative writing challenging (Matruglio & Jones, 2020). These mixed outcomes prompt reflection on (i) how successful apprenticeship into English can be encouraged; (ii)the nature of the interactions and practices which foster creativity and control; and (iii) how can such effective practices be made available for every student from the earliest years of schooling. The impetus for this study came from the TRANSLIT project, a recent study of literacy transitions across the school years in English, History, and Science (Jones et  al., 2021a). The project explored key transition points (such as preschool to early primary and upper-primary to secondary school) to understand the significant and persistent achievement gap in young people’s literacy outcomes (Lamb et al., 2020) and it considered student case studies, document analysis, teacher interviews, and classroom observations of literacy lessons at a number of points from the final months of preschool to the middle secondary years. The project found distinct shifts in interactive patterns across the years. Classroom observations revealed that learning to (i) participate in pedagogic activities was a priority for the early years; (ii) to master generic literacy skills was a focus for the primary years; and then (iii) reworking these as subject-specific literacies was key to success in the secondary years (EdwardsGroves et al., 2021). These shifting demands were evident in the classroom dialogue collected by the project, yet the changing nature of the interactions through which they are accomplished throughout an individual’s school life has seldom been the subject of serious attention by researchers or policy makers. Consequently, the changing nature of talk practices across the years remains invisible to those most impacted, the teachers and their students, and especially to those young people whose pathways through school are plagued by difficulties and discontinuities. Endeavours to improve the quality of talk (and hence learning) in school classrooms often overlook children’s experiences of talk before school. As a result, not only do many children encounter disjunctions in their transition to school, but also the rich resource of young children’s capacity for dialogue is left untapped by teachers. This chapter, therefore, examines interactions from either side of the preschool to school transition point to consider how children’s early apprenticeship into subject English can be nurtured in ways which (i) engage young learners, (ii) support their conceptual growth, and (iii) smooth the pathways between the two settings and beyond. This chapter brings together two significant approaches to classroom discourse to bridge the divide between before-school and formal school settings (Perry et  al., 2014): both approaches seek to improve educational outcomes through attending to the quality of pedagogic talk (Alexander, 2020; Siraj et al., 2019). The first significant approach is Sustained shared thinking (SST) (Siraj et al., 2015). This has much currency in prior to school and early primary

54  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj settings because it enables educators and teachers to focus on the quality of adult–child and child–child interactions. In recent years, SST has become an integral part of early childhood programmes and centre evaluation processes. The second approach, Dialogic teaching, “harnesses the power of talk to engage their [students’] interest, stimulate thinking, advance understanding, expand ideas and build and evaluate arguments, empowering them for lifelong learning and democratic engagement” (Alexander, 2020, p. 1). At its most expansive and aspirational, dialogic pedagogy aims to improve the quality of teacher and learner talk in schools, to enhance learning experiences of children, and to improve teaching practice (see Chapter 2). It has had less attention in early years settings. This chapter draws on functional linguistic theory (Halliday 1978, 1993; Halliday & Hasan, 1985) to closely examine face-to-face interactions from either side of the transition from primary to secondary school. It uses pedagogic register analysis (Rose, 2018) to investigate the linguistic character of the pedagogy at the transition, and it considers the consequences of this for children’s potential trajectories in English.

The context Alexander (2020, p. 47) argues for a conception of pedagogy which encompasses both the informing theories, values, beliefs, and practices which circulate in the broad socio-cultural milieu, and the teaching and learning which takes place in empirical settings. This chapter begins, then, by considering a key aspect of any educational context, the official curriculum. In Australia, Belonging, being and becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Australian Government Dept of Education and Training (DET), n.d.) (hereafter the EYLF) is a key document guiding children’s experiences in preschool settings (birth to five years). The EYLF defines curriculum as ‘all the interactions, experiences, activities, routines and events, planned and unplanned, that occur in an environment designed to foster children’s learning and development’ (2019, p. 9). It describes two sets of outcomes relevant to language and learning in any curriculum domain, including English (see Table 4.1). At school, The Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2022) (AC: E) describes a map for children’s study of English from approximately 6 to 15 years (see Table 4.1). In the first year, the curriculum anticipates that children begin to learn about language, to develop early literacy skills through engaging with and creating a variety of oral, print and digital texts, and to appreciate literature in different forms. While both curriculum documents refer to the importance of supporting children’s transition between settings, the snapshots in Tables 4.1 and 4.2 show a shift from the more play-based curricula of the preschool setting (with its emphasis on children’s growth into dispositions and processes of imagination, experimentation and expression) to that of the early school

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  55 Table 4.1  Examples of Language and Learning in the EYLF Outcomes

Evident when children, for example,

children are confident and involved learners

• develop dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity • develop skills and processes including problemsolving, inquiry, experimentation, and investigation • interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes • express ideas and make meaning using a range of media

children are effective communicators

(Source: EYLF 2019)

Table 4.2  Examples of Language and Learning in the AC: E (Foundation Level) Strands

Evident when children, for example,

learning about language

• explore how language is used differently at home and school depending on the relationships between people • recognise that sentences are key units for expressing ideas • recognise and develop awareness of vocabulary used in familiar contexts related to everyday experiences, personal interests and topics taught at school • interact in informal and structured situations by listening while others speak and sing features of voice including volume levels • create and participate in shared editing of short written texts to record and report ideas and events using some basic learnt vocabulary, basic sentence boundary punctuation, and spelling some CVC words correctly • share ideas about stories, poems, and images in literature, reflecting on experiences that are similar or different to their own by engaging with texts by First Nations Australian, and wide-ranging Australian and world authors and illustrators • retell and adapt familiar literary texts through play, performance, images, or writing

developing literacy repertoires

Appreciating and creating literature

(Source: ACARA, 2022)

curriculum, with its greater specificity about children’s physical and mental behaviours (interacting, sharing, creating, recognising) and what is learnt (text, sentences, vocabulary). This is not to suggest that literacy learning does not take place in preschool settings but rather that its organisation, purposes, and form differ considerably (Kervin & Mantei, 2021). The more formal school curriculum (with its emphasis on early literacy skills and its move into different subject domains) necessarily constrains the framing, or selection, sequencing and pacing, of learning activities (Bernstein, 1990). The questions remain, however, of how

56  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj children and educators/teachers might be best supported to navigate pathways between the two settings to ensure children experience cumulative learning in all strands of English, and whether sustained shared thinking and dialogic pedagogy are of use in such an endeavour.

The analytic framework Curriculum is only one part of Alexander’s view of pedagogy; other parts include its enactment as the “observable act of teaching” and learning (2020, p. 47) and the repertoires of teaching and learning talk that he argues are essential for learning to occur (2020, p. 142 ff.). Curriculum contexts like these create different purposes for using language (such as exploring, experimenting and problem solving), which are in turn realised as interactions. Alexander’s view of pedagogy aligns with functional linguistic theory, which posits that every instance of language use is shaped by both the contexts in which it is produced (Chapter 2). And further, the theory argues that this context is in turn shaped by the language choices made by users so that pedagogic contexts emerge dynamically and are not static backdrops to classroom talk (Edwards & Westgate, 1994). Attention to interaction is essential, therefore, to every effort to improve the quality of pedagogy and learners’ experiences. This chapter’s analysis focuses on the interactions – the exchanges, turns and moves (see Chapter 2) – observed as a means of describing the dialogic purposes which in turn shape the emerging pedagogic contexts. The analysis explores differences between designed-in (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005) approaches to talk (as per SST) and more routinely occurring talk in an early school setting. The aim is not to compare the two samples but rather to reveal useful similarities and distinctions. The analysis highlights some key linguistic features of SST to consider how this knowledge can support educators to respond to Alexander’s call for teachers to develop ‘repertoires’ of talk practice, or in other words, what might constitute the necessary “interactive skills, strategies and moves” (2020, p. 2) for supporting students’ growth into the subject-specific demands of English. This chapter’s analytical framework treats lessons or learning episodes as instances of curriculum genres (Christie, 2005). In broad terms, genres are “staged goal-oriented social processes” (Rose & Martin, 2012, p. 1) which are recognisable to members of a culture (e.g., as education), and which configure fields of activities (learning), social relations (among adults and children) and modes of meaning-making (language, image, 3D objects which configure classroom interactions) into situationally distinct registers. A curriculum genre comprises two registers: a curriculum register of knowledge and values, and a pedagogic register. Curriculum registers are often related to curriculum domains and disciplinary norms, in this case, the English curriculum. Pedagogic registers comprise learning activities, relations between educators and learners, and the modes and media through

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  57 which these are integrated (Rose, 2018). This chapter focuses on the nature of the pedagogic registers evident in the two settings, that is, the preschool and kindergarten (the first year of school in our Australian state). Pedagogic activities take place on three levels: (i) as lessons or a series of lessons; (ii) as activities within lessons, and (iii) as educator-learner ­interactions – which weave together as learning cycles (such as the IRE/F; see Chapter 2) and become patterns of interaction that shape learners’ ways of behaving (including meaning-making) (Hasan, 1999). A careful study of activities provides insights into what is significant to the participants at a particular moment in time. Pedagogic relations are the means through which educators and learners negotiate the learning activities, co-constructing curricular knowledge and values by taking on such roles as presenting knowledge, evaluating individuals, directing activities (usually teachers), and displaying or receiving knowledge (usually students) and soliciting knowledge and actions. Examining these relations closely is useful as the interpersonal is critical to learning (Halliday, 1993). Pedagogic modalities refer to the sources for learning and include texts, images, the educators’ or learners’ knowledge, and other artefacts and phenomena in the learning environment. Together, these activities, relations, and modalities allow the analyst to describe pedagogic contexts in some detail (Figure 4.1).

Findings The analytical framework was applied firstly to an example of sustained shared thinking collected by Siraj et al., (2015) from a UK preschool setting.

Pedagogic relations

pedagogic register

Knowledge & values

Pedagogic activities Pedagogic modalities

Figure 4.1 The analytic model. (Source: Rose, 2018)

curriculum register

58  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj SST refers to interactions in which two or more individuals (e.g., an adult and child, or peers) cooperate “in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate activities, or extend a narrative” (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009, p. 79): this is a dialogue that extends children’s thinking. In the example in Table 4.3, an educator (ed) and a group of children (aged three to five years) are seated at a table working with playdough. One child has spent several minutes making a playdough cake and has stuck plastic cutlery into the cake. This extract demonstrates many aspirations of the EYLF; the child’s confidence to initiate and persist with the task, and to sustain the learning conversation, is immediately apparent. The educator is attentive to the child’s interest and willing to pursue the activity while gently increasing its cognitive demand. A closer look sheds some light on the potential of such interactions to contribute to the subject-specific literacy of English. The interaction unfolds as nineteen individual turns, which configure into a series of learning cycles or exchanges between speakers which are, in turn, comprised of moves (see Chapter 2; Martin, 1992; Rose & Martin, 2012). Here, the interweaving knowledge (K) and action (A) underscore the playbased nature of early childhood settings and show that many knowledge exchanges take place as children engage with a designed material environment. Despite an initial perception of the child’s degree of freedom, the educator’s relatively strong framing of the interaction (Bernstein, 1990) is evident in their frequent positioning as primary knower (K1) and primary actor (A1). The educator’s control is subtle. Rather than repeatedly praising the child, the educator concurs (turns 3, 6 & 8) as they follow the child’s lead. The phase and interact columns of the table identify the pedagogic functions of the exchanges. The pedagogic goal is to support the child to work with two fields: (i) the immediate setting of the playdough activity and (ii) an imaginary field (initially, the birthday celebration; then, the behaviour of birds). The major source of meanings for these exchanges is the children’s knowledge. Early in the episode, the child initiates ideas such as making a cake, making candles, and making an egg, and the educator co-operates via moves that affirm (turns 3, 6 & 8) and elaborate (turns 8). The child’s knowledge is stretched, however, when the conversation is redirected from the familiar ritual of the birthday cake to the not-so-familiar field of bird behaviour (turn 12, Table 4.4). The child needs time to adjust to the idea that something concrete like the playdough can symbolise something else entirely imaginary (turns 13–18). It is only when the child has successfully accomplished this move that the educator affirms the child’s participation in the dialogue (turn 19). This chapter’s analysis is, in part, a response to Alexander’s invitation to “pick up the baton” and elaborate on the functional nature of learner and teacher talk a little more fully. In an attempt to relate the analysis to teaching talk repertoires (2020, p. 145), each exchange was then assigned to a type of teaching or learning talk. In this example of interaction, the educator’s talk

Table 4.3  Sustained Shared Thinking Extract 1 spkr

text

roles

activity

sourcing

interacts

1

E

dK1

focus idea

names item

invite conception

2 3 4

C E C

K1 A1

identify affirm

points thing

display conception concur

5

C

Would you like something else to use as candles on your cake? turns round to boxes placed on shelf behind her opts for lollipop sticks passes the box to him. removes the cutlery and starts to replay it with lollipop sticks minutes pass and child finishes cake Happy birthday to you (singing to educator)

K2

propose ritual

display conception

6

E

pretends to blow out candles Do I have a present?

K1 dK1

affirm focus imagination

infer learner knowledge

7 8

C E

hands educator a ball of playdough takes playdough I wonder what’s inside I’ll unwrap it quickly makes the ball into a thumb pot holds it out to the child It’s empty!

K1 A2f dK1

propose idea affirm elaborate idea

(Source: Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003)

A1 K1

enquire learner knowledge

concur invite conception display conception concur model conception

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  59

turn

turn

spkr

text

roles

activity

sourcing

interacts

9

C

K2

propose idea

infer learner knowledge

display conception

10 11 12

E C E

takes a pinch of playdough and drops it into the thumbpot It’s an egg It’s a strange shape tries to take the ’egg’ Be very, very careful It’s an egg What’s it going to hatch into?

K1 K2f K1

reject elaborate idea

prior move

dK1

focus idea

K2 K1

propose idea reject

enquire learner knowledge

13 14

C E

15

E

A lion A lion? I can see why it might hatch into a lion it’s got little hairy bits on it sends child to put the egg somewhere safe to hatch takes the egg, goes into the bathroom … returns to the group Has the egg hatched?

16 17 18

C E C

Yes What was it? A bird

K2 dK1 K2

19

E

A bird. We’ll have to take it outside at lunchtime and put it in a tree so that it can fly away

K1

C

(Source: Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2003)

qualify demur model conception repair invite conception display conception qualify

A2 A1 dK1

focus imagination

enquire learner knowledge

propose idea

infer learning knowledge

affirm elaborate idea

invite conception concur inquire conception display conception repeat model conception

60  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj

Table 4.4  Sustained Shared Thinking Extract 2

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  61 is remarkable for its absence of recitation, instruction, and exposition – types of talk frequently found in pedagogic settings. Instead, the educator’s contributions are predominantly dialogic as the common interest is pursued with the child. These dialogic moves are initially collective as joint attention is established (turn 1) then cumulative as the educator builds ideas (turns 6, 12, 15, & 19), and then deliberative when steering conversation through a ‘side-step’ (turns 10 & 14). More important, however, is the dialogic move which invites the child to speculate about the egg’s shape (turn 8): this is a move which models how to think symbolically and encourages reciprocity by the child. By pursuing this narrative, the adult is apprenticing the child into a way of working between first- and second-order meanings (Austen, 1993; Hasan, 1985) – or between the everyday world and the imagined world valued in English studies (Jones et al., 2021b). Put another way, the child’s learning talk is transactional, as they respond to the educator’s invitations (turns 2 & 7) but, most importantly for the pedagogic shift, exploratory as they venture ideas (turns 5 & 13); and finally, imaginative as they embrace and articulate the symbolic order (turns 9 & 18). It is in this way that the general functional categories of Alexander’s repertoires and the more detailed pedagogic register analysis reveal how shared, sustained thinking is accomplished by skilled and attentive educators, and it suggests ways in which the literary sensibilities and dispositions necessary for acquiring the successful English ‘gaze’ (Maton, 2014, pp. 94–100) might be fostered. Such a gaze is said to be ‘cultivated’ through continued immersion in canonical and exemplary texts, so that valued ways of talking about and of representing experience (that is increasingly textual) are acquired in the manner of a gradual apprenticeship into the curriculum discipline of English. One talk sample collected during the TRANSLIT project is particularly instructive (see Table 4.5). It was observed during an English lesson in the first year of primary school or kindergarten, when the children have been in formal schooling for ten months. The school is situated in a disadvantaged community, so had attracted additional resources – including specialist staff. Working with these extra resources, the teachers had developed a daily structured English literacy program which aimed to ensure all students mastered early literacy skills. Each morning session featured explicit attention to oral language (often focussed on vocabulary), writing, and reading, and was structured to ensure that each child received individualised instruction suited to their literacy needs. The extract under focus is drawn from one of these morning sessions. The educator was an experienced teacher with a cheerful demeanour who maintained a snappy pace throughout the morning. The classroom was bright and roomy, and well organised with spaces for activities like imaginative play and quiet reading set up around desks which are arranged in small groups. Much activity took place in front of the interactive whiteboard (IWB) at the front of the classroom. Anxious to build a shared context for

turn

spkr

text

roles

activity

sourcing

interacts

1

T

K1

focus activity

enquire prior activity

inquire knowledge

2 3 4 5 6

Chn T C T T

A2 dK1 K2 K1 dK1

focus task propose idea affirm focus task

enquire video knowledge recall video knowledge

7

C

K2

propose idea

T

K1

affirm

recall video knowledge recall video knowledge

display perception

8 9 10

C T T

dK1

re-focus task

enquire video knowledge

invite perception

11 12

C T T

so, let’s talk about what we saw on our bushwalk today raise their hands what did you see O? water you saw water excellent what did you see on the bushwalk? (points to another child) I saw heaps of water and some birds were singing oh, you heard (cups ear) did you hear the birds singing? lovely nods Ohh what did, what did you see on the bushwalk (points to another child) I saw rocks You saw rocks on the bushwalk, very good well, there’s some rocks in here (picks one rock up out of the box) a nice red rock oh, that’s really heavy too.

K2 K1

propose idea affirm elaborate quality

recall video knowledge

display perception repeat, praise invite attention

enquire video knowledge

environment

display attention invite perception display perception repeat, praise invite perception

repeat, praise

62  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj

Table 4.5  Kindergarten English Lesson Extract 1

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  63 literacy, the teacher has used YouTube videos, displayed on the IWB, to take the class on imaginary excursions to another beach town down the coast a little. On previous days, the class had been on virtual whale-watching and scuba-diving excursions, and that morning, they had gone on a ‘bushwalk’: the children stood in front of the IWB while the educator narrated the experience, encouraged them to move as if on the walk, etc., pointed out features of the bush as the video played. The children and teacher then sat in a circle around a box of found items from nature (pinecones, rocks, bark, etc.) and individual children were invited to select, name, and describe aspects (usually tactile) of these items. The following interaction is talk from a lesson stage which occurred immediately after these introductory activities. The educator’s goal was to elicit by oral rehearsal single clauses for the children to use as models for the morning writing activity (Table 4.5). The analysis reveals how the teacher focused the talk by initially directing the children’s attention to the activity (turn 1) before leading them through a series of exchanges designed to elicit a list of phenomena (water, rocks) seen on the bushwalk. Each child’s contribution was affirmed by repeating and praising (turns 5, 8 & 12), and, where possible (turn 12), elaborated with reference to the objects in the box. While the exchanges in these turns are most obviously of the IRE/F associated with Alexander’s recitation teaching talk, they work together to accumulate a list of vocabulary items which children may use to write their subsequent sentences. In this sense, it can be argued that, at this early stage of literacy development and with young children, these moves are dialogic because they build cumulative understandings of the subsequent writing task. Their teacher wishes to build shared vocabulary so that everyone has something to write about. Similar to what was observed in the preschool example, the kindergarten children’s learning talk is here largely transactional as they respond by offering items observed. A change occurs, however, when one child takes up the primary knower role and proffers an idea for which they lack the correct label (see turn 13, Table 4.6). In a reciprocal dialogic move to help clarify the matter, (turn 14) the teacher checks the child’s meaning. This, in turn, prompts the child to elaborate, and the teacher to supply the correct label and affirm their contribution. The teacher then changes the task to one in which children must identify the sounds heard on the bushwalk (turn 20), to which a child responds by describing the type of bird (turn 21): ‘rainbow lorikeets’. The teacher elaborates on the child’s move by placing it in a sentence and so modelling the task for the class. In these exchanges, because the teacher’s dialogue moves remain supportive (turns 16 & 22), the children move beyond the earlier transactional moves and into exploratory talk as they initiate ideas (turns 13 & 21) – and into expository talk to clarify a contribution (turn 15).

turn

spkr

text

13

C

I saw a pack!

14

T

15

C

16

T

20

T

21 22

C T

You saw a pack? What’s ’a pack’? A pack is a thing that goes (twirls finger in the air) Oh ’a rapid’! You saw a rapid in the water a rapid, excellent … What did you hear (cups ear) on our bushwalk? (to whole group) What did you hear? (turns to child beside him) Rainbow lorikeets You heard rainbow lorikeets? That would be a fantastic gro-up of words to write! (gestures with hand to highlight group of words) If you could write "I saw the rainbow lorikeets" that would be fantastic!

roles

activity

sourcing

interacts

K1

propose idea

display perception

K2

repeat

recall video knowledge

K1

elaborate idea propose word affirm

learner knowledge teacher knowledge

check repeat approve, praise

K1

focus task

enquire video knowledge

invite perception

K2 K1

propose idea affirm elaborate writing task

learner knowledge

display perception repeat praise

propose sentence affirm

teacher knowledge

invite behaviour approve

64  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj

Table 4.6  Kindergarten English Lesson Extract 2

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  65 In this way, the children are primed for individual sentence writing in the next lesson stage. These texts were, in the main, variations on ‘I saw rocks’ or ‘I saw a rainbow lorikeet’ as children recorded what they had observed during the bushwalk or could recall from previous experiences. These recounts of items represent more everyday, concrete meanings than the imaginative, playful meanings encouraged of the preschool child.

Discussion and conclusion In summary, using the pedagogic register analysis in the two settings allowed the moves and exchanges to be described in some detail. This, in turn, facilitates their description in terms of the teaching and learning repertoires involved and, ultimately, the nature of the learning context. The analysis also makes it possible to consider the phases of activity, the sources of meanings, and the enactment of pedagogic relations. The preschool example was distinguished by the way that activity mostly followed the child-initiated moves, the lack of overt managing moves by the educator, and the emphasis on the learner’s knowledge. In contrast, the kindergarten example was marked by the way it was led by the teacher’s instructional goals, the explicit nature of the teacher’s framing of the lesson through the IRE/F sequence, and the use of video as a major source of meanings. With respect to teaching and learning talk, we observed the preschool educator’s propensity for dialogue moves, which attended to the child’s interest, built a narrative, and encouraged further thinking. These moves expanded the potential for the child’s use of exploratory and imaginative learning talk which will prepare them for subject English. In contrast, and due in part to the different nature of the school environment, the kindergarten teacher used more recitational talk to make the learning tasks explicit to all, and dialogue moves to build shared knowledge among the children. However, the learning talk used by the children in this example was for the most part transactional – with the exceptions described above. Such talk does support the acquisition of some early literacy skills, but on its own, it is insufficient for later school success (Moje, 2021). The key question must be how the shared, sustained thinking of the preschool setting can become the shared, sustained, subject-specific thinking necessary for school English. Children can become oriented to curriculum subjects only through innumerable immersions in different contexts: they acquire different “ways of behaving, of knowing and of thinking” (Christie, 2012, p. 162) with the result that they are positioned as more or less successful learners in the different subjects. Learning to ‘do’ English in the early years is more than learning to participate or even learning the basics of literacy (important though this is); it involves entry into particular semiotic and dispositional behaviours. Of course, ‘I saw a rainbow lorikeet’ is less sophisticated language than that in the text introduced at the beginning of the chapter because, as Halliday

66  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj (1993) notes, children’s language often regresses as they struggle to control the print medium in early literacy classes. It may also be argued that the language of a recount is not a particularly rich mentor text in conceptual and linguistic terms. Even so, the recording of ideas as simple sentences is a significant step for the young writers in the kindergarten classroom. Not only are they learning what constitutes literacy, but they are also learning to participate in writing lessons (as evident in their learning talk repertoires), and to create texts, however short. Most importantly, they are learning that writing about experiences – no matter whether real or vicarious – counts in English. However, the source of creativity offered to kindergarten children is a virtual world mediated by the teacher, a world which positions the child as an observer (or perceiver). In contrast, the preschool child’s creativity flowed from sustained engagement in a play activity where ideas were jointly negotiated with the educator. The immersive nature of the preschool example is such an important aspect: the child was fully absorbed in the activity of imagining with the educator. Similarly, the students who wrote about the abandoned shoes (as per the beginning of this chapter) were immersed in the world of the model text through repeated reading, discussing its themes, examining language patterns, and hands-on experiences with different types of shoes. Such immersion is an important part of building the world of the text as it is read and responded to. In both the preschool and the year 5 setting, immersion was embodied, encouraged, and sustained by interactivity. In this way, the immersion is a joint experience, shared by students and teachers. With respect to pedagogy and the need for cumulative learning in English, the question arises as to how such joint immersion as observed in the preschool and upper primary settings might be facilitated from the earliest lessons in school English. One important source to consider is bi-modal literary texts such as that encountered by the year 5 students. Picture books and their digital forms, because of their multiple layers of meanings, the accessibility of the visual, and aesthetic language as well as playfulness and potential for embodied activity, are central to English. Of course, many teachers use these now but do so in the face of a good deal of current pressure to conform to different kinds of lessons and interactive patterns. Such pressures often arise from a concern with so-called ‘foundational’ literacy skills, which, while important, alone are not sufficient to ensure success in English. However, through the sustained and shared immersion seen in this chapter, children acquire the means to negotiate between the concrete and the abstract or metaphorical via the careful choreography of teaching and learning talk. Interactive patterns have a powerful impact on the nature of the learning context. Attention to these interactive patterns is essential if we are to enhance learner outcomes as they navigate the major transition points of schooling. There is, it seems, a case for more longitudinal and linguistic studies of dialogic talk to shed light on the relationship between language, literacy, and literature from the early years, and to strengthen the awareness that oral

Contribution of ‘sustained shared thinking’  67 language is more than a vehicle for the acquisition of early reading and writing; it is a vital enabler of children’s nascent disciplinary knowledge.

Ethics statement The TRANSLIT project was approved by the University of Wollongong Human Research and Ethics Committee (Reference Number 2015/337).

References Alexander, R. J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2022). The Australian curriculum: English Vers. 9. ACARA. https://www.australiancurriculum. edu.au/ Australian Government Department of Education and Training (DET) (n.d.). Belonging, being and becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Australian Government DET. Austen, H. (1993). Verbal art in children’s literature: An application of linguistic theory to the classroom. English in Australia, 103(March), 63–75. Edwards-Groves, C., Garoni, S., & Freebody, P. (2021). Transitions in literacy and classroom interactions. In P. T. Jones, E. Matruglio, & C. Edwards-Groves (Eds.), Transition and continuity in school literacy development. (pp. 95–118). Bloomsbury. Bernstein, B. (1990). Class, codes and control vol. 3: Towards a theory of educational transmission. Routledge/Kegan Paul. Christie, F. (2005). Language education in the primary years. UNSW Press. Christie, F. (2012). Language education throughout the school years. Wiley-Blackwell. Derewianka, B., & Jones, P. T. (2023). Teaching language in context (3rd ed.). Oxford. Edwards, A. D., & Westgate, D. P. G. (1994). Investigating classroom talk (2nd ed.). The Falmer Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as a social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education, 5, 93–116. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic Perspective. Deakin University Press. Hammond, J., & Gibbons, P. (2005). The contribution of scaffolding to articulating ESL education. Prospect, 20, (1), 6–30. Hasan, R. (1985). Linguistics, language and verbal art. Deakin University Press. Hasan, R. (1999). Society, language and the mind: The meta-dialogism of Basil Bernstein’s theory. In F. Christie (Ed.), Pedagogy and the shaping of consciousness: Linguistic and social processes. (pp. 10–30). Continuum. Hunt, J, & Brooks, R. (2012). The coat. Allen & Unwin. Jones, P. T., Matruglio, E., & Edwards-Groves, C. (Eds.). (2021a). Transition and continuity in school literacy development. Bloomsbury. Jones, P. T., Matruglio, E., & Rose, D. (2021b). Investigating pedagogic discourse in late primary and early secondary English. In P. T. Jones, E. Matruglio, & C. Edwards-Groves (Eds.), Transition and continuity in school literacy development. (pp. 145–168). Bloomsbury.

68  Pauline Jones and Iram Siraj Kervin, L., & Mantei, J. (2021). Transition from preschool to school: Spaces, time, interactions and resources. In P. T. Jones, E. Matruglio, & C. Edwards-Groves (Eds.), Transition and continuity in school literacy development. (pp. 77–94). Bloomsbury. Kingston, D., & Siraj, J. (2015). Quality time. Nursery World. www.nurseryworld. co.uk Lamb, S., Huo, S., Walstab, A., Wade, A., Maire, Q., Doecke, E., Jackson, J., & Endekov, Z. (2020). Educational opportunity in Australia 2020: Who succeeds and who misses out. Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Victoria University, for the Mitchell Institute: Melbourne. Martin, J. R. (1992). English text. John Benjamins. Maton, K. (2014). Knowledge and knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education. Routledge. Matruglio, E., & Jones, P. T. (2020). Writing their futures: Students’ stories of development and difference. In H. Chen, D. Myhill, & H. Lewis (Eds.), Growing into writing: Developing writers across primary and secondary school years (pp. 173–193). Routledge. Moje, E. B., (2021). Literacies for successfully navigating transitions at school and beyond. In P. T. Jones, E. Matruglio, & C. Edwards-Groves (Eds.), Transition and continuity in school literacy development. (pp. 273–280). Bloomsbury. OECD. (2018). Equity in education: Breaking down barriers to social mobility. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/equity-in-education_9789 264073234-en Perry, B., Dockett, S., & Petriwskyj, A. (Eds.). (2014). Transitions to school: International research, policy and practice. Springer. Rose, D. (2018). Pedagogic register analysis: Mapping choices in teaching and learning. Functional Linguistics, 5(3), 1–33. Rose, D., & Martin, J. R. (2012). Learning to write, reading to learn: Genre, knowledge & pedagogy in the Sydney school. Equinox. Sayer, L. (2022). Lucy topped Extension English in the HSC. This is what she wrote. Sydney Morning Herald, 20th January. Siraj, I., Kingston, D., & Melhuish, E. (2015). The sustained shared thinking and emotional wellbeing (SSTEW) www.ucl-ioepress.co.uk Siraj, I., Taggart, B., Sammons, P., Melhuish, E., Sylva, K., & Shepherd, D. (2019). Teaching in effective primary schools: Research into pedagogy and children’s learning. UCL Institute of Education Press. Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2009). Conceptualising progression in the pedagogy of play and sustained shared thinking in early childhood education: A Vygotskian perspective. Educational and child psychology 26(2), 77–89.

5 “We’re going to do it together” Dialogic discourse with young children in Western Australia Anne Thwaite

Introduction This chapter revisits classroom interactions from several projects engaged in by the author and colleagues, re-­ analysing them from both a dialogic and a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective in order to investigate synergies between the two approaches. The combination of approaches can improve our knowledge of how dialogic discourse is expressed, with the potential to improve teachers’ practice. While a dialogic perspective helps to investigate teachers’ principles and repertoires, an SFL approach gives more detail about the actual linguistic realisations. Thus, it may assist in giving examples of what teachers and students actually say in the classroom, helping educators to understand what dialogic discourse may look like in practice. This may potentially be helpful to teachers who seek to develop the quality of talk in their classrooms. The data drawn upon is from projects in Western Australia (WA) with children aged from approximately five to eight years in primary (elementary) classrooms. Examples include both teacher-­centred discourse and small-­group interactions, in a range of learning areas. The teachers whose work is illustrated here are notable for the skill with which they conduct their dialogic repertoires.

Context Data for this chapter is taken from three classroom contexts. Context 1 A multicultural class of five-­year-­olds in a metropolitan school, undertaking a unit of work on architecture and building (Thwaite, 2014; Thwaite & McKay, 2013). There were three teachers working with the children, accompanied at various times by teaching assistants, the school chaplain and parent helpers. The researcher audio-­recorded classroom conversations of a group of children for one morning a week during the nine weeks of the unit, taking observational notes during this time; the discourse was later transcribed. Interviews (also transcribed) were conducted with the three teachers before and after the unit of work. In this chapter, I primarily focus on teacher Sara, with teacher Laura also being mentioned. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-7

70  Anne Thwaite Context 2 A class attached to a large suburban primary school, containing four and five-­ year-­ olds, who were observed over a period of seven months (see Thwaite, 2007). On each of our five visits we saw an entire lesson or learning experience, focussing particularly on lessons involving literacy. We talked with the teacher before the lesson, then video-­and audio-­taped the lesson. Afterwards, we audio-­taped an interview with the teacher. All material was then transcribed. The school was in an area described as disadvantaged and was classified as ‘Difficult to staff’. Approximately one-­third of the students were Indigenous Australian. The teacher, Marcia, had a full-­time teaching assistant (TA) working with her, and an Aboriginal/Islander Education Officer (AIEO) visiting regularly. Context 3 A class of five-­and six-­year-­olds in a primary school in the metropolitan area catering specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (see Thwaite, 2004, 2007). Many of the teachers in the school, although not this particular teacher, are Indigenous; the school Principal is also usually an Indigenous person. The researcher visited the class seven times over the period of one year, and classroom interactions were recorded with both video and audio. Where possible, the class teacher, Yvonne, was interviewed after each lesson.

Research question The main research question is: ‘How do the teachers enact Alexander’s Collective, Reciprocal, Supportive and Cumulative principles (2020) in these three early childhood classrooms?’ I have chosen these four principles as being most apparent in the data. Alexander (2020) identifies two other principles: The Purposeful principle is clearly related to the SFL concept of Genre. For reasons of space, I will not go into this here, as it is best illustrated by a series of transcripts that indicate adherence to the purpose of a learning experience. The Deliberative principle refers to a type of argumentation that is not disputative. There is not a great deal of evidence for this principle in the current data set, perhaps because the children are quite young, although that is not to say that young children cannot engage in deliberative discourse with the right scaffolding. The findings section will explore how the four chosen principles are enacted in different ways by the teachers.

Key concepts used in the chapter This section refers to some of the SFL literature on Register and spoken discourse analysis, making connections between these aspects of SFL theory

“We’re going to do it together”  71 and Alexander’s principles. The concept of Register is relevant as, through the metafunctional hypothesis, it relates elements of language to the context of the situation (see Chapter 1). The SFL work on spoken discourse analysis goes beyond the IRF structure which is still widely used by analysts, to encompass generic, functional and dynamic aspects of discourse, thus adding a deeper level to Alexander’s principles. The SFL construct of Register, already introduced in Chapters 1 and 2 of this volume, plays an important part in the theoretical framework used in this chapter. When discussing the development of students’ knowledge, I make use of the Register variable of Field. Of particular relevance to this chapter is the Register variable of Tenor, i.e., the relationships among the interlocutors; this is related to the interpersonal metafunction, especially in terms of relationships, authority and control in the classroom. Following Martin (1992, p. 525), we can unpack Tenor into Status, “the relative positions of interlocutors in a culture’s social hierarchy”, Contact, “their degree of institutional involvement with each other” and Affect, “the ‘degree of emotional charge’ (Halliday, 1978, p. 33) in the relationship”. These three aspects of Tenor can be realised in various ways. Status can be expressed by reciprocity of choice (Martin, 1992, p. 527f), the connection to Alexander’s Reciprocal principle. For example, reciprocal choices may be made in terms of address, initiations, turn-­taking, control of the conversation or the amount of talk produced by interlocutors. Contact can be expressed by proliferation, i.e., having many different ways of expressing something, and contraction or abbreviation (Martin, 1992, p. 531). For example, usually people have many different names to refer to close family or friends (proliferation). And abbreviations will be recognized by those with whom you have frequent contact, as they are part of a shared discourse. Affect can be realised by amplification or “turning up the volume” (Martin, 1992, p. 533). For example, “It’s great! It’s super! It’s terrific! It’s fantastically, unbelievably bloody wonderful!” (with pace increasing and pitch ­rising) or “You filthy, rotten, lousy, mongrel cur!” (Poynton, 1985, p. 80).

Data Data consists of transcripts of audio-­recorded classroom interactions and some teacher interviews from the three contexts. All projects received Ethics approval from the university as well as the state Department of Education. Funding details are given at the end of this chapter.

Method and analysis In re-­examining the interactions from the three settings, this chapter will look at the data not only from an SFL perspective (e.g., in terms of Register, Speech Function, Mood, Exchange Structure and Cohesion; see, for example, Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) but also in order to investigate to what

72  Anne Thwaite extent there is evidence of Alexander’s (2020) four dialogic principles of Collective, Reciprocal, Supportive and Cumulative discourse. Thus, a detailed description of some ways in which the principles can be expressed in classroom dialogue can be provided. In this way, the teachers’ linguistic choices can be related to the way in which their discourse achieves their aims. Register has already been referred to above. Speech Function has been defined and illustrated in Chapter 2 of this volume, in the context of Sinclair and Coulthard’s Initiation, Response and Feedback (IRF) analysis, and Mood has been discussed in that chapter in terms of its typical associations with Speech Function. The Exchange Structure analysis has also been introduced in Chapter 2. Exchange structure As mentioned in Chapter 2, Exchange Structure involves both synoptic (predictable) and dynamic moves: a list of these moves, along with their abbreviations, is given in that chapter. Exchange Structure analysis also involves distinguishing between primary and secondary roles, and between knowledge and action exchanges (see Chapter 2). In terms of the dynamic moves mentioned in Chapter 2, Challenge and Justification were found to be most relevant to the present dataset. Cohesion Halliday & Hasan (1976) is the classic work on this topic, outlining the systems of (1) lexical cohesion, (2) reference, (3) conjunction and (4) substitution and ellipsis. Of these systems, the first two are most relevant here. Lexical cohesion is related to the Cumulative principle, as teachers (and to a lesser extent, students) build up terminology that leads to a developing control of the Field. Reference could be seen to align with Cumulation as well, but is also related to Tenor, as the terms teachers use to refer to their students construct the nature of the relationships among them. Below, transcripts display how the chosen analyses can be applied to the data from the three contexts investigated here. In addition, I will explore what kinds of relationships there may be between the two analytical frameworks (SFL and dialogic). For example, Reciprocity is closely tied to Tenor (Martin, 1992) and may be investigated by examining patterns of Initiation and Response in the Speech Function analysis (see Derewianka & Jones, 2016, pp. 241–243), dynamic aspects of discourse such as interruption and topic control, and in other systems such as terms of address; the Supportive principle is well illustrated by dynamic moves in the Exchange Structure analysis (see Berry, 1981; Thwaite, 1993); and various types of Cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976) lend themselves to tracking the Cumulative principle. The combination of the SFL and Dialogic lenses can tell us more about the data than each one applied individually.

“We’re going to do it together”  73

Findings and examples This section exemplifies some of the relationships between Alexander’s principles and the relevant linguistic variables by using selections from the transcripts. Note that, as discourse is multifunctional, more than one of Alexander’s principles may be simultaneously realised in the same stretch of text. The collective principle Teachers Marcia, Sara and Yvonne have a variety of ways of making the discourse inclusive. For example, they refer to the children’s worlds, their families and the way they speak in their homes; they use inclusive pronouns and address the children in a friendly manner. Explicit references to the children’s worlds Marcia (Context 2) stresses the collective nature of the class and reinforces her expectations with utterances such as, “Now we say them together” and, “Alison, we’re going to do it together”. Marcia contextualises her discourse by relating it to the children’s lives and contexts, with which she is familiar, and using inclusive references. In the following example, the class is reading a book about a giant together. Marcia mentions the name of their suburb to make the story more real to them and includes individual children. (Salient parts of transcripts are in italics.)

Example 1  MARCIA:  (The

giant) might come to (our suburb). He might come to your place…. (The giant) might come to your place for a feed Nathan. Sara (Context 1) is particularly adept at referring to children’s worlds and has detailed knowledge of her students and their families. For example, when one child mentions their aunt, Sara shows that she knows where Aunty goes to the temple. Sara has a visually inclusive environment in her classroom, for example, she provides wooden blocks representing places of worship from different religions. Inclusive pronouns As many teachers do, Marcia includes herself in the class with the pronoun ‘we’, for example, “Let’s pretend we’re pop stars”. This example is an illustration of how the Collective principle can be enacted in actions as well as words: Marcia genuinely includes herself in the activities and consults the

74  Anne Thwaite class. Referring to a technique for breaking up words into parts, she asks the children’s advice: “Do we want to do it fast or slow first?” Along with emphasising collectivity, the inclusive pronouns underline the reciprocity of class interactions, where the students as well as the teacher can make decisions. Examples given below from Yvonne (Context 3) are from one lesson which illustrates her teaching style well. The children were sitting in a circle on the floor engaging in an activity involving small plastic objects. Later in the lesson cards with pictures on them were used in the activities. Like Marcia, Yvonne participates in class activities, sitting down on the floor with the children when they are engaging with plastic objects. Yvonne also uses inclusive pronouns. Here, she is sitting on the floor as part of a group who are interacting with plastic gingerbread men:

Example 2  STUDENT:  We’ve got YVONNE: Have we?

three [gingerbread men]

Here, Yvonne acknowledges both the child’s statement and its inclusivity, without passing judgement on its correctness. (In this case it is correct.) Yvonne mostly uses markers of inclusion. However, in some cases she needs to juggle her roles of class manager and participant, as in the following example:

Example 3  YVONNE:  We’re

not touching. Hands away from your mouth. You can’t talk properly with our hands in our mouths.

Here, the switch in pronouns within the one clause demonstrates the tension between Yvonne’s roles. Terms of address and shared codes Marcia uses a variety of terms of address when speaking to the children, such as you guys, old man, mate and buddy. In terms of a Tenor analysis, we could note that the frequent Contact between Marcia and the class is realised by the proliferation of these solidary terms. Marcia uses some words from Noongar, the language of south-­west WA:

Example 4  MARCIA: that’s

koonya, man! (expressing disapproval)

“We’re going to do it together”  75 She also uses some Aboriginal English words such as “unna”. This is a very inclusive particle which can be used like a tag in Standard Australian English (Cahill, 1999, p. 27). Overall, it is clear from the above that all three teachers are building a collective environment in their classrooms by using inclusive reference, a friendly Tenor and incorporating knowledge of the students’ families and ways of speaking. The reciprocal principle Both Marcia and Yvonne establish equitable relationships with the children (for example, in terms of how they refer to them and the power that the children are given). Consulting the children Marcia gives the children agency by encouraging them to make decisions and asking them for information. For example, we observed during one visit that those children who said they wanted to read fast were allowed to do so. In the example below she sensitively gives an offer of help:

Example 5  MARCIA: 

… Nathan. Do you want me to help you– do you want me to read it with you?

This offer puts the child in the position of deciding whether he wants help or not. The following is a true request for information, as Marcia was not sure of the date that day:

Example 6  MARCIA:  What’s

the date today? Does anybody know?

This question puts the teacher in the role of secondary knower (Berry, 1981a, 1981b, 1981c). Although teachers, especially in early childhood classrooms, quite often pretend that they do not know the answer to a question in order to elicit it from the class, in this case Marcia genuinely did not know the information.

76  Anne Thwaite Yvonne also consults the children. The following example is constructed as a request for their opinion from her position as part of the group but actually functions as an instruction, or at least a suggestion:

Example 7  YVONNE:  Do

you think this time, do you think this time we could do it on our own?

Not always responding as a teacher Yvonne does not always pass judgement on what her students say; thus, she avoids taking up a primary knower role in some circumstances, as in Example 2. In this example, Yvonne clearly knows how many gingerbread men the group has but is not exercising that role here. She also sometimes passes the responsibility of giving feedback to the students:

Example 8  YVONNE:  Could

you hear what he was saying, Jack?

In this case, the child was talking too softly but Yvonne avoided telling him so directly herself. She distributes some aspects of her role as teacher while still maintaining control of the class. The following is part of a similar sequence of moves:

Example 9  YVONNE:  Are

all the gingerbread people together?

Obviously, the gingerbread people are not all together. Yvonne continues by asking the class for advice as to what they could do to get all the gingerbread people together: “How could we fix it?”, which expands the discussion from knowledge to action. Yvonne’s role moves from k1/k2 to a1/a2 (inclusive). This helps her avoid putting herself in the position of primary knower/actor. Direct and indirect commands Both Marcia and Yvonne use a variety of Command forms, which has the effect of downplaying their authority. Many of their less direct Commands

“We’re going to do it together”  77 also include the feature of inclusivity, referred to above under the Collective principle. Their Commands achieve indirectness through choices of Mood other than imperative, as well as Modality and politeness markers. Yvonne, who uses a large number of Commands, also tends to repeat her instructions if they are not carried out immediately, rather than becoming more direct. Yvonne uses many direct (imperative) Commands (which are often interspersed with Questions, terms of endearment and praise), particularly when setting up class activities. At other times she is less direct. She also has various ways of softening direct Commands, such as apologising or giving a reason (justification), as when she says, “Move over, ‘cause I want to be here”. Marcia uses a range of indirect Commands, such as this one in the declarative Mood: “We’re going to do it together”. Here, Marcia’s choices of Mood and an inclusive pronoun have the effect of softening her Commands. Yvonne also sometimes uses declaratives, such as “People who are wriggling are not looking”. This is a way of avoiding ‘spotlighting’ any particular individuals. Below is an illustration of a more complex declarative structure:

Example 10  YVONNE:  And

[what we might do] is we might set the timer and we might see how quickly we can all say the names of our objects.

Yvonne’s move is introduced by the discourse marker ‘and’ and softened by the embedding (marked in square brackets) to make it less abrupt. The low modality (‘might’) and the inclusive pronouns (‘we’, ‘our’) are phased through the utterance. The Collective principle is realised by the word ‘all’. All these features have the effect of deemphasising power relations. A similar effect comes from Yvonne’s use of a declarative as an indirect Question: “Now, I wonder if we’ve sorted ourselves into the right groups”. Here, the children are clearly not in the right groups. This move, softened by a discourse marker (‘Now’), a Modal (‘I wonder’) and the inclusive pronouns, is a precursor to Yvonne organising for some people to change groups. As well as imperatives and declaratives, the two teachers also express Commands in the interrogative Mood, as in the following example from Marcia:

Example 11  MARCIA: Walter,

could you do me a favour and bring the trays of reading books down the bottom there?

78  Anne Thwaite Here, Marcia’s question draws attention away from the power disparity between teacher and student, as if it is Walter’s choice whether he helps her, although the Tenor of the teacher–student relationship would suggest that his choice is actually limited. Yvonne also uses a modalised interrogative with a politeness marker:

Example 12  YVONNE:  Can

to stay?

I have you there darling, please, ‘cause I need the chair

Yvonne’s request is in the interrogative, she uses a term of endearment along with a politeness marker and gives a reason (justification) for her request. Thus, these two teachers make a wide range of linguistic choices in order to express their Commands in a less dominating way, part of creating a more reciprocal environment in the classroom. Giving students agency Alexander (2020, p. 133) emphasises that dialogic talk involves student as well as teacher agency: “in the dialogic classroom agency is indivisible, and the imperative of acquiring and internalising options applies to the student too”. In Yvonne’s class, it was clear that students had ‘permission’ to initiate. They do this at several points in the lesson and in various ways. For instance:

Example 13  HENRY:  I

…

thought we were going to write

YVONNE: When

we’ve finished doing our talking, you’ll be able to do your writing.

Here, Henry has made quite a powerful move by querying the next class activity; this could be seen as a challenge in terms of Exchange Structure dynamics, although he softens it by using the Modal “I thought” and the past tense ‘were’. Yvonne indicates that his wishes will be fulfilled but maintains her control of the agenda, albeit with inclusive pronouns. Another student makes an even more agentive move than Henry, which could also be seen as a challenge, although its scope is only over turn-­taking rather than an entire activity:

“We’re going to do it together”  79

Example 14  STUDENT:  We have to change YVONNE:  No, no we don’t.

over, Miss.

The student’s move has high modality: “have to”. Yvonne also responds very categorically, presumably because this is an organisational aspect that could cause confusion if it is not very clear to all. She does, however, use the inclusive ‘we’ again, backgrounding her power. In other parts of the lesson Yvonne shares agency in different ways, for example when she says, “Let’s get the trees to start”. This is classic Yvonne, speaking as a member of her “gingerbread man” group. She initiates, she is controlling the turn-­taking in the class by choosing the group of children with the plastic trees to report first but she uses the inclusive “Let’s”. This creates solidarity, not only with the other “gingerbread men” but with the class as a whole (Collective principle). She is also indirectly executing a Command, as discussed above. Yvonne supports students who initiate, even if it is not quite on topic:

Example 15  STUDENT 1:  You’re making our animals get killed and … YVONNE:  We certainly do. STUDENT 2:  And I love birds. YVONNE:  Well, we’re not really talking about birds, but birds

are lovely.

Yvonne’s move could be seen as ‘saving face’ for Student 2. The topic is actually animals rather than birds but Yvonne appreciates that the student has made a contribution, although she is clear about its tenuous relationship to the topic. She softens her utterance by using the discourse marker ‘well’ and the modal “not really” and adds a positive appraisal of Student 2’s topic (‘lovely’). It could be said that she is avoiding giving Student 2 ‘shame’ (Department of Education, WA, 2002, p. 85). In the interview after the lesson, Yvonne stated that she was very happy that the students initiated Questions when they did not know something:

Example 16 (interview)  YVONNE: 

Eric, you know, I’m so proud of (him). Just to have him say, “What is this?” … for our children, that is a huge thing because normally, they would just sit back ANNE:  And just the fact of asking a question, yeah. YVONNE:  Yeah, and to ask it so nicely, you know. It’s wonderful.

80  Anne Thwaite Both Marcia and Yvonne avoid being too dominant in their classrooms. This is achieved both physically, by participating in the class activities, and also by their linguistic choices illustrated above. However, as shown in the example where Yvonne switches pronouns, there is a tension between managing the class and appearing overbearing. In terms of linguistic variables such as turns at talk, all the teachers examined were dominant overall. Nevertheless, teachers such as Yvonne, Marcia and also Sara set up situations where even very young students could interact in groups and control their own turn-­taking without the teacher being present. Agency and initiation are related to inclusivity. The kind of Reciprocity constructed by teachers such as Marcia and Yvonne can be seen to have a strong relationship with the Collective principle, as treating someone equitably in the context of a classroom can imply that everyone is part of the same communal situation. The supportive principle Being supportive means, among other things, using various means to ensure that the discourse is accessible, for example: using everyday terminology such as words that sound the same instead of rhymes (Marcia); using various types of scaffolding; using explicit examples after an instruction; monitoring student engagement; giving supportive feedback, such as, We’ll practise that more and, We need to do some more work with that. (Yvonne); using praise and terms of endearment and showing an interest in the students’ lives. Marcia uses similar principles to those of the “scaffolding interaction cycle” described by Martin & Rose (Martin & Rose, 2005; Rose et al., 1999; Rose et al., 2004). Using this cycle, a teacher scaffolds what acceptable answers might be. Marcia’s technique outlines acceptable strategies for achieving a task. For instance, in the following examples she gives several strategies that will help the children with an upcoming spelling test and which would also be generalisable to other occasions:

Example 17  MARCIA: He’s

just having to copy … Leave it, come back to that one…. Look at the word … Writing the same word, aren’t we? … try and remember it in your head, OK?

Example 18  MARCIA: you’re

word in.

going to have to write a little bit smaller to fit the

“We’re going to do it together”  81 Using explicit examples after an instruction After Marcia asks the children to do something verbally, she models what the expected discourse might look like. For example:

Example 19  MARCIA: 

… Mrs Capricorn’s going to ask you to say the missing word, Robert. So Mrs Capricorn [the TA] is going to say, “Which word is missing?”

Monitoring student understanding and/or involvement Example 20 shows Marcia checking compliance to her instructions:

Example 20  MARCIA:  Walter,

you actually have to open the book so we can start,

darling.

Note the fond term of address and the fact that Marcia includes the reason for her request as a way of softening it.

Example 21  MARCIA:  Bobby,

I don’t see that pencil in your hand.

This is also an indirect way of asking Bobby to do something, using the declarative Mood. Praise and terms of endearment As shown above, Yvonne praised the children and addressed them with terms such as ‘darling’. In the interview, she also spoke positively about the children, describing them as, “She’s a delight” and “He’s actually a very bright boy”. Showing an interest in the students’ lives As mentioned under the Collective principle, these teachers make reference to the students’ worlds and some of them even occasionally use students’ home codes. These actions could also be seen as supportive. Something that is clearly supportive is responding with interest when a student refers to

82  Anne Thwaite their home life and/or identity, even though this may not be the current lesson topic. In the following example one student initiates with this kind of information:

Example 22  STUDENT G:  Josephine’s YVONNE:  When

cousin?

my cousin. did you find that out? When did you know she’s your

Yvonne pays great attention to this personally and culturally significant information, thus indicating to the child that it was acceptable to initiate at this point of the lesson and that the topic is also appropriate and interesting. In addition, she is being supportive by rephrasing the question, perhaps because she thought that the student might not be familiar with the term “find out”. From the above, it can be seen that the supportive principle, as used by Yvonne and Marcia, involves various types of scaffolding, monitoring and positive feedback. The Cumulative principle This principle involves the development of knowledge over a series of lessons, building up the Field by introducing and practising vocabulary, reviewing and synthesising knowledge and making use of classification and generalisation. It necessitates the teacher having control over topics of conversation (or “handing over” this control to the learners) and includes both designed-­in and contingent scaffolding (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005) and knowing “where the children are at” in their learning. Marcia makes use of a number of scaffolding techniques, including verbalising her non-­ verbals (“I’m pointing”), using direct Commands, repetition and glosses. For example, she refers to rhyming words as “words that sound the same” before later introducing the technical term to the children. All these techniques contribute to cumulation in the discourse. Teachers like Marcia keep track of the vocabulary that the class knows, and even of the terms that individual children know. They make use of the “scaffolding interaction cycle” referred to above. Out of the three classrooms examined here, the clearest examples of the Cumulative principle come from Context 1, a class of five-­year-­olds engaging in Science and Technology lessons. The class teacher, Sara, builds up knowledge of the Field of architecture and building in various ways. She develops the discourse by adding information to children’s utterances. Often this is just a single adjective. It may also be in the form of a Question, often an alternate Question. This type of elaboration, shown below, is typical of Sara’s interactional style:

“We’re going to do it together”  83

Example 23  SARA: And

did you make a building each? Did you make one big building together? [Children answer softly that they each made a building] SARA:  You got to make one each. And are they all really interesting? And was it easy or hard? [Children answer softly that it was easy] SARA:  It was easy.

Example 24  LAURA: What

do you think about bricks, Mario? Are they smooth? They’re very hard.

Sara has introduced the vocabulary ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ in an alternate Question so that the children have a model of what an appropriate answer might be. In the same class, teacher Laura has a similar focus on vocabulary. Sara uses exemplification to expand on her meaning. For example, she says, “Right, now you’re going to take some photos of some structures. Could be the bike rack …”. She also uses rhetorical devices, such as a simile to describe the downloading icon on the computer: “It’s like a little train” and a metaphor for the relationship between the camera and the computer: “Your camera’s not glued into this”. As the students progress in their knowledge, vocabulary is jointly constructed between teacher and students, as in this conversation about roof supports:

Example 25  SARA:  I wonder how it’s staying up there JESSICA: Because sticks are holding it up OTTO:  Yeah, because poles are here SARA:  … Touch it and see if they are sticks. OTTO: They’re poles. SARA:  What are poles made from?

Does that feel like sticks?

Both children suggest some terminology but Sara’s uptake of the word ‘poles’ endorses the use of this vocabulary item. Sara also uses some vocabulary that was quite advanced for five-­year-­olds. For example, during one

84  Anne Thwaite lesson she took the children outside with their cameras to take photos of the structures in the school:

Example 26  SARA: 

Are you looking up on the roof? Just have a look first, we’re not taking the photo yet. Now, what you need to do, you can take a photo of our new alfresco. You can take a photo of the pergola over here, have a look at what’s holding the pergola up.

Marcia, Sara and Laura all have different ways of building the Cumulative principle in their classroom discourse, building up the Field by careful scaffolding of vocabulary. Unique style of each of the teachers While Yvonne, Marcia and Sara all make use of Alexander’s dialogic principles, they each do so in their own way, as demonstrated above, illustrating that they each have their own ‘style’. Yvonne makes use of the Collective, Reciprocal and Supportive principles. Her inclusivity involves her sitting down with the children and speaking as a member of the group, as she skilfully juggles her roles of teacher and participant and constructs very warm relationships with the children. Marcia’s discourse is Collective, Reciprocal, Supportive and Cumulative. She contextualises her discourse by relating it to the children’s own lives and situations, as well as using inclusive references. She can effectively incorporate students’ own codes into the classroom discourse. Sara’s talk is Collective and Cumulative. She has a culturally and linguistically diverse class and classroom and displays extensive familiarity with her students’ worlds. She has very high standards in terms of content and discourse and carefully scaffolds vocabulary to help students accumulate knowledge. All three teachers use the Collective principle. While all six principles are important, it is difficult to see how dialogic discourse could be successfully realised without this principle in place. However, the fact that discourse is Collective does not necessarily mean that it is dialogic, as many examples of recitation attest. Language systems involved As has been shown, various language systems are involved in realising the dialogic principles. In terms of Exchange Structure, teachers have shared the primary knower/actor role, have accepted and responded to challenges from students, and have included justifications in the discourse as a way of constructing a more equitable and reciprocal Tenor. Teachers varied the relationship between Speech Function and Mood when expressing Commands

“We’re going to do it together”  85 Table 5.1  How the Principles are Expressed Principles

Marcia

Collective

Friendly Tenor and inclusive reference; incorporate knowledge of students’ families Inclusive and empowering environment Students have agency and initiate Scaffolding, monitoring and positive feedback Building up Field Building up Field Scaffolding Scaffolding vocabulary vocabulary

Reciprocal Supportive Cumulative

Yvonne

Sara

indirectly. They used low Modality and politeness markers to lessen the distance between themselves and their students. They used inclusive pronouns to speak as part of the collective class or of a group. In purposefully developing students’ control of the Field, they used joint construction of vocabulary, repetition and lexical cohesion. Most of these would not have been conscious choices on the part of these experienced teachers, who orchestrated their discourse to achieve their aims for their class.

Applications/implications Above, we have seen four of Alexander’s principles in action. All three teachers are building a collective environment in their classrooms by using inclusive reference, a friendly Tenor, and incorporating knowledge of the students’ families and ways of speaking. Marcia and Yvonne construct reciprocity by creating an inclusive environment where students have agency and are empowered to initiate talk and actions. Yvonne and Marcia support their students with various types of scaffolding, monitoring and positive feedback. Marcia, Sara and Laura build up the Field of discourse by careful scaffolding of vocabulary, thus providing evidence of the cumulative principle. It is hoped that the approach taken in this chapter will illustrate some of the synergies between the two frameworks of analysis and demonstrate how Alexander’s principles may be realised linguistically. Thus, by exemplifying and analysing the kinds of classroom discourse that could be considered dialogic, it is intended that the chapter should have practical applications for pre-­service and in-­service teacher education by providing examples of classroom talk from different contexts so that they can consider how learning is related to the discourse (for more information, see Thwaite & Rivalland, 2009). The classroom interactions have been analysed in the spirit of Positive Discourse Analysis (Martin, 2004), which attempts to deconstruct exemplary discourse practices rather than critique problematic ones. I am very grateful to the classroom teachers who have modelled these exemplary practices for us here.

86  Anne Thwaite

Ethics statement All names of students and teachers are pseudonyms. Marcia and Yvonne’s lessons were observed as part of the project, “Teaching Indigenous Students with Conductive Hearing Loss in Remote and Urban Schools of WA” (2002–2004). This project was based in Kurongkurl Katitjin, School of Indigenous Studies, at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Australia, and was funded by an Australian Research Council Strategic Partnerships with Industry [SPIRT] Grant and the industry partners: Department of Education of WA, Catholic Education Commission of WA and Aboriginal Independent Community Schools, WA. Sara and Laura’s lessons were observed as part of the project, ‘Early Science Literacy in Indigenous and Culturally Diverse Communities’, funded by an ECU Faculty of Education & Arts small grant 2009–2010. Ethics approval number 3458.

References Alexander, R.J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Berry, M. (1981a). Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: A multi-­ layered approach to Exchange structure. In M. Coulthard & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in discourse analysis. (pp. 120–145). Routledge & Kegan Paul. Berry, M. (1981b). Polarity, ellipticity, elicitation and propositional development, their relevance to the well-­formedness of an exchange. Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 10 (1), 36–63. Berry, M. (1981c). Towards layers of exchange structure for directive exchanges. Network, 2, 23–32. Cahill, R. (1999). Solid english. Education Department of Western Australia. Department of Education, WA. (2002). Ways of being, ways of talk. Department of Education, WA. Derewianka, B., & Jones, P.T. (2016). Teaching language in context. (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. Edward Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in english. Longman. Halliday, M.A.K., & Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). Routledge. Hammond, J., & Gibbons, P. (2005). Putting scaffolding to work: The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect Special Issue, 20 (1), 6–30. Martin, J.R. (1992). English text: System and structure. Benjamins. Martin, J.R. (2004). Positive discourse analysis: power, solidarity and change. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 49, 179–200. Martin, J.R., & Rose, D. (2005). Designing literacy pedagogy: Scaffolding democracy in the classroom. In J. Webster, C. Matthiessen, & R. Hasan (Eds.), Continuing discourse on language (pp. 251–280). London: Continuum. Poynton, C. (1985). Language and gender: Making the difference. Deakin University Press.

“We’re going to do it together”  87 Rose, D. Gray, B., & Cowey, W. (1999). Scaffolding reading and writing for Indigenous children in school. In P. Wignell (Ed.), Double power: English literacy in Indigenous schooling (pp. 23–60). Language Australia. Rose, D., Lui-­Chivizhe, L., McKnight, A., & Smith, A. (2004). Scaffolding academic reading and writing at the Koori Centre. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 32, 41–49. Thwaite, A. (1993). “Gender differences in spoken interaction in same sex dyadic conversations in Australian English”. Australian review of applied linguistics, Series S, Issue 10 ‘Language and Gender in the Australian Context’ (Ed. Wigglesworth & Winter), pp. 149–179. [appeared 1994] Thwaite, A. (2004) “Classroom discourse of an experienced teacher of Indigenous children”. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 27 (2), 75–91. Thwaite, A. (2007) “Inclusive and empowering discourse in an Early Childhood literacy classroom with Indigenous students”. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 36, 21–31. Thwaite, A. (2014) “Teachers and teacher aides initiating five-­year-­olds into science”. Functional Linguistics, 1 (6), DOI:10.1186/2196-­419X-­1-­6, URL: http://www. functionallinguistics.com/content/1/1/6 Thwaite, A., & Rivalland, J. (2009) “How can analysis of classroom talk help teachers reflect on their practices?”. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 38–54. Thwaite, A., & McKay, G. (2013) “Five-­year-­olds doing science and technology: How teachers shape the conversation”. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 36 (1), 28–37.

Part 3

Dialogic pedagogy in Primary School contexts

6 Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication in primary schools Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson Introduction Communication in classroom lessons is a critical facet of pedagogical activity underscored by continued research attention to its efficacy and undeniable influence on student learning. Consequently, contemporary educational theory has experienced a dialogic turn with a distinctive shift towards proposing educational meanings that predominantly become available to learners in the act of dialogue (Vygotsky, 1978). This turn suggests that rather than educational meanings being an outcome of social interaction and activity, they are created in and through social exchanges brought about by the pedagogical practices encountered in classroom lessons. At its core, the dialogic turn emphasises the centrality of meaning-making in lessons by leveraging it through the power of talk (Alexander, 2008, 2020; Cazden, 2001; Mercer, 1996; Skidmore & Murakami, 2016). Edwards-Groves and Davidson (2017, p. 159) emphasise the critical importance of this focus for pedagogical practice, since making meaning both constitutes and is constitutive of pedagogical practice. For students and teachers who come together in lessons as interlocutors, meanings (of talk, of texts, of topics) are developed, sustained and demonstrated in and through the talk and interactions in which they participate. Pedagogies that hold meaning making as a principal goal (in any lesson, in any subject) are where teachers demonstrably position talk and interaction with and among students as its core foundational practice. Positioning social interaction and pedagogy together in this way has led to a concerted focus on dialogic pedagogies (described more fully in Chapter 1, this volume). As Alexander (2020) asserts, dialogicality reflects a pedagogical underpinning that overtly attends to the conduct (the how), ethos (the why) and substantive content (the what) of the talk. Following Bakhtin (1986), the critical importance of dialogicality concerns valuing difference. This means that to be dialogic, social interactions must overtly demonstrate a recognition of individual and collective voices and the ways that differently spoken and heard notions relate to and influence how one makes sense of, and in, the social-material-relational world. DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-9

92  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson Whilst language, discourse and discursivity have long been the focus of those seeking to understand educational talk (see, e.g., Edwards-Groves et al., 2014; Freebody et al., 1995; Mehan, 1979; Mercer et al., 2020), the emphasis in this chapter centres on different communicative modalities which work together to “elaborate the semantic content of talk” and to “constitute coherent courses of action” in primary lessons (Stivers & Sidnell, 2005, p. 1). While definitions of multimodality may differ, a common perspective is that classroom interaction needs to be understood as entailing more than talk, and therefore, classroom interaction research must encompass more than a focus on talk (Bourne & Jewitt, 2003). In response, our focus is on embodiment in communication practices, particularly on the ways movement, positionality and communicative actions like gaze and gesture form interdependent dynamic practices encompassing and contributing to the multimodality of meaning-making in lessons. Such understandings are necessary if educators are to readjust their pedagogies as a deliberate response to knowing the impact of their communicative practices on student participation and learning. To theorise the multimodality of dialogic pedagogy, we draw on the theory of practice architectures to first, “liberate the entangled dimensions of the ontological nature of the social world to offer alternative ways to understand the multidimensionality, interrelatedness and complexity of practices” (Edwards-Groves, 2017, p. 120); and second, to recognise the corporeality or embodied nature of institutional practices like schooling (Kemmis et al., 2014). Our analysis uses the analytic method of Conversation Analysis (CA) to study lesson talk-in-interaction (Sacks et al., 1974). Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s (1974) deliberate use of the hyphenation in the term ‘talk-in-interaction’ connects talk to the interactional exchanges in which it forms part; thus talk itself cannot be understood apart from the interactions in which it is encountered. More detailed descriptions of CA can be found in Chapter 2 of this volume. Our analysis shows how dialogicality is brought about multimodally in lesson practices as meanings are formed and exchanged between students and teachers turn-by-turn in their talk. We propose that what influences naturally occurring talk-in-interaction are distinctive practice architectures, or particular site-based conditions, that influence what happens and so what is displayed in participants’ orientations to one another as they meet in lessons (Kemmis et al., 2014). Specifically, CA reveals how and what meanings are heard and understood, and taken up or ignored, by speakers in exchange sequences. This is important for refining understandings about the nature of dialogic pedagogies in practice. Insights from social-practice theory To examine the nature of dialogicality in lessons, we draw on the theory of practice architectures that describes practices as comprised of interconnected sayings, doings and relatings encountered in locally situated, socially produced

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  93 happenings (Kemmis et al., 2014). In the course of their happeningness practices are always influenced by practice architectures. Happeningness of practices refers to ways practices are observable acts unfolding temporally (in time), ontologically (in a particular place), discursively (communicatively in language) and relationally (intersubjectively between people) (Edwards-Groves & Grootenboer, 2017). Practice architectures are site-based conditions comprised of intertwined: • • •

cultural-discursive arrangements (evident in medium of language, specialist discourses and comprehensibility), material-economic arrangements (evident in the medium of activity and work, physical positioning and use of and orientation to material resources), and social-political arrangements (evident in the medium of social relationships, solidarity, alignment, agency and power) (Kemmis et al., 2014).

Amidst these arrangements, practices always occur in three interconnected and overlapping dimensions of intersubjective space. As Kemmis et al. (2014) argue, in practices, people (like teachers and students) encounter one another as: 1. interlocutors in semantic space, as they seek to understand one another in their interpersonal communications, 2. embodied persons as they participate in activities in the material world, 3. social beings in social space, as they interact with others in their varying roles and relationships. Thus, in lesson practices, the notion of embodiment is central to understanding people’s encounters with one another, and that in the course of these encounters, practices are always multidimensional, interspatial and inherently multimodal. To deepen these theoretical understandings about practices and practice architectures in lessons, we apply the analytic method of conversation analysis. Understanding student sensemaking as displayed in language and embodied actions in lesson exchanges demands the close attention that CA offers. CA concerns the fine-grained analysis of the observable moment-by-moment interactions in naturally occurring conversations, like pedagogical dialogues experienced by teachers and students in lessons. The premise is that on any given occasion, how an utterance is heard and responded to is available to the participants (and thereby to the researcher), while the intentions of speakers are not. Here the focus is on the work an utterance is taken to do, then and there. In determining even basic, apparently grammatically-available interactional functions, such as ‘questioning’, what needs to be documented is how the participants proceed to display what they understand to be going on in that instance. (Edwards-Groves et al., 2022, p. 97)

94  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson Further, in the flow of lesson practices particular practice architectures, like positionality or gestures, may open up or close down opportunities for dialogicality. This can only be determined by a closer inspection of the actual talk-in-interaction. For example, examining participants’ gazes, and other non-verbal actions, facilitates more detailed descriptions of multimodality (Erickson, 2017; Kääntä, 2012; Mondada, 2018) and what this means for their activity, interactivity and sensemaking. Thus, a detailed analysis of lesson exchanges reveals how teaching and learning practices are negotiated, understood, and come into being as teachers and learners coordinate their embodied activity in and as pedagogical moments. Specifically, CA directs attention to: • how interactive participants manage the allocation and timing of turntaking, • the exchange structures via which they organise sequences of activities, • the range of multimodal features of communication like mobility, multiactivity, use of and orientations to objects and tools, and the ways that bodies are spatially arranged, and • how interlocutors work with often extensive and complex expansions around these basic structures to secure not only the attention of all participants but also the substantive epistemic focus of that attention (Koole, 2013; Mondada, 2019). In this chapter, this approach is critical for deepening understandings about talk-in-interaction in multiparty settings like classrooms (Goodwin, 1980). The study The empirical material is drawn from selected recorded and transcribed literacy lessons from Australian primary schools involved in a one-year action research project aimed to facilitate dialogic change (see Edwards-Groves & Davidson, 2017). Data consists of analysed transcriptions of recordings of early years reading lessons. To supplement the transcripts, screenshots taken at certain points accompany particular verbal and non-verbal actions. Pseudonyms are used throughout. In the next section, accompanying the detailed examination of talk-in-interaction is a more focused account of how different semiotic modes intersect to provide insights into the ways meanings are transacted between interlocutors in lessons. Examples show how the physical positioning and movement of the teachers and students in the classroom influence what happens in the reading lesson as it unfolds temporally in activity and interactivity in physical space-time. Corresponding transcripts show, more precisely, how different semiotic modes intersect with the practice architectures and the occurrence of moment-by-moment interchanges, in particular: how meanings are communicated in teacher–student exchanges, • • the multimodal embodied nature of pedagogy,

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  95 • the practice architectures that influence what is happening, and, importantly, • the dialogic nature of lessons. The lesson as an interactive multimodal meaning-making event The systematic study of lesson exchanges shows that whilst all lessons are interactive events, socially accomplished in talk-in-interaction (EdwardsGroves, 2018; Edwards-Groves & Davidson, 2017), some can be described as dialogic (as per Alexander, 2020) and some not (Myhill et al., 2006). As Edwards-Groves, Garoni and Freebody (2022, p. 116) recently showed, a lesson typically involves teachers and students coproducing interactionally relevant, exchange-managed events that present specific participatory demands that, in turn, may directly or indirectly enculturate students into literate forms of relevant disciplinary knowledge, skills and dispositions. Lesson talk is not simply about the speech act itself (Gardner, 1998; Stivers & Sidnell, 2005), however. Rather, it is also about the ways the verbal is intricately accompanied by non-verbal multimodal semiotic activity that supports and influences the communication of meanings (Mondada, 2019). At any given moment in time, interactions are influenced by a range of physical set-ups, orientations to others and material resources, and the roles and relationships between participants present. For instance, pointing carries its own contextual meanings when a teacher points to a student as a gesture to communicate the allocation of the next turn in a class discussion; or ways that students are positioned as a group on the floor facing the board and the teacher communicates a relational message during a story retell, captured in Figure 6.1. In the image (in an early year’s classroom after a shared book reading of “A nice walk in the jungle” (Bodsworth, 1991), we see the influence that the physical set-up in the room has on students’ capacity to interact with peers (for example). The positioning of bodies in the space in relation to one another and to resources used (like the storybook placed on the portable whiteboard at the front of the room), creates material arrangements that influence the interactional practices possible in this lesson. This commonly used position, described as the “lighthouse gaze” (Cecaite & Björk-Willen, 2018, p. 56), is the power gaze that sweeps across children to “solicit and sustain attentive listening, monitor the children’s participation and their story understanding” (p. 56). Here, we can see that this physical positioning is a practice architecture since it influences where a student’s eye gaze ‘should’ be directed, and how the teacher in the standing position can oversee and manage the students’ behaviours, including their turns at talk. Examining the corresponding transcript of the recorded lesson (Table 6.1) shows more precise detail about how the lesson is accomplished turn-by-turn,

96  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson

Figure 6.1 Facing the front during a story retell.

embodied in interactions (note CA transcription conventions appear in Appendix 6.A). In this brief 33-second exchange sequence it is evident that an answer to the teacher’s initiating question “who can remember what happened first?” (t1) has been set up as the focus. It shows the well-theorised IRF – the familiar three-part exchange routine (see Chapter 2, this volume) – at work, occurring as the core organisation structure in this lesson segment (Mehan, 1979). See this extract from Excerpt 1 as an example (Table 6.2). In this example, it is clear that students’ responses (like Jasmin’s response “nature walk”, t2) needed to be located and expressed in an interactionally acceptable, teacher-endorsed and managed way. That is, the teacher’s insistence on the hands-up routine here limits the scope of student responses. For instance, here the desirable response mode was indicated in the teacher feedback turns: • after having been nominated (non-verbally by being nodded to or pointed at, or verbally by being named) (t1, 3, 8), • when a response is not called out (t8), or • after students had waited their turn (t3) or had not interrupted (t8).

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  97 Table 6.1  Excerpt 1: Looking here, who can remember? Turn

Sp

Transcript

1

Tch

2

Jas

3

Tch

4 5 6

Jar Tch Pia

7 8

Mic Tch

9

Cam

right (.) ok:kay now everyone↓ (.) sitting down on your bottoms ((hands motioning downwards)) (.) swivel around Jon(.) facing the front to remember what happened in our book “A Nice Walk in the Jungle” (.) looking here Nick ((pointing to the board)) (.)now ↓ (.) who can remember (.) thinking caps ↑on ((miming the act of putting on imaginary hat)) who can remember [what happened what happened first? ((pointing to Jarod)) [nature walk= ((leaning forward, looking at the teacher)) =no-no no ((hand raised palm out)) wait your turn Jasmine ((pointing to Jarod)) ↑ Jarod ((nods head towards Jarod with his hand raised)) um:m the class are going on a nature walk= =yes good ((nodding)) [who else? [the snake was chasing them ((weaving hands in a snake-like motion)) [°in the jungle°= =h:hm ((audible sigh)) no Micah don’t call out (.) interrupt(.) put your hand up ((hand raised as if to demonstrate the action of hand raising)) ok (.) so right (.) eyes here ((waving to the book)) so what else happened (.)what[ did the class see? What happened on their walk in the jungle? [°Miss Jelly just didn’t listen° ((some Ss laughing, others cringing and miming shaking))

Table 6.2  Excerpt 2: The IRF I – Initiation(turn 1) R – Response (turn 2) F/E –Feedback/Evaluation (turn 3)

T: who can remember what happened first? J: nature walk ((interrupting)) T: no-no no ((hand raised palm out)) wait your turn Jasmine ((pointing to Jarod)) Jarod↑

In this sequence, positive feedback is only given when the student response turn is offered according to these ‘rules’ (t5). In the third turn slot (of the IRF), the correctness of the student response is evaluated in terms of its substantive content, but also in terms of its compliance with the interactional rules or norms. At this point, the sequence is expanded and subsequently resolved affirmatively (t5) when the answer is provided in the preferred interactive position: that is, when Jarod responds ‘correctly’ (t4) to the request to provide a response after being nominated. Here, the teachers’ verbal and non-verbal allocation of turns manages the turn-taking of the multiparty situation of this story retell, making visible the rules of turn-taking by displaying verbal and non-verbal negative sanctions when rules were broken (with head shaking, raising of hands to demonstrate preferred student action,

98  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson explicitly rejecting an out-of-place response, etc.). Such teacher actions form practice architectures which influence students’ capacities to get their message across – regardless of whether their answer was correct or not. As Alexander (2020) suggests, the IRF forms an important feature of a teacher’s repertoire when used intentionally and strategically to manage classroom interactions. Yet, many have also argued that this turn-taking convention limits dialogic possibilities if it remains the dominant default pattern (Skidmore & Murakami, 2016). Some even suggest the rigidity and prevalence of the IRF is the antithesis of a dialogic approach, which deliberately prioritises more sustained opportunities for talk (Jones et al., 2018; Myhill et al., 2006) and where students themselves have greater responsibility for managing the flow of ideas (Edwards-Groves & Davidson, 2017). This highlights the need for teachers to be cognisant of the influence of their talk practices in terms of when, why and how they deliberately changing the practice architectures in ways that open up the dialogic space. Thus, when expanding the broader repertoire of teacher and student talk moves beyond the prevailing IRF, meanings may more likely to be shared and supported, and developed collectively, reciprocally, cumulatively and purposefully across the lesson, as proposed by Alexander (2020). A closer inspection of the exchange management routines in the transcript provides even more insight into how lessons unfold multimodally. For example, across the turns (t1–9), as embodied social beings the teacher and students’ positioning, gesturing and movement (like swivelling t1, leaning forward in t2, motioning t6 & t8, pointing t1, nodding t3, hand raising t3), eye gaze (like looking, facing t1), or other interactional prosodic devices (like emphasising t9, stressing t3) and audible responses (like sighing t8, laughing t9 or whispering t9) accompany and contribute to the meaning-making, and to the allocation (pointing, nodding to, or nominating) and acceptance of turns (nodding, agreeing, expressing acceptance or not – “no”, “yes” or “good”). Analysis in this section shows ways this teacher and her students are: •

• •

interacting as interlocutors in the medium of the English language seeking to understand one another (by agreeing, laughing, nodding) as they communicate their meanings, exchange ideas, and express thoughts and remembered events from the storybook retell; embodied persons in physical space, positioned on the floor or in a standing position in this classroom at a particular time, in the medium of their activity and work with the book; and social beings relating to one another as peers in the medium of solidarity (as a cohort of students in this classroom) or in recognising and complying with student–teacher power relationships.

Moreover, the transcripts show that rather than being understood as simply a spoken transaction or the reception or expression of ideas, opinions or information, meanings are displayed in embodied and inflected voiced

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  99 responses as interpretations of what has been heard and understood (Bourne & Jewitt, 2003). This proposition considers ways that comprehensibility is inherently realised through multimodal communication ‘practices’ including language and embodied actions, movement and gestures. Multimodality, sensemaking and the dialogic classroom Figure 6.2a captures a read aloud of “Little Red Bear” (Matthews, 2005) in an early years literacy lesson for five- and six-year-old students. Here, the position of the teacher (Cameron) seated on the floor with the students variously positioned (standing, kneeling, sitting, on the lap of the teacher assistant) is a practice architecture that influenced teacher–student and student–student interactions. Prior to recording the lesson, the teacher had indicated that his shift to a non-typical position for reading to students (with him on the floor rather than a chair), was prompted by his recognition that he wanted to promote more focused visual orientation to the book (for all students), and their comfort (as some students were ‘wrigglers’), as well as the capacity for more students to see and look at one another when they were discussing the book. Cameron said this was a deliberate dialogic move towards creating more supportive opportunities for students to engage and participate purposefully in the read aloud, comments which distinctly align with Alexander’s dialogic principles (2020), which became evident as the lesson talk-in-interaction proceeded. The snapshot of the read aloud shows the affordances of the spatial and relational configuration of bodies in the physical space. For instance, students

Figure 6.2a Positioning, orientation and gaze.

100  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson Table 6.3  Excerpt 3a: Who can add to that? Turn

Sp

Transcript

1

Tch

2 3 4 5

Jen Jac Tch Jor

6

Tch

7

Eri

8

Jen

9 10 11

Tch Mar Tch

12 13

Mar Zar

14

Tch

15 16

Zar Tch

Tch: okay okay:y (.) right now thinking together about what we have read so far (2) so >so see here< ((pointing to and tapping on the picture in the book)) the look on Hannah’s face in the picture what what does that tell us about= =she looks [worried ((moving to stand up)) [scared too °of the dark°= =she does look worried and scared both ((nodding)) yeah the dark like Jack said and it’s cold and wet ((pointing to the picture)) ((gaze directed at Jordie, nodding)) yes (.) worried (.) scared (.) dark (.) >cold and wet< so what would that mean for the bear? (3.0)((scanning across the group, simultaneously moving his hands in a rolling/sweeping motion, with eyebrows raised)) it’s wet (.) it’d be wrecked= ((students and teacher turning heads to look at Erin, some nodding)) =and Hannah was worried the bear was lost and lonely ((Jenna now standing, with hands clasped together as though she is cradling and rocking the bear, some students and the teacher turn to look at her)) that’s why she went back to the wall (.) she= ((nodding)) =yeah [right good point Jen (.) [( )((inaudible)) others now↓ who can add to that? ((scanning and resting his gaze with a nod directly at Maree, seated on the floor beside him)) it wasn’t her bear= =no ((shaking her head)) I agree with Maree ((pointing to Maree, nodding)), it’s not hers hm::m interesting point Maree [and Zara ((nodding slowly, head tilted)) [she should leave it on the wall for its owner= =o::kay lots of ideas here(.) good thinking together(.) so reading on, let’s see what happens next

draw on gaze (indicated by the arrows), proximity and positioning to directly orient to each other and the teacher as they engage with the book (different to for example, the configuration presented in Figure 1). It is evident here that “gaze plays a delicate and complex role in social interaction” (Rossano et al., 2009, p. 187). Examining gaze in the multi-party setting of whole class talk, as depicted here, implies important supportive conditions for opening the dialogic space in ways that directly reflect Alexander’s dialogic principles. The complexity and the nuanced ways in which this teacher and his students used these multimodal features of communication to accomplish talk-in-interaction about a book deliberately prioritise students’ participation and contributions.

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  101 Further understanding of/about what and how meanings are made by teachers and students is revealed by CA of the corresponding transcript, providing more detailed insights about multimodality and dialogic teaching. After reading several pages of the book, Cameron pauses to open up a sequence of exchanges about ‘what the look on Hannah’s face means.’ Examination of the sequence shows ways the multiple semiotic modes work together to demonstrate and contribute to students’ individual and collective meaning-making of the text and of the talk-in-interaction around the text. Their embodied actions (such as nodding (t4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14), head shaking (t13), scanning (t6), looking/gazing (t6, 13), pointing (t1, 5, 13), tapping (t1), moving (t2), standing (t2) and hand waving (t6, 8)) display evidence of ways specific actions accompany the teacher and students’ jointly produced dialogues. As an example, it was apparent that the teacher’s non-verbal gesture (t6 displayed as a hand-rolling motion) was understood (by Erin) as a move to expand the conversation by bringing more students in so that they could build on each other’s ideas. Immediately following this, Jenna (t8, who in an early assertive move had shifted from a seated to a standing position to sustain her earlier point t2) offered her reasoning (t8 “that’s why she went back to the wall”), which at the same time was accompanied by her own miming actions (cradling and rocking the ‘pretend’ bear). Across the sequence, it was evident that student self-initiated expansions, such as those expressed by Jenna (t8) and Zara (t15), were recognised and validated by the teacher, and show a level of student responsibility for engaging in and taking responsibility for sustaining their points. It could be taken that this overt validation of student engagement provides evidence of a dialogic classroom, where students are supported to contribute individually and collectively to the talk (Alexander, 2020). The teacher’s repetition (t4) of Jenna and Jack’s comments (t2 & t3), followed by his uptake of Jordie’s prior points about the bear being cold and wet (t6), is a dialogic move that indicates the teacher’s intention to have students orient to and build on the turns of others (Michaels & O’Connor, 2015) further signifying Alexander’s (2020) reciprocal, supportive and cumulative principles. It was evident that the students recognised this move since Erin’s response (t7) provided additional information whereby they were clearly sharing in the responsibility for managing and contributing to the learning, building their ideas cumulatively across the sequence (Alexander, 2020). Although less is known about the role of gaze in turn-taking than is known about verbal ways of selecting or starting as the next speaker (Auer, 2018), the teacher’s scanning of the room then resting his gaze on Maree (t11), for example, shows some evidence of the ways that gaze plays an important part in understanding the nature of this classroom conversation. It is evident that gaze is not static, but part of a dynamic mode that contributes to interlocutory meaning-making; here looking, turning to face the speaker, shifting gaze through scanning the room, or making a direct gaze form part of dialogicality where the actions show attention to the speaker or show a speaker’s invitation to others to talk.

102  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson Finally, dialogic talk is found in the mutuality between the talk-in-interaction and the multimodal embodied actions which simultaneously augment text comprehension among the interactive participants present. Here, Alexander’s principles for dialogic teaching (2020) were evidenced in the talk-in-interaction. For instance, support and reciprocity are demonstrated as the teachers and students listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints (Alexander, 2020). Specifically, support is displayed overtly as overlapping turns, when agreeing and disagreeing are managed by both teachers and students, as student–student exchanges are accepted; talk is collective, reciprocal and cumulative when students’ ideas are taken up by both the teacher and other students, as students orient to and build onto the turns of others, and as explicit comments about the flow and the purpose of the conversation are reinforced by the teacher (like t11 ‘who can add onto that?’, t16 ‘lots of ideas here’, t16 ‘good thinking together’). Next, as the lesson proceeded after the book reading, the teacher invited students to express their opinions in an activity he called the walk and talk (depicted in Figure 6.2b), where students move around the room having ‘conversations’ with different students or teachers. The teacher introduced the purpose of the task thus: TCH: 

On your walk and talk tell others your opinion about whether Hannah should keep the little red bear (2) ((students moving to begin the walkand-talk)) (2) remembering↓ to listen to (.) to lots of other people’s point of view

Figure 6.2b Movement in the walk-and-talk.

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  103 This image captures the moment a small group of students engage in talk about their opinion on whether Hannah should keep the little red bear. The simplicity of the scene implies ways positions and movement in the physical space are practice architectures that made possible the communication of a range of ideas among a variety of different people. It seems that the activity – that overtly encourages participation, different perspectives and movement – creates a more open dialogic space for all students to engage in a conversation, having an opportunity to put across their ideas in a range of interactive arrangements. These actions are illustrative of Alexander’s notions of collectivity and reciprocity in motion. The image depicts students as being equal contributors as they rove around the room, the teacher all the while encouraging, listening and monitoring. To exemplify the instance further, the corresponding transcript (Table 6.4: Excerpt 3b) presents a record of student–student exchanges as Zara (pictured in the background sharing her thoughts with a teacher seated on a chair) Table 6.4  Excerpt 3b: No no no it doesn’t belong to her Turn

Sp

Transcript

1 2

Joe Zar

3 4 5 6 7

Mar Joe Zar Joe Zar

8 9

Mar Zar

10

Mar

11 12 13 14

Zar Mar Zar Mar

15 16 17

Joe Mar Joe

18

Mar

19

Zar

20 21 22

Joe Zar Mar

it’s wet she should dry it ((facing Martie, both nodding)) ((moving to stand beside Martie, shaking her head looking directly at Joey)) no::o mm::m ((nodding)) she should have it= =finders keepers hehe that’s not fair ((shaking head)) it is [fair [no no NO Hannah shouldn’t keep the bear ‘coz it doesn’t belong to her= =but I think she should keep [the [no she SHOULD not it’s not hers= =bu:ut she found it ((hands extended palms up)) and took it home to get it dry s::so? (.) it doesn’t [belong to her [but she= ((frowning, head shaking)) =and the other boy or girl might get sad= =but she doesn’t know who it belongs to (.) does she? SH::EE dried it out= =wel::l (.) she could try to find out who owns it though well↑ she >could did< care for it (.) more! ((now looking directly at Martie, moving closer to Zara)) it could be stealyeah (.) but Hannah rescued [it from the weather it was lonely and wet] [ye:ah right Joey stealing (2) it’s still not hers is] it? and she took it! wel::l she can’t go and look, she’ll get wet it’s still not hers (2) anyway it’s NOT right (.) fair hhh s’↓pose ((raising shoulders)) but↑

104  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson moved to talk with Martie and Joey (pictured standing). They are agreeing that Hannah should keep the bear when Zara interrupts and joins their conversation. Across this exchange sequence, the dynamic manner in which different semiotic modes contributed to, and complemented, the particular meanings they communicated is evident. For example, in t1 in the sequence, agreement is communicated positionally and gesturally as Martie and Joey simultaneously faced one another and nodded. Specifically, direct student–student gaze accompanied by gestures like nodding and head shaking contributed to the meanings generated in their student–student interaction. Furthermore, the students’ managed talk-in-interaction here overtly displayed Alexander’s dialogic principles as they took responsibility for collectively (together), reciprocally (in response to each other), supportively (as they encouraged and shared their ideas), cumulatively (to build on each other’s ideas), and purposefully (as they deliberately conveyed their agreement and disagreement) displaying their co-ordinated, co-produced and shared perspectives about what they meant and understood in their talk. As their conversation continued to subsequently include Zara’s point of view, their different and changing perspectives are expressed through the interplay between speech and gaze (looking t17), facial expression (frowning t12), prosody (stress t7, 9, 16, 21, intonations t11, inflexions t22, & rhythm t16), bodily orientation (positionality like facing t1), movement (t2, 17), gestures (pointing, hand raising t10, thumbs up) and actions accompanying their explanations (t10, 22) (Sakr, 2018). Notably, the different modes give additional weight to their verbal messages, appearing as meaning-making actions facilitating their dialogic encounter. To exemplify, in t17, Joey, looking directly at Martie, moved closer to Zara to make his point about stealing; this shift in physical position and proximity to Zara accompanied his changing perspective on the matter at hand – that Hannah shouldn’t keep the bear. Joey’s movement demonstrated his new alignment with Zara, who displayed satisfaction with her new ally (t19). Close inspection of the particular interactive features that influenced and organised the social and epistemic patterning of these lesson exchanges contributes to recognising the ways that various semiotic modes intersect, are synchronous with, and make meanings apparent in talk-in-interaction. As with other studies (see, e.g., Fasel Lauzon & Berger, 2015; Rossano et al., 2009; Stivers & Sidnell, 2005), our analysis confirms that multimodal meaning-making resources in communication (such as gaze, gesture, positionality and classroom set-ups) play a delicate and complex role in creating conditions for dialogicality. Here, CA contributes more comprehensive understandings about the nature of multimodality in exchanges that comprise lessons, specifically, ways particular practice architectures (made possible here by the activity of the walk-and-talk) reveal dialogic possibilities among this group of students.

Dialogicality as embodied multimodal communication  105 Potential impact of research In this chapter, we drew attention to the details of talk-in-interaction practices in lessons, proposing that practices constituting a dialogic approach to pedagogy must account for the ways the happeningness of talk-in-interaction is multimodally constituted in its formation and comprehensibility. Critically, for education, particular features create conditions that enable and constrain the enactment of a repertoire of dialogic pedagogies (Alexander, 2020) and moreover, influence the disciplinary coherence, comprehensibility, collectivity and cumulativeness evident in the particular epistemic displays required as students move across the years of schooling (Edwards-Groves et al., 2022). To conclude, we suggest that dialogicality is complex interactional multimodal work, involving a range of interactional (verbal and non-verbal) resources practised by students and teachers. Understanding how multimodal resources function as critical contingencies in classroom communication repertoires offers insight into ways to promote increased opportunities for students to participate dialogically in multi-party whole-class and group talk. Such understandings are necessary for advancing what is known about dialogic approaches to pedagogy.

Acknowledgements We acknowledge participants involved in the project, Researching dialogic pedagogies for literacy learning across the primary years (funded by the Primary English Teaching Association Australia). Ethics approval was given by Charles Sturt University (2015/257).

Appendix 6.A CA transcription conventions [[ Utterances that begin at the same time [ Overlap in speakers’ talk ] Point where simultaneous talk finishes = indicates a latched utterance, i.e. when one turn immediately follows another without pause ( ) Indicates the length of silence, for example, (0.2) ::: Indicates that a prior sound is prolonged, for example, li::ke - Word is cut off, for example, ta> < Words enclosed within are said at a faster pace than surrounding talk ? Rising inflection ¿ Rising inflection but weaker than? . Stopping fall in tone , Continuing intonation ! Animated tone

106  Christine Edwards-Groves and Christina Davidson ↑ Marked rising intonation ↓ Marked falling intonation no Underline indicating greater emphasis CA Upper case indicates loudness ° Softness, for example, It’s a °secret° hhh Aspiration or strong out-breath (it is) Words within are uncertain ( ) Indicates that some word/s could not be worked out (( ))  Verbal descriptions of embodied movements, for example, ((sits down)) (adapted from Atkinson and Heritage, 1984)

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7 Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised students in the middle years Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin

Introduction The ability to “command language, evidence and argument” (Alexander, 2020, p. 197) for personal, social, and environmental good is a goal which resonates for all school students in the 21st century. In the field of science, successful argumentation requires students to draw on and to express disciplinary knowledge in authoritative ways. Yet the command of scientific knowledge and language remains elusive for many students. In Australia, a ‘long tail’ (Ainley et al., 2022) of students are not meeting minimum standards in education, including students from Indigenous, geographically remote, and/or low socio-economic backgrounds, and students learning English as an additional language (EAL), particularly those from refugee backgrounds (ACARA, 2021; Lamb et al., 2020). For these students, it is all the more important that we develop understandings of how we can use classroom dialogue in the co-construction of scientific knowledge, in ways that both affirm and build agency in the wider world. Student argumentation skills in science are predicated on their construction of knowledge from scientific activity, by appropriating and making use of valued discipline-specific language (Jones & Hammond, 2016). The work of knowledge construction has been glossed over as ‘skillfully set[ting] discussion up by first reviewing basic material as a way of establishing the topic for discussion’ (Nystrand et al., 2003, p. 141). In our view, this work is much more than reviewing: it is foundational to student success. Indeed, a lack of due attention to this stage of building knowledge may be one significant reason for the absence of ‘authentic’ questions from low-achieving students observed in some studies (Nystrand et al., 2003). Notably, where students are learning English, and are unfamiliar with ways of thinking scientifically, the teacher may have considerable work to do in establishing shared language and meaning, appropriate to the discipline of science, so that students can contribute confidently and without fear of failure. Knowledge construction in the introductory stages of any science topic is largely managed by the teacher and often characterised as monologic discourse (e.g., Nystrand et al., 2003). Nevertheless, it must be dialogic if students are to negotiate meaning and language successfully. That is, classroom DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-10

110  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin discourse must demonstrate the dialogic principles articulated by Alexander (2020), which can be grouped into two broad purposes: the social and the academic. The social principles are that dialogue is collective – ‘we’re in this together’; supportive – ‘we look after each other and I won’t shame you’; and reciprocal – ‘we are mutually respectful of each other’s contributions’. The academic principles are that dialogue is deliberative – ‘we thoughtfully discuss and resolve different points of view’; cumulative – ‘there is a logic that unfolds in our discussion and we build on each other’s contributions’; and purposeful – ‘this is not a chat but working towards a learning goal’. The overarching challenge for teachers in managing classroom dialogue is to employ pedagogic strategies that allow them to sensitively maintain positive social affect while at the same time leading students academically, from the ‘thinkable’ to the ‘yet to be thought’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 30). This is no mean feat, particularly with marginalised students who often struggle to make sense of school business. Another challenge for teachers is to address the two interrelated purposes, or registers, of teacher talk, as classified by Bernstein (2000) and Christie (1998). The regulative pedagogic register manages the unfolding of the lesson and orients students to purpose and goals; it projects the instructional pedagogic register, which is comprised of topic-relevant language, supporting students in the unfolding of the topic. Student take-up of new learning depends on careful teacher choices in the interplay between the two registers. To address both challenges, teachers need to reflect on and refine their own pedagogic talk. This chapter explores how scientific knowledge, realised through language, can be co-constructed through classroom dialogue in ways that affirm and empower all students, not just those already privileged. Our discussion is based on a study carried out by the authors in collaboration with two teachers in an Australian Year 6–7 (ages 11–13 years) multicultural classroom with a high proportion of English language learners. We present extracts from a series of lessons about electric circuits to show how the teachers used pedagogic strategies to nurture incipient dialogue, with the students increasingly taking control of the topic and language. We examine where, and under what circumstances Alexander’s six principles are realised, through this teacher-led dialogue, as the topic of electric circuits unfolds.

Literature review Scientific concepts are built through the interaction between concrete activity and language, with activity gradually receding in importance, and language gradually becoming a significant tool for negotiating meaning (Martin & Veel, 1998; Vygotsky, 1986). Learning to argue authoritatively in science is complex, requiring familiarity with established scientific knowledge. The ability to recognise and describe abstract taxonomic relationships and explain phenomena is fundamental to students’ induction into the scientific community and a vital resource for argumentation (Halliday, 1998). Learning abstract terms supports students to apply new knowledge. For example, we

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  111 might want primary students to understand a battery as a ‘power source’, a light globe as the ‘load’ and the wires that join them as ‘conductive material’. The abstract terms are therefore a resource to build an understanding of the phenomenon of electricity in other systems, such as turbines. Ultimately such language is also necessary for arguing succinctly and authoritatively for the use of alternative power sources, and more efficient loads. There is a risk that when teachers are motivated by the urgency of student inclusion and engagement, they may simply seek to increase student talk time, pursuing student freedom to choose what to talk about and how to say it, and striving for symmetry in teacher–student talk (e.g., Segal & Lefstein, 2016). These aims may be consistent with a pseudo-democratic notion of student voice, termed by Bernstein (2000, p. 170) as Spon-Tex, that is “tell us in your own words, give us your original ideas, don’t regurgitate what the teacher has said”. However, expecting students to rely solely on their existing linguistic repertoire is an injustice because it prevents marginalised students without prior access to academic language from building authoritative language in science. Instead, we must find ways to negotiate learning through classroom dialogue such that it valorises, but also builds on and extends student linguistic repertoires. We draw on the work of systemic functional linguists who have detailed the language choices valued in science to describe, inform, explain and report inquiries, and argue. Learning science includes sharing control of valued text forms, grammar, and vocabulary, described by Martin (2013a, p. 31) as “power words, power grammar and power composition”. It is through this language that scientific knowledge is constructed and realised (Bernstein, 2000; Vygotsky, 1986). As well as claiming its own taxonomy of precise, objective technical language, the language of science has many grammatical resources to make texts sound more ‘written-like’ than ‘spoken-like’ (e.g., Halliday & Martin, 1993; Martin & Veel, 1998). Valued scientific texts are often meaning-dense: they include expanded noun groups where detail is added through adjectives and classifiers, such as ‘the negatively-charged electron moving from atom to atom’; and nominalisations, where complicated phenomena are condensed into nouns, such as ‘electricity’. Such language structures are often unfamiliar and challenging for many students. Fundamental to the starting point of an effective teaching and learning negotiation is the work that teachers do in building ‘common knowledge’ (Edwards & Mercer, 1987), the alignment and calibration identified by Nystrand et al. (2003) as the foundation for successful classroom discussion. To achieve this, teachers are responsible for respectfully and inclusively sharing the relevant discipline-specific language and its meanings through cumulative classroom talk based in shared activities, with the teacher gradually relinquishing power, while student voice is strengthened in academically valued ways (Gray, 1989; Gray, 2007). Such a pedagogic approach is often defined as scaffolding, a term developed by followers of Vygotskian child development. In effective scaffolding, teachers lead beyond what the students can do independently; the teachers

112  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin and students share a learning goal; and the teacher moves towards student control of learning, but always being willing to step in and support when students fail (Parkin & Harper, 2018; Wood et al., 1976). The level of support provided by the teacher is thus dynamic: it can change moment-bymoment, contingent on student needs at the time (Wood & Wood, 1996). The respective roles of teachers and students also change as students gain control of language and knowledge. Skilled teacher questioning plays an important role in effective scaffolding (Cazden, 1988; Gray, 1998). The ubiquitous Initiation-Response-Evaluation (I-R-E/F) questioning sequence (See Chapter 2, this volume) is often used as a pedagogic strategy to help a topic unfold, even though it has been frequently critiqued (e.g., Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Macbeth, 2003; Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). Certainly, when used early in a topic when there is little shared understanding, the I-R-E sequence can valorise those already privileged, and exclude others for their ‘failure to know’ (Gray, 1998, p. 180). These failed I-R-E sequences, where there is a lack of congruence between teacher and students who are not ‘on the same page’, and where the student cannot match their answer to one the teacher wanted, have been termed ‘interactive trouble’ (Freebody et al., 1995, p. 299). With slight modification, however, the I-R-E sequence can be used as an inclusive scaffold, as shown by Gray and Cazden (1992). Their extended questioning sequence is used early in classroom dialogue so that students are not ‘guessing what’s in the teacher’s head’ (Freebody et al., 1995) and can participate with confidence in discussion. The sequence begins with a preformulation: a statement that draws student attention to the point of the question (French & MacLure, 1981). It ends with a reconceptualisation, identified by Alexander as the ‘extending’ move (2020, p. 150). Cazden (2001, p. 72) explains that it provides something akin to a ‘world view’, and Gray (2007, p. 49) argues that “it provides a means through which differences in understanding across the classroom can be reconciled through the development of commonly held perceptions and knowledge”. The idea of teachers imposing language on students in the context of dialogic teaching has been met with some reservations by researchers. Alexander (2020, p. 17), for example, warns against learning being a “process of jumping through linguistic hoops towards a non-negotiable end”, and Nystrand (1997, cited in Alexander, 2020, p. 16) prefers the notion of ‘thinking’ to the recitative processes of ‘remembering and guessing’. However, while Alexander (2020, pp. 145–6) privileges discussion and argumentation within the repertoire of teaching talk, he also acknowledges there is a role for more ‘traditional’ functions of teaching talk, namely explicit instruction, exposition, and recitation. Our view of recitation in the early stages of knowledge construction draws on a Vygotskian understanding of learning. As part of an effective scaffolding sequence, students may be encouraged to recall and practise language, and the teacher’s requests for information may mimic the discourse of rote learning (Alexander, 2020). However, rather than regarding student take-up of

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  113 teacher language as recitation or regurgitation, and something to be discouraged, it can be as reframed as ‘imitation’, an essential element in learning that empowers students to later discuss, explain and argue (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 188). It is also recognised in the literature as handover (Bruner & Watson, 1983) or appropriation (Rogoff, 1990). Students’ appropriation of new, discourse-valued language has a fundamental pedagogic purpose, especially for low socio-economic or EAL students. Bakhtin described this as ‘ventriloquation’: “the process whereby one voice speaks through another voice… the word in language is half someone else’s” (Wertsch, 1991, p. 59). While imitation of language is not where learning finishes, Vygotsky (1986, p. 188) explained that this is where it begins: In learning to speak, as in school subjects, imitation is indispensable. What the child can do in cooperation today he can do alone tomorrow. One important pedagogic challenge for teachers is thus to assist students in moving from imitation to purposeful control and understanding of academic language so that the discourse is not simply recitation or rote. As noted earlier, to create meaning, teachers also need to create interaction between activity and language, from concrete to abstract and back again (Vygotsky, 1986). This requires the teacher to have a nuanced approach to classroom dialogue. In the following sections, we illustrate how these nuances can unfold over several lessons, and how the teacher–student dynamic changes as students use new language in meaningful ways, and as they prepare to transfer their knowledge to new contexts.

A brief description of our research site and study The research site for our study was a suburban primary school which hosted an Intensive English Language Centre (IELC) for migrant and refugee students during their first twelve months in Australia. Our project, an empirical study of two primary classrooms, aimed to articulate principles of a language-based scaffolding pedagogy, exploring moment-to-moment pedagogic choices with the teachers, and helping bring these choices to the teachers’ consciousness. Two upper primary teachers were invited to participate in the project because of their knowledge of, and experience and proficiency in scaffolding pedagogy. The school had been using the Scaffolding Literacy pedagogy, formerly known as Accelerated Literacy (Gray, 2007), as a whole-school approach for more than 10 years. For this project, they nominated science, and the topic of electric circuits, from their Australian Curriculum priorities for the year. Below, we focus on extracts from a series of five lessons from one teacher’s Year 6–7 class. The teacher was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about science; 73% of students were learning English as an additional language,

114  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin and many were refugees who had only recently graduated from a year of intensive English.

Dialogic principles in learning about electric circuits In the following two lesson extracts, we examine where and how the principles of dialogic pedagogy were realised as the topic of electric circuits unfolded. The first extract is from early in the topic, when most students were just beginning to learn about the structure of an atom, in preparation for understanding electric circuits. The second extract is from the fifth lesson, by which time there was considerable shared knowledge about electric circuits. Through this discussion, we attend particularly to the teacher’s questioning strategies. In contrast to other discourse analytic approaches (e.g., Nystrand et al., 2003), we consider that choices in the regulative pedagogic register are as essential to effective questioning as choices made about topic language. Our extracts demonstrate how the teacher’s questioning changed over time, and the importance of the regulative pedagogic register in inviting students into the early discussion, and taking risks in using a new language. We contrast this initial use of the regulative register with the diminished regulative register in the later exchange, as students became more confident in their learning. For each of the extracts we also demonstrate the application of Alexander’s dialogic principles, noting first the principles pertaining to social purposes and maintaining positive affect (the collective, supportive and reciprocal principles), and then the principles pertaining to academic success (the deliberative, cumulative and purposeful principles). In the transcriptions, words comprising the regulative register, that is the words that manage class activity, including invitations to talk, are underlined. Words comprising the instructional register, that is topic-relevant words, are not. Words that belong in both registers are underlined with dots. Nouns that represent the topic of discussion are shaded. Extract 1 comes from the opening stages of Lesson 2, when the teacher revised learning from the previous day, checking for ‘handover’ of knowledge about the structure of the atom. All students’ names are pseudonyms. (T stands for Teacher, S for Student, and SS for Students.) (Table 7.1) Principles to maintain positive affect Collective. Extract 1 shows that learning collectively was the modus operandi of this teacher and this class. Indeed, the teacher worked with the whole class for most of the five lessons. Whole class instruction ensured that the teacher co-constructed new knowledge about the structure of atoms with all students. Only when he was confident that students understood the atomic structure (the role of electrons, neutrons, and protons) did the class configuration change at times, beginning with students collaborating to practise new language in pairs.

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  115 Table 7.1  Extract 1 Turn

Speaker

1

T

2

S

3

T

4 5

SS T

6 7 8 9

S T SS T

10 11

S T

12 13

S T

14 15

S T

16 17

S T

18 19 20 21 22 23

S T S T S T

24 25

S T

26 27

S T

Can we just refresh the memory of those people who were away, and ourselves, what, what are we, what are we looking at? What are we investigating? Max. Um, yesterday we’re investigating about, um, a little bit more about atoms. Absolutely. We’ve been looking at atoms. Okay, So I just want to very quickly summarise-- remember we had done a flowchart on the board here yesterday that was helping to talk about atoms. Yeah. Can you help me? What was the big, big concept in all that? Big thing that we spoke about that’s everything around us? Daniel? Matter. Matter. Okay. Matter is made up of what? Atoms. Okay. Atoms, and I forget who it was, but someone told me about where we can find something that contains some of these particles. Jessica? The neutron is inside, the protons and the neutrons. Oh, just wonderful. So, inside the nucleus, we had two types of particles: the protons… What was that other one? Neutrons. Neutrons. So, can you tell the person next to you a sentence about the nucleus? The nucleus contains …? [[Students talk to each other]] Okay. Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m going to move a little bit quickly because conscious of time. So, if you said the nucleus contains protons and neutrons, you would be correct. Now, what else can you tell me about something else that makes up the atom? Taylor. The electron orbit to the nucleus. Absolutely fantastic. So, we have the electrons. What was that other type of particle, everyone? Electrons. Electrons. And what was the thing that they were doing, Taylor? Orbit. That’s a really scientific word. Can you tell me what it means? Go around. Yeah. Fantastic. They go around, move around, or follow a particular path. So they orbit-- what do, what do they orbit? Lucky? They orbit the nucleus. Absolutely. The electrons orbit the nucleus… So, what has this got to do with our learning that we’re going to be doing? Max? Um, everything is made up of atoms. Absolutely. And we needed to know about this information about atoms in order to know about these electrons. And it’s going to become important for us now. So we’re going to do a little bit more learning about the electrons and the protons…

116  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin Collective learning was also evident in the way the teacher continually used the first person plural ‘we’ in the regulative pedagogic register. ‘We’ conveyed the message that learning was a group endeavour in this classroom, and each contribution was helping the whole. Turn 1 provides an example of this. We noticed an interesting phenomenon at the beginning of the topic. Several questions included elaborated choices in the regulative register. They were not typical I-R-E questions, seeking information, but rather couched as social exchanges, as requests for contributions to the group. Turn 1 is an example, where the task of revising was represented as refreshing the memory of absent friends and ourselves. Turn 5 is another, where the teacher asked for help, and t9, where he acknowledged a student’s prior contribution to the learning. Each of these small choices employed the regulative register to consolidate the sense that learning was being co-constructed. Supportive. At this early stage of the topic, the teacher worked hard to affirm any student contribution, however small. His evaluations of student answers were consistently positive: ‘Absolutely, absolutely fantastic’. The interaction in t9-13 began with the teacher asking an imprecise and convoluted question. He wanted students to identify the nucleus as the site for protons and neutrons. Jessica’s response, in t10, was partially successful. It did not include any reference to the nucleus but did mention protons and neutrons. While the teacher responded with ‘Oh, just wonderful’, Jessica’s partial answer was evidence that his question needed repair. What followed was an example of Gray’s (1998) supportive questioning sequence. It began in t11 with a preformulation; that is a statement that flagged to the class the intention of the question: ‘So inside the nucleus, we had two types of particles: the protons…’ This unfinished sentence was followed with a question: ‘What was that other one?’, in turn, followed by a successful answer. Rather than just repeating the answer and moving on, the teacher recognised the answer as core information, and that all students needed the words to describe the atomic structure. So in t13, he paused, asking all students to have a go at saying a sentence about the structure of the nucleus. The teacher’s preformulated questions were easily answerable in this early stage of the topic. The questions might be considered cognitively low demand, used to elicit small kernels of new language, but they served to draw students into the discussion, encouraging them to persevere. It is noteworthy that the teacher did not begin any question by nominating a particular student, only selecting from students with their hands up, or students to respond in chorus. His use of the second person pronoun ‘you’ was addressed to the whole class, opening up questions to all, and putting no one on the spot. Turn 5 is an example of this. He used question openers such as ‘Remember…’, ‘Can you help me…’, and ‘Can you tell me…’. These openers created an interpersonal effect that can be contrasted with bald I-R-E questions. ‘Remember’ reassured students that they might recall this from before, and the modalised ‘Can you…’ gave students an ‘out’, so that they did not have to answer if they were unable.

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  117 Reciprocal. Reciprocal talk, where students listened to each other, was part of the classroom repertoire, but not in the earliest stage of the topic. Until the teacher was satisfied that all students understood the learning goal and could access useful language, the class remained as one. However, once common knowledge was established, the teacher arranged the class in pairs to consolidate their understandings about atoms, and later about electric circuits, working with the diagrams they had created, and rehearsing together their oral explanations of electricity. Principles for academic success Purposeful. There was no doubt, across the five lessons observed, of the purposeful nature of classroom talk. Apart from a small amount of ‘settling’ and organising talk at the beginning of each lesson or transitioning between activities, there was almost no behaviour management talk, or teacher talk to divert students from learning. Further evidence of purpose came from the choice of science activities on which the dialogue focused, building the concept of electricity. The teacher used various semiotic resources: videos (muted, so that he could explain in words he wanted); labelled diagrams and 3D constructions of an atom; a role-play where students took the role of atoms with pegs as their electrons and a rope to represent the direction of the released electrons; demonstrations of an electric circuit using familiar classroom materials such as batteries, light bulbs, fans, switches and wires; and photographs of the physical circuit, leading to the construction of a formal diagram. The class also constructed class notes and diagrams to summarise the learning, on display as a resource for student talk. The language evident in Extract 1 was used repeatedly to create ‘message abundancy’ (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005), ‘mapped’ consistently onto each activity, spoken, written, and recorded in various ways. Across the lessons, students became increasingly confident in describing the atomic structure, and explaining how an electric circuit worked. They recorded their explanations, accompanying their diagrams and animations, on their digital devices. Deliberative. Alexander’s (2020, p. 131) definition of ‘deliberative’ includes the discussion and resolution of differing points of view; presenting and evaluating arguments, and working towards reasoned positions and outcomes. There are no examples in this first extract of deliberative talk at this cognitive and rational level. However, if we understand deliberative discourse as representing ‘slow and careful thought’, the beginnings are there. It is evident in the teacher’s role, as he carefully questioned, rephrased, and responded turn by turn to students. It is also evident in students’ thoughtful responses to the teacher’s questions, referring to the diagram introduced in the previous lesson. ‘Authentic’ student questions are indicative of deliberative thought in dialogue. These are genuine, open-ended questions requiring an indeterminate

118  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin answer (Nystrand et al., 2003, p. 145). A rare authentic question appeared in Lesson 3, following a small group discussion about the negative charge of electrons. S

If we didn’t have the neutrons, would the electrons and the protons just go together and just collide?

The teacher acknowledged this question very positively: ‘That is just a wonderful question’. Other teachers might have then gone on to open this question up to others, to discuss it in small groups, and to hypothesise and produce an answer. This teacher’s response, in contrast, was to pause the question for the time being, although not to close it off completely: T:  Can

you please write that one down? I’ll answer it very briefly here, but there’s much more to it than that, okay? Can you write it down so we can record it later? Hey everyone, we’re just about to coming back to focusing up here, please.

In fact, the call to refocus suggested that the question was a bit off track. This class had a wide range of abilities, language resources, and interests. Some students already knew something about atoms; for others, this was completely new knowledge. Deliberating over such a question with a small group at this time would have lost the thread of the lesson, and lost the focus of those students for whom this question made no sense. Instead, the teacher later followed up with several students interested in pursuing that discussion. Cumulative. One way to track the cumulative principle at work is through the topic nouns, part of the instructional register, and shaded in the extracts. We observed the teacher ‘shuffling’ back and forth with the topic as the taxonomic structure of the atom gradually unfolded, finally reaching the electron, the atomic particle most relevant for understanding the electric circuit. Turns 20-24 are notable in demonstrating the teacher’s skill at knowledge accumulation, through ‘powering up and down’ (Martin, 2013b). The student used the ‘powered up’ technical word ‘orbit’ in t20, affirmed in t21 as scientific. In t22, he supplied a ‘powered down’ commonsense definition of the word. This was followed in t23 by a reconceptualisation, in this case, a broadcasting, reframing and elaboration which included powered-down (‘go around, ‘move around, or follow a particular path’) and powered-up (‘orbit’) language. These semantic waves, shifting between commonsense and technical terms (Maton, 2014), are essential for building abstract meanings in science.

Extract 2: Ready to go Extract 2 comes from the topic’s fifth lesson and was recorded after the teacher had demonstrated how an electric circuit worked and had introduced the new ‘powered up’ generalised terms of ‘power source’, ‘force’, ‘flow’, ‘conductive material’, ‘load’ and ‘observable change’.

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  119 Table 7.2  Extract 2 Turn

Speaker

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

T SS T SS T SS T SS T

10 11 12

SS T S

What’s the power source? The battery. The battery. And what does it do? Provides the force. What does the conductive material do? Allows the flow of electrons. What does the load do? Glow. In this case, it’s-- when it’s on it-- we see light. What does the load do? There is an observable change. Yeah. What does observable mean? Like the light, here, when we see it.

This dialogue took place with the whole class standing around the table where the teacher had been demonstrating and labelling the parts of the circuit. As he questioned, he pointed to each part of the circuit, expecting all students to try out the new language (Table 7.2). Principles realised to maintain social inclusion and academic success Extract 2 provides a stark contrast to the warm, invitational language of Extract 1. The supportive principle was still evident: although all students were required to answer, no one was put on the spot. Yet at first glance, it appears the teacher made little effort at social inclusion, with no requests for help, and no enthusiastic evaluations of student answers. In fact, when compared with Extract 1, there was almost no talk in the regulative register (underlined). Instead, the instructional register was foregrounded; it was all business. The exchanges were display questions, all beginning with ‘what…’ but they were not full I-R-E sequences, because the evaluation turn was absent. The collaborative principle was evident in the expectation that everyone in the class should take part, although the pace of the questions and answers ruled out any suggestion of reciprocity. Despite the absence of explicit supportive talk, the interaction supported academic success through the cumulative principle. The shaded technical nouns and verbs in the instructional register lay out the sequenced components of the electric circuit. However, there was no time for deliberation. Interactions with the characteristics of Extract 2 are successful when there is a high level of cultural alignment or calibration (Nystrand et al., 2003) between teachers and students about expectations and goals. In Extract 2, the class shared significant common ground, achieved through the refined, carefully considered scaffolding in previous lessons. Now, teachers and ­students together could make certain mutual assumptions, that “not only do

120  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin I know, but you know, and I know that you know, and you know that I know that you know…” (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, p. 18). In purpose, this interaction was a final preparation before students went into groups to construct their own electric circuits. We suggest that the level of regulative register and scaffold – that is, almost none – was contingent and appropriate for this stage in the topic. At this point students were ready to take part in reciprocal and deliberative classroom dialogue as they moved towards new shared challenges, using the language and understanding they had appropriated as a tool for solving problems in a scientifically valued way.

Conclusion and implications If classroom dialogue is to aid the redistribution of cultural capital and ultimately ameliorate inequalities in learning outcomes and life trajectories (Martin, 2021), the inclusion of the voices of all students in the class should not be an ideal (Nystrand et al., 2003), but core business. In this chapter we have focused on language and knowledge building through whole class dialogue, emphasising the foundational work that enables marginalised students to participate on an equal footing with their peers. Our examples of classroom discourse demonstrated some important characteristics. The role of the teacher was central in negotiating language through dialogue towards shared learning goals. The logical unfolding of the topic involved a complex dynamic: the teacher initiated, and the students took control of topic-specific language over time. Through contingently scaffolded questioning, the teacher invited and included all, creating safe opportunities to participate and practise language. The dynamic nature of this dialogue was evident in the shift between the extensive use of the regulative register for social inclusion in the first extract, and its scarcity in the later extract, in which the supportive principle was effectively absent from the talk. We noted the consistent and cumulative use of language to construct knowledge, embedded across many activities. The teacher’s role in this knowledge construction might appear to run counter to accepted views of what constitutes classroom dialogue. Students recalled and practised language, and the teacher often requested information in a way that could be perceived as a recitation talk (Alexander, 2020). However, this was an incipient dialogue, an example of performance before competence (Cazden, 1981), and an opportunity for students to appropriate language which became a tool for further negotiation of learning. While cognitive demand was low at the start, it rose as shared knowledge was established. Principles that were less visible in our data were reciprocity and deliberation. We suggest that control of authoritative, discipline-specific language gave students the resources for further dialogue. Their shared language and alignment of understanding made it possible for all students, not just those whose prior knowledge allowed them to hold sway, to have a role in deliberating about electric circuits, and to have the confidence for an authentically reciprocal role in discussion.

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  121 Clearly, whole class work is a robust form of discourse for beginning a topic, but it has some limitations. The teacher is not usually able to closely monitor each student for their language uptake, so small group work, or one-on-one conversations with the students are the next step. While we have many examples of strong student performance in individual assessment tasks (Harper & Parkin, 2017), our data does not demonstrate fully open-ended conversations between students, or between teacher and students, and this remains an inquiry to be pursued in more depth. The teachers’ work described here is highly skilled and challenging, as the need for moment-by-moment reflection and modification in both the regulative and instructional registers commands a high cognitive load for teachers. This has implications for teacher professional learning. In helping teachers develop their dialogic teaching skills, they need a principled repertoire of pedagogic strategies from which they can consciously select, as opposed to a ‘grab-bag’ of random strategies (Parkin & Harper, 2018, 2019). Despite the challenges, ultimately teachers must be accountable for framing questions that are answerable and responding to students in ways that are both supportive and also progress learning. Without this foundational work, we risk marginalising students from learning, and from participating in a wider dialogue.

Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the work and collegiality of Michael Cannavan and Louise Walker, our teaching collaborators in the project. The study was funded by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia and was part of a larger research project titled ‘Scaffolding academic language with educationally marginalised students’ (Harper & Parkin, 2017).

Ethics statement Ethical approval to carry out the research was granted by the University of Adelaide (H-2016-129) and the Menzies School of Health Research (HREC 2016-2612). Access to the school was granted by the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development.

References ACARA. (2021). National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy: National Report for 2021. https://nap.edu.au/docs/default-source/default-documentlibrary/2021-naplan-national-report.pdf Alexander, R. J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: theory, research, critique (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. Bruner, J. S., & Watson, R. (1983). Child’s talk: learning to use language. Oxford University Press.

122  Helen Harper and Bronwyn Parkin Cazden, C. (1981). Performance before competence. Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 3(1), 4. Cazden, C. (1988). Classroom discourse: the language of teaching and learning. Heinemann. Cazden, C. B. (2001). Classroom discourse: the language of teaching and learning (2nd ed.). Heinemann. Christie, F. (1998). The pedagogic device and the teaching of English. In F. Christie (Ed.), Pedagogy and the shaping of consciousness: linguistic and social processes (pp. 156–184). Cassell. Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge: the development of understanding in the classroom. Routledge. Eggins, S. (1994). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics. Pinter Publishers. Freebody, P., Ludwig, C., & Gunn, S. (1995). Everyday literacy practices in and out of schools in low socio-economic urban communities: executive summary. Faculty of Education, Griffith University. French, P., & MacLure, M. (1981, February 1, 1981). Teachers’ questions, pupils’ answers: an investigation of questions and answers in the infant classroom. First Language, 2(4), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/014272378100200403 Gray, B. (1998). Accessing the discourses of schooling [University of Melbourne]. Melbourne. Gray, B. (2007). Accelerating the literacy development of Indigenous students: the National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP). Charles Darwin University Press. Gray, B., & Cazden, C. B. (1992). Concentrated language encounters: International biography of a curriculum concept 26th annual TESOL convention, Vancouver. Halliday, M. A. K. (1998). Things and Relations: regrammaticising experience as technical knowledge. In J. R. Martin & R. Veel (Eds.), Reading science: critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science (pp. 185–235). Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K., & Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing science: literacy and discursive power. Falmer Press. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (1999). Construing experience through meaning: a language-based approach to cognition. Cassell. Hammond, J., & Gibbons, P. (2005). Putting scaffolding to work: the contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect, 20 (1), 6–30. Harper, H., & Parkin, B. (2017). Scaffolding academic language with educationally marginalised students. PETAA. https://www.researchgate.net Jones, P., & Hammond, J. (2016). Talking to learn: dialogic teaching in conversation with educational linguistics. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 1–4. Lamb, S., Huo, S., Walstab, A., Wade, A., Maire, Q., Doecke, E., Jackson, J., & Endekov, Z. (2020). Educational opportunity in Australia 2020: Who succeeds and who misses out. Centre for International Research on Education Systems. Victoria University, for the Mitchell Institute. Macbeth, D. (2003). Hugh Mehan’s "Learning Lessons" Reconsidered: on the differences between the naturalistic and critical analysis of classroom discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 40(1), 239–280. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3699432 Martin, J. R. (2013a). Embedded literacy: Knowledge as meaning. Linguistics and Education, 24(1), 23–37. Martin, J. R. (2013b). Exploring content: building knowledge in school discourse TeL4ELE Dissemination Conference, Madrid. http://issuu.com/telcon2013/ docs/jim_martin_telcon2013?e=9616510/5283672

Scaffolding dialogue with marginalised middle years students  123 Martin, J. R. (2021). Literacy across social classes. Routledge. Retrieved 20/12/21 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS3pDCFW1fU Maton, K. (2014). Building powerful knowledge: the significance of semantic waves In E. Rata & B. Barrett (Eds.), Knowledge and the future of the curriculum (pp. 181–197). Palgrave Macmillan. Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: social organization in the classroom. Harvard University Press. Nystrand, M., Wu, L. L., Gamoran, A., Zeiser, S., & Long, D. A. (2003, 2003/03/01). Questions in time: Investigating the structure and dynamics of unfolding classroom discourse. Discourse Processes, 35(2), 135–198. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326 950DP3502_3 Parkin, B., & Harper, H. (2018). Teaching with intent: scaffolding academic language with marginalised students. PETAA. Parkin, B., & Harper, H. (2019). Teaching with Intent 2: a literature-based literacy program. PETAA. Polias, J. (2016). Apprenticing students into science: Doing, talking, writing and drawing scientifically. Lexis Education. Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship into thinking. Oxford University Press. Segal, A., & Lefstein, A. (2016). Exuberant, voiceless participation: an unintended consequence of dialogic sensibilities? L1-educational studies in language and literature, 16, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.17239/L1ESLL-2016.16.02.06 Sinclair, J. M., & Coulthard, R. M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse: the English used by teachers and pupils. Oxford University Press. Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance: communication and cognition. Wiley-Blackwell. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and Language (Kozulin, Trans.). MIT Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: a sociocultural approach to mediated action. Harvard University Press. Wood, D. J., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(2), 89–100. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x Wood, D. J., & Wood, H. (1996). Contingency in tutoring and learning. Learning and Instruction, 6(4), 391–397. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ B6VFW-3VWTB90-8/2/4855e9f8efd5eedac8a3ec0fad42bb93

8 The changing patterns of classroom interaction Teacher interventions in students’ creative collaboration in makerspaces Kristiina Kumpulainen, Anu Kajamaa and Jasmiina Leskinen Introduction The uptake of technology-rich creative collaborative learning environments is transforming the traditional norms and patterns of classroom interaction, with consequences for teaching and learning practices. Among these novel learning environments are so-called makerspaces that are increasingly appearing in schools and communities (see, e.g., Blum-Ross et al., 2020; Peppler et  al., 2016). Makerspaces prescribe constructionist pedagogies, placing emphasis on students’ interests, agency and initiation and relative expertise, as well as creative and collaborative knowledge practices (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Honey & Kanter, 2013). In makerspaces, students typically work on personally relevant Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) design projects. In these projects students can make choices about their creative collaborative activities, simultaneously navigating through several fields of knowledge and using a range of materials, including novel technologies that enable them to externalise, share and build ideas into tangible objects. Despite the educational potential of makerspaces for enhancing students’ creative collaboration and critical thinking, as well as interest, engagement and learning in STEAM fields (Blum-Ross et  al., 2020; Peppler et  al., 2016), so far relatively little research attention has been directed to the interactive strategies of the teacher in supporting students’ creative collaboration and learning in makerspaces. In this chapter, we focus on this unexplored research topic by discussing findings from a program of research on teacher interventions in a makerspace, called the FUSE Studio. Our empirical material consists of video-recorded classroom interactions between students (aged 9–12) and their teachers working in the makerspace over one academic year. In this connection, it is important to emphasise that although our inquiry focuses on the interactive strategies of the teacher, which we have named in our research as teacher interventions (see also Hofmann & Mercer, 2016), we do not want to imply that classroom interaction is a one-way process in which only the teacher shapes ongoing interaction, engagement and learning opportunities. Rather, we understand classroom DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-11

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  125 interaction as multi-directional, shaped by its participants and the ground rules and socio-material resources of the classroom (Alexander, 2020; Kumpulainen & Kajamaa, 2021). In our research, we view schools and classrooms as established settings with their own norms, rules and practices (Alexander, 2001; Edwards & Mercer, 1987). These historically established norms, rules and practices also define the interactive positions and strategies of students and teachers, and what is considered appropriate practice in a specific situation. Often, traditional and more established norms and practices of the school are based on efforts to enculture students into society and its knowledge, with less emphasis on creative and transformative knowledge practices that can lead to generating something new and unknown (Kajamaa & Kumpulainen, 2021; Kumpulainen & Kajamaa, 2021). The traditional and often authoritative modes of teaching and learning have been demonstrated through several studies of classroom interaction in which the teacher initiates and evaluates ongoing interaction, and students follow and respond (e.g., Alexander, 2020; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975; see Chapter 2, this volume). These traditional sociocultural norms and interactional practices of the classroom can make the uptake of new creative collaborative learning environments, such as makerspaces, challenging.

Researching teacher interventions during students’ creative collaboration There is ample research evidence to suggest that for students’ collaboration to be productive, they should share their ideas and support them with reasons, discuss different views and resolve these to achieve group consensus (Alexander, 2020; Kumpulainen & Wray, 2002). Yet, research demonstrates that these interactional features are rare in classrooms (Mercer & Howe, 2012; Mercer & Littleton, 2007). Existing research also indicates that teachers find it difficult to change established, teacher-centred norms and practices of the classroom and in general to support students’ collaborative work (Kumpulainen et al., 2018; Osborne et al., 2013; Webb et al., 2006, 2009). Simultaneously, the introduction of digital resources and tools in the learning environment has been found to add to the complexity of teacher–student interaction and the transformation of more established interaction practices. For example, a study by Strømme and Furberg (2015) points out the complexity of teacher interventions at the intersection with students and their needs, digital and other tools in use, and instructional design. Although teacher interventions in students’ collaboration have been reported to enhance students’ productive engagement in educational tasks (Ding et al., 2007), research findings are divergent, pointing out the need for further investigation in the field. Several studies have suggested that teachers should invite students’ contributions rather than ask content-related questions and maintain their expert position (Blatchford et al., 2003; Kovalainen & Kumpulainen, 2005). This is because teacher engagement

126  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. with problem content has the likelihood to increase students’ dependence on the teacher and jeopardise students’ own initiative, agency and creativity (Chiu, 2004). Some research findings have stressed that teachers should model highlevel performance and make their expertise available to students for collaborative learning to be effective (Franke et al., 2009; Meloth & Deering, 1999; Webb et  al., 2009). For example, Hofmann and Mercer (2016) revealed how initiating and continuing interactive strategies by the teacher supported rather than closed down student discussion of ideas during small group work in secondary mathematics and science classrooms. Whilst engaging in the initiating intervention strategy, the teachers did not take an immediate, authoritative lead in the solution process but rather invited students to speak, listened silently to the discussion, referred to the ‘ground rules’ of the activity and focused students on the task. Continuing intervention strategies included teachers encouraging interaction by repeating relevant ideas expressed by students, probing and exploring students’ understandings, encouraging them to compare and test ideas, and identifying resources for thinking (see also Kovalainen et  al., 2001). Altogether, previous research points out that different teacher intervention strategies are needed for different students, tasks and situations. Our investigation of teacher interventions to support students’ creative collaboration in makerspaces addresses current research gaps in several respects. By focusing on makerspaces that underscore students’ initiation, collaboration and creative design, our study departs from more ‘prototypical’ studies of teacher interventions that have focused on whole class or small group interaction of students working on more traditional teacher pre-determined tasks that do not typically give much room for creativity (Chiu, 2004; Ding et al., 2007). Moreover, in our study we investigated teacher interventions that are initiated either by teachers or students, adding to the previous studies that have mostly focused on teacher-initiated interventions (Kajamaa et al., 2020).

The study Research setting Our research took place in a city-run Finnish primary school that introduced a makerspace into its program to enhance students’ design thinking, digital literacies and STEAM learning. The FUSE Studio makerspace (www. fusestudio.net) offers students a choice of about 30 integrated STEAM design challenges that ‘level up’ in difficulty like video games. The FUSE Studio is designed to promote students’ interest-driven and collaborative learning in STEAM subjects by engaging them in various design tasks, such as designing a dream home, electric apparel or jewellery, that invite students to engage in robotics, game design, electronics and graphic design (Stevens & Jona, 2017; Stevens et  al., 2016). The design challenges also invite students to use

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  127 a variety of tools, such as computers, 3D printers and other materials (e.g., foam rubber, felt, tape and scissors). The pedagogical ground rules of the FUSE Studio underscore relative expertise between students and teachers who can equally identify each other as learning resources (Champion et al., 2016; Penney et al., 2016; Stevens et al., 2016). There is no formal grading or assessment by teachers. Instead, using photos, video or other digital artefacts, students can document their completion of a design challenge which unlocks the next level of challenge in a sequence. Failures are viewed as just another try, and as significant learning experiences (Hilppö & Stevens, 2020). We engaged in ethnographic video research with 9–12-year-old students (n = 94) and their teachers for over one academic year. The students had chosen the FUSE Studio as an elective course and worked weekly in the makerspace, supported by several teachers. There were 18 to 30 students working in the makerspace at a time, supported by two to four teachers. The students could call upon their teachers and peers when needed or the teachers joined the students’ work when they considered that they needed their help. Data analysis Our data analysis of the ethnographic video data on teacher–student interaction in the makerspace followed an iterative approach, which is an inductive form of analysis that “encourages reflection upon the active interests, current literature, granted priorities and various theories the researcher brings to the data” (Srivastava & Hopwood, 2009, p. 77). On this basis, we first viewed the video corpus as a whole and then focused on selected interactional episodes in which the teacher(s) noticed the students’ need for support (i.e., teacher-initiated interventions) and/or when the student(s) asked for the teacher’s help (i.e., student-initiated teacher interventions). Our analysis also applied the interaction analysis techniques suggested by Jordan and Henderson (1995) to depict the nature and interactional context of teacher intervention episodes, the unit of our analysis (see also Derry et al., 2010; Erickson, 2006). Our analytic approach to investigating teacher intervention strategies in the video data and transcriptions can be defined as abductive, involving repeated iterations between theory and data (Van Maanen et al., 2007). A teacher intervention episode was considered to begin when a teacher joined in the students’ work either of their own volition or because of the students’ request. We considered the interaction episode to have ended when the teacher or students withdrew from the interaction situation. In our analysis, we also distinguished between whether teacher interventions were initiated by the teacher or the students. Our perspective on teacher interventions echoes with Alexander’s (2018, 2020) approach to dialogic teaching, where teachers use multiple repertoires for promoting student agency. The intervention strategies identified in our

128  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. study, utilising an array of interactional techniques to best support the students’ work, also reflect the teachers’ agency. Thus, in line with Alexander’s (2018, 2020) work, these strategies may be understood as repertoires. By scaffolding different intervention strategies, the teachers can, for example, energise students’ interaction and engagement, simultaneously improving their own teaching and enhancing the communicative and cognitive potential of classroom talk. Furthermore, we also acknowledge the uniqueness of the students, the teaching situation and the socio-material elements of the FUSE Studio makerspace, including its digital tools for teacher interventions. In line with Alexander, we view these elements as impacting the teachers’ decision-making on which intervention strategy they should apply and how (see Alexander, 2018, 2020). To respond to our first research question, i.e., When do teachers intervene in students’ work in the makerspace?, our analysis revealed five main thematic categories in relation to the interactional context of teacher intervention episodes: (1) conceptual, (2) procedural, (3) technological (4) behavioural and (5) student motivation related teacher interventions. To respond to our second research question, i.e., Which intervention strategies do teachers use? we identified three main strategies: (1) authoritative, (2) orchestrating and (3) unleashing strategies. Next, we will turn to illustrating and discussing our findings.

Findings Teacher intervention episodes Our research revealed five distinct interactional situations for teacher interventions in the makerspace to support the students’ creative collaboration: (1) Conceptual interventions were connected to the design challenges and students’ difficulties with the challenge. These difficulties were typically associated with the instructions or lack of content knowledge that was required for pursuing the challenge; (2) Procedural interventions were connected to students’ requests and problems in locating and/or using different materials and tools needed for their design work; (3) Technological interventions were connected to the difficulties and malfunctioning of the equipment, hardware and technical infrastructure of the makerspace. If a student did not know how to use a specific piece of software, this was not categorised as a technical difficulty but as conceptual intervention, since learning how to use software was one of the learning objectives of the makerspace; (4) Behavioural interventions were connected to situations in which the students were disrupting others’ work or not following joint rules. These interventions could be initiated by either the teacher or the students. A student-initiated behavioural intervention typically resulted in

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  129 students asking for the teacher’s help to respond to another student’s misbehaviour; ( 5) Motivational interventions were connected to situations in which the students were unwilling to focus on their work in the makerspace. These interventions were separated from behavioural interventions since they did not show the students disturbing each other or breaking any school rules. The most frequent teacher intervention dealt with conceptual issues, whereas the two least frequent interventions concerned technological or motivational issues. Interestingly, while conceptual, procedural, and technological teacher interventions were mostly student-initiated, most behavioural and all motivational interventions were teacher-initiated (Kajamaa et al., 2020). Teacher intervention strategies Our analysis brought forward three dominant intervention strategies from teachers when they were supporting the students’ creative collaboration in the makerspace, namely (1) authoritative, (2) orchestrating and (3) unleashing strategies. Next, we will illustrate these intervention strategies and their characteristics with examples from our data and consider how these strategies aligned with the ground rules of the makerspace. The interaction examples illustrated below have been translated from Finnish to English. Authoritative intervention strategy A dominant teacher intervention strategy was authoritative in nature, and typically involved the teacher taking charge of the students’ maker work by dominating and/or controlling the activity. The authoritative intervention strategy reflected the more traditional teacher-centred classroom interaction in which the students’ involvement and agency were not encouraged and was hence mostly against the ground rules of the makerspace (Kumpulainen & Kajamaa, 2021). This often meant that the teacher instructed the students step-by-step towards a resolution (see also Hofmann & Mercer, 2016). Often, it was the teacher who was working on the design challenge on the students’ behalf. The teachers’ use of the authoritative intervention strategy was quite common in intervention episodes that dealt with the students’ behaviour or motivation. However, it was also visible in interactions that dealt with conceptual and technological issues, as demonstrated in the following example. Our example of the teachers’ authoritative intervention strategy shown in Table 8.1 was initiated by a student, Mika, who was working with three other students, Lasse, Noel and Dan, on a design challenge called Coaster Boss. In this challenge, the students used foam rubber tubes and tape to construct a roller coaster track for a small marble. Mika asks for help from the teacher, as the group had previously completed the first level of the

130  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. Table 8.1  Authoritative intervention strategy in use Turn

Speaker

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1

Teacher

2 3

Mika Teacher

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Mika Teacher Noel Teacher Mika Teacher

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Mika Teacher

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Lasse Teacher

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Mika Teacher

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Teacher Mika Teacher

For level 2 you need the same equipment as for level 1. So, foam rubber tube, marble, tape, tape measure, and a speedometer All right Come and read from here [the students move over to his computer screen] First you mark the spot from which to drop the marble. It says five feet, how much is a foot? It was 26 cm 30cm it seems. Five times 30, how much is it? It’s 150 cm You mark it at 150 cm One and five Yes, a metre and fifty. You start from there. After that – it could be that they [foam rubber tubes] have been cut, so you make a loop. So, this is clear. You make a track and include a loop in the track. And don’t make the loop too steep. So many make a loop like this [draws on a piece of paper]. I don’t think it will work; the marble will come off the track. So, make it somehow like this [draws another loop on the paper]. So that the marble comes out a little more gently So it starts from there? [points to John’s drawing] It starts from here [draws on the paper], here is the wall and here is the floor But it has to be two metres per second See if it reaches two metres per second. So, you just measure how fast it goes OK And then one of you takes a laptop, opens the FUSE website and right here (points to the screen), one of you starts taking notes. And every time someone fails or works you write it down. Right away. Then you don’t have to make it up when the challenge is completed [Mika picks up the challenge kit] Did you take the box? Yeah Then go on

challenge, but, due to a technical difficulty, they could not open the instructions for the second level challenge on their computer. As a response, the teacher opened the instructions on his computer, first read them aloud (line 1), and then asked the students to come over to his computer for further instructions (line 3): Although the teacher’s intervention can be considered helpful in keeping the students on track and helping them to understand how to proceed in their design activity, the authoritative strategy also imposed several c­ onstraints on the students’ collaborative and creative learning activities. For instance, it

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  131 narrowed down the students’ own ideation of their designs, as well as decreased their creative collaboration (Kajamaa et al., 2020). Orchestrating intervention strategy Our research revealed another dominant teacher intervention strategy that we call orchestrating. The orchestrating strategy was demonstrated by the teachers’ efforts to encourage relative expertise and peer tutoring, as well as students’ reasoning and explanation. Typically, the teachers also tried to balance and/or to “glue together” students’ diverse ideas and needs (see also Kovalainen et al., 2001; Strømme & Furberg, 2015). In our data, the teachers engaged in the orchestrating intervention strategy in interactional episodes that dealt with conceptual, procedural and technological issues. The orchestrating intervention strategy was less common in interaction episodes that dealt with the students’ behaviour or motivational issues. In the example in Table 8.2, a student, Hanna, is working on a design challenge called Dream Home and she asks for the teacher’s help (line 1). As a response, the teacher asks a student called Riku to come over and help (line 3). The teacher knew that Riku had experience in working on the same design challenge and that he had also helped the students before. In the example shown in Table 8.2, Riku is willing to assist his classmates (line 5) and he comes over to help. Not only did the teacher’s orchestration strategy encourage collaboration and peer tutoring, but it also encouraged Riku’s willingness to help others and reinforced his status as a ‘Dream Home’ expert in the class. Unleashing intervention strategy Our research revealed a third dominant teacher intervention strategy, which we call unleashing. Here, teacher intervention and the resulting teacher–student interaction created a fertile space for creative collaboration, following the students’ interests. In these episodes, the teachers also explored the students’ existing knowledge and encouraged them to compare and test their own ideas, and to identify conceptual or material resources for their creative Table 8.2  Orchestrating intervention strategy in use Turn

Speaker

Transcript

1

Hanna

2 3 4

Teacher Hanna Teacher

5

Riku

[Hanna has her hand up and the teacher comes over.] Where are all the doors? What? We don’t know how to make a door I think you make it with the squares but let’s get someone here again who has [done it]. How about Riku? Riku, have you made doors? Hmm what. I can try

132  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. work and reasoning (see also Hofmann & Mercer, 2016). Further, in some cases, the teachers encouraged the students to deviate from existing rules or instructions for design challenges. This usually led to the creation of something surprising, such as extending the design challenge from the original instructions. Overall, unleashing intervention strategies were rare in the data, but since such creative interactions are at the core of makerspaces, we regard them as deserving research attention and documentation. In our example (see Table 8.3), students called Sara, Kati and Maria are collaborating on a design challenge in which they design keychains and print them out with a 3D printer. The interaction episode begins with Sara calling to the teacher for help. Our example in Table 8.3 begins with a more typical interaction episode between a student and teacher where Sara asks for the teacher’s help. It illustrates how the students also actively maintained the culturally established norms of the school themselves. This is particularly highlighted in lines 1 and 3, in which Sara repeatedly asked the teacher what they should do. However, Table 8.3  Unleashing intervention strategy in use Turn

Speaker

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1

Sara

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Teacher

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Sara

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Teacher

5 6 7 8 9

Kati Maria Teacher Maria Teacher

10 11 12

Sara Teacher Sara

13

Teacher

14 15 16

Teacher Kati Teacher

17 18

Maria Teacher

Tim, should these [letters] be attached or should they have this space in between? Yeah, now what happens is that these letters will print out separately That’s what I asked, so are we supposed to print these attached? That depends on what you want, do you want four separate letters, or do you want a tile on which all of them are written? All of them All of them Mm-hm Is it possible to decorate it around [the tile]? Decorate? Mm-m, yeah, you can browse these shapes that can be used as decorations But how can we get it so that a tile comes out? What thoughts do you have? So that we put these [points to the screen] on top of each other Yes, for example. That’s one way to do it. Another way is to pick a shape for the tile, put it there and drop the letters on top of it So, there are multiple ways, and they are all OK Does this print out in colour? No. [Sara and Maria discuss and test the two ways of constructing their design] Can we paint it then? Yeah, you would need paint then; we don’t have paints here in this classroom. But you could paint it at home or in another class if there is a chance

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  133 in line 4, the teacher prompted the student to think about what they wanted to accomplish. Further, the teacher helped the students to use the design program to realise their vision for decorations (line 9). In line 10, Sara asked for the teacher’s advice on the use of the design software. Instead of directly showing how to make a uniform tile, the teacher asked for the students’ own ideas for overcoming their design problem. The teacher also reinforced the students’ own design thinking by stating that there are multiple ways to overcome design problems. Finally, the students expressed a wish to print out a colourful keychain (lines 15 and 17). In line 18, the teacher encouraged the students to think about using resources outside the makerspace for realising their creative designs.

Discussion and conclusions In this chapter, we discussed our research on teacher interventions in students’ creative collaboration in a makerspace called the FUSE Studio. Our work not only extends existing research on teacher interventions in the field of technology-rich collaborative learning environments, but it also brings new knowledge about teacher interventions in a makerspace context—a student-driven creative learning environment that has not yet received much research attention when it comes to understanding teacher interventions and teacher–student interaction. Researching and understanding teacher–student interactions in makerspaces is important as these novel learning environments can have the potential to foster students’ agency and active engagement in creative learning (Kumpulainen et  al., 2018). Makerspaces constitute ways of reaching educationally progressive goals that are not easily realised in more traditional educational practices, cultivating knowledge and skills crucial for working and functioning in contemporary society (Peppler et al., 2016). Furthermore, makerspaces are regarded as being well suited to diverse learners, accommodating a diversity of interests and levels of engagement (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014). Our research reveals how a makerspace context posed multidimensional opportunities and tensions for teacher interventions and teacher–student interactions, in general. Importantly, our research on teacher–student interaction shows how there was a dynamic and tension-laden interplay between the traditional ground rules of the classroom and more novel rules of the makerspace that underscore students’ agency, creativity, collaboration and relative expertise. Further, in makerspaces, students’ learning is not dictated by a textbook or a pre-planned script, but it can be serendipitous while students navigate and integrate knowledge from multiple resources and domains to further their designs (Kajamaa & Kumpulainen, 2021). Yet, such cognitive integration is also known to be quite demanding (Furberg et al., 2013). In our research, we depicted various interactional situations and reasons for teacher interventions. The interactional contexts of teacher interventions dealt with the conceptual, procedural, technological, behavioural and motivational issues, evidencing the complexity and dynamicity of teaching and

134  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. learning in a makerspace context. Our investigation also revealed that it was not only the teachers who initiated interventions; the students themselves frequently sought help from the teachers to advance their maker activities and designs. The ground rules of the makerspace that underscore creative collaboration and students’ ownership of their learning activity were hence equally maintained and challenged by the teachers’ and students’ interactions. While conceptual, procedural and technology-related interventions were mostly student initiated, most behavioural and all motivation-related interventions were teacher initiated. Our investigation into the teachers’ intervention strategies revealed (1) authoritative, (2) orchestrating and (3) unleashing strategies. These were identified across the interactional episodes in the makerspace that dealt with conceptual, procedural, technological, behavioural and motivational issues. Authoritative strategies entailed the teacher taking responsibility for the students’ maker work, and hence maintaining a dominant expert position. The teachers’ orchestrating strategies included inviting, balancing, and gluing together the students’ experiences and knowledge, with an effort to promote peer collaboration and relative dynamism between the students and teachers. When unleashing, the teachers created an interactional space for the student’s creativity, encouraging students’ agency and accountability in their maker work. Our research provides a variety of examples of the situations in which the students’ creative collaboration benefited from teacher interventions. When utilising the intervention strategies of orchestrating and unleashing, the teachers provided opportunities for the students to take responsibility over their maker activity. This enhanced students’ agency (Alexander, 2018), as did the teachers’ positioning of the students as actors and authors of their own creative and collaborative learning activities (see also Alexander, 2020; Brown & Renshaw, 2006; Kumpulainen & Lipponen, 2010). This finding, connecting with Alexander’s (2018, 2020) ideas on developing dialogic teaching, was demonstrated in those situations in which the teachers encouraged the students to support their peers, diminishing their own role as sole experts. We could also identify authoritative strategies in the teachers’ interventions in the students’ creative collaboration. Typically, this occurred when the students did not know how to proceed in their maker activities. Although some studies have pointed out the value of authoritative teacher strategies in supporting students’ collaborative work and learning (Ding et al., 2007), in the makerspace context, these strategies can also be viewed as problematic. This is because they are known to reinforce the traditional dominant teacher position that typically discourages reciprocal interaction between teachers and students and prevents students from taking responsibility for their learning activities (Kovalainen & Kumpulainen, 2005; Kumpulainen & Wray, 2002). Taken together, our findings point out how teacher interventions are multidimensional and tension-laden processes in which novel pedagogies and the stabilised, more traditional structures of teacher-centredness actively

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  135 interact with one another. Our investigation echoes earlier research findings indicating that the teachers’ and students’ habitual responses to classroom situations, such as the need for control and order in classrooms, are difficult to change (Hofmann & Mercer, 2016; Kumpulainen et al., 2018). To transform their customary teaching activity and to develop professionally in facilitating creative collaborative learning in makerspaces, teachers need expertise and support to handle the novel ground rules of the makerspace that call for increasingly flexible ways of working and interacting with students. This includes recognising the impact and consequences of their interactive strategies, and so varying their interactions according to intent. Managing the new demands and tensions associated with makerspaces requires continuous efforts, from both the students and the teachers. Furthermore, moving from authoritative interaction to orchestration and unleashing interaction requires collective effort and cultural change regarding existing classroom norms and practices.

Acknowledgements The research described in this chapter has been financially supported by a grant from the Academy of Finland (project no. 310790, PI Kristiina Kumpulainen) titled “Learning by Making: The educational potential of school-based makerspaces for young learners’ digital competencies” (iMake). We would like to thank Hanna-Riikka Olkinuora for her assistance in data collection and analysis. We also want to thank other researchers, teachers and students who have contributed to the iMake research project.

Ethics statement Our research follows the ethical standards of scholarly research established by the Finnish Advisory Board on Research on Integrity (https://www.tenk. fi), Data Protection Act and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Education Division of the City of Helsinki reviewed and approved the study. Informed consent was obtained from all adult and youth participants and youth guardians. Pseudonyms are used for all individuals.

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136  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. Brown, R., & Renshaw, P. (2006). Positioning students as actors and authors: A chronotopic analysis of collaborative learning activities. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 13(3), 247–259. Champion, D., Penney, L., & Stevens, R. (2016). Developing and recognizing relative expertise in FUSE. In C.-K. Looi, J. Polman, U. Cress, & P. Reimann (Eds.). Transforming learning, empowering learners: The international conference of the learning sciences (ICLS) 2016, Volume 2. Singapore: International Society of the Learning Sciences. Retrieved from https://www.isls.org/icls/2016/docs/ ICLS2016_Volume_2.pdf Chiu, M. M. (2004). Adapting teacher interventions to student needs during cooperative learning: How to improve student problem solving and time on-task. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 365–399. Derry, S. J., Pea, R. D., Barron, B., Engle, R. A., Erickson, F., Goldman, R., & Sherin, B. L. (2010). Conducting video research in the learning sciences: Guidance on selection, analysis, technology, and ethics. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(1), 3–53. Ding, M., Li, X., Piccolo, D., & Kulm, G. (2007). Teacher interventions in cooperative-learning mathematics classes. The Journal of Educational Research, 100(3), 162–175. Edwards, D., & Mercer, N. (1987). Common knowledge: The development of understanding in the classroom. Routledge. Erickson, F. (2006). Definition and analysis of data from videotape: Some research procedures and their rationales. Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research, 3, 177–192. Franke, M. L., Webb, N. M., Chan, A. G., Ing, M., Freund, D., & Battey, D. (2009). Teacher questioning to elicit students’ mathematical thinking in elementary school classrooms. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(4), 380–392. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0022487109339906 Furberg, A., Kluge, A., & Ludvigsen, S. (2013). Student sensemaking with science diagrams in a computer-based setting. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 8(1), 41–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-0139165-4 Halverson, E. R., & Sheridan, K. (2014). The maker movement in education. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 495–504. Hilppö, J., & Stevens, R. (2020). “Failure is just another try”: Re-framing failure in school through the FUSE studio approach. International Journal of Educational Research, 99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2019.10.004 Hofmann, R., & Mercer, N. (2016). Teacher interventions in small group work in secondary mathematics and science lessons. Language and Education, 30(5), 400–416. Honey, M., & Kanter, D. (Eds.) (2013). Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators. Routledge. Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(1), 39–103. Kajamaa, A., & Kumpulainen, K. (2021). Students’ multimodal knowledge practices in a makerspace learning environment. International Journal of ComputerSupported Collaborative Learning, 15, 411–444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412020-09337-z Kajamaa, A., Kumpulainen, K., & Olkinuora, H.-R. (2020). Teacher interventions in students’ collaborative work in a technology-rich educational makerspace. British Journal of Educational Technology, 51(2), 371–386.

The changing patterns of classroom interaction  137 Kovalainen, M., & Kumpulainen, K. (2005). The discursive practice of participation in an elementary classroom community. Instructional Science, 33(3), 213–250. Kovalainen, M., Kumpulainen, K., & Vasama, S. (2001). Orchestrating classroom interaction in a community of inquiry. Journal of Classroom Interaction, 36(2), 17–28. Kumpulainen, K., & Lipponen, L. (2010). Productive interaction as agentic participation in dialogic enquiry. In K. Littleton & C. Howe (Eds.), Educational dialogues. Understanding and promoting productive interaction (pp. 48–63). Routledge. Kumpulainen, K., & Wray, D. (2002). Classroom interaction and social learning. Routledge. Kumpulainen, K., Kajamaa, A., & Rajala, A. (2018). Understanding educational change: Agency-structure dynamics in a novel design and making environment. Digital Education Review, 33, 26–38. Kumpulainen, K., & Kajamaa, A. (2021). The transformative potential of schoolbased makerspaces: Novel designs in educational practice. In E. Brooks, S. Dau, & S. Selander (Eds.), Digital learning and collaborative practices: Lessons from inclusive and empowering participation with emerging technologies (pp. 175–184). Routledge. Meloth, M. S., & Deering, P. D. (1999). The role of the teacher in promoting cognitive processing during collaborative learning. In A. O’Donnell & A. King (Eds.), Cognitive perspectives on peer learning (pp. 235–255). Lawrence Erlbaum. Mercer, N., & Howe, C. (2012). Explaining the dialogic processes of teaching and learning: The value and potential of sociocultural theory. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 1(1), 12–21. Mercer, N., & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children’s thinking: A sociocultural approach. Routledge. Osborne, J., Simon, S., Christodoulou, A., Howell-Richardson, C., & Richardson, K. (2013). Learning to argue: A study of four schools and their attempt to develop the use of argumentation as a common instructional practice and its impact on students. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50(3), 315–347. Penney, L., Jona, K., & Stevens, R. (2016). Learner choice and the emergence of diverse learning arrangements in FUSE. In C.-K. Looi, J. Polman, U. Cress, & P. Reimann (Eds.). Transforming learning, empowering learners: The international conference of the learning sciences (ICLS) 2016, Volume 2. Singapore: International Society of the Learning Sciences. Retrieved from https://www.isls.org/icls/2016/ docs/ICLS2016_Volume_2.pdf Peppler, K., Halverson, E., & Kafai, Y. B. (Eds.). (2016). Makeology: Makerspaces as learning environments (Vol. 1). Routledge. Sinclair, J. M., & Coulthard, M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse: The English used by teachers and pupils. Oxford University Press. Srivastava, P., & Hopwood, N. (2009). A practical iterative framework for qualitative data analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(1), 76–84. Stevens, R., & Jona, K. (2017). Program design. FUSE studio-website. Retrieved from https://www.fusestudio.net/program-design Stevens, R., Jona, K., Penney, L., Champion, D., Ramey, K., Hilppö, J., … Penuel, W. (2016). FUSE: An alternative infrastructure for empowering learners in schools. In C.-K. Looi, J. Polman, U. Cress, & P. Reimann (Eds.). Transforming learning, empowering learners: The international conference of the learning sciences (ICLS) 2016, Volume 2. Singapore: International Society of the Learning Sciences. https:// www.isls.org/icls/2016/docs/ICLS2016_Volume_2.pdf

138  Kristiina Kumpulainen et al. Strømme, T. A., & Furberg, A. (2015). Exploring teacher intervention in the intersection of digital re-sources, peer collaboration, and instructional design. Science Education, 99(5), 837–862. Van Maanen, J., Sørensen, J. B., & Mitchell, T. R. (2007). The interplay between theory and method. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1145–1154. https:// doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.26586080 Webb, N. M., Franke, M. L., De, T., Chan, A. G., Freund, D., Shein, P., & Melkonian, D. K. (2009). “Explain to your partner”: Teachers’ instructional practices and students’ dialogue in small groups. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(1), 49–70. Webb, N. M., Nemer, K. M., & Ing, M. (2006). Small-group reflections: Parallels between teacher discourse and student behavior in peer-directed groups. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), 63–119.

Part 4

Dialogic pedagogy in Secondary School contexts

9 Writing talk Investigating metalinguistic dialogue about written texts Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman

Introduction This chapter takes as its locus of interest the methodological possibilities for investigating classroom talk and will look at different analytical processes for examining talk. It will show how close scrutiny of classroom interaction can illustrate and illuminate students’ learning about talk, and learning through talk. The practice of recording and transcribing classroom talk has been significantly enabled in recent years by new digital technologies: including new recording devices such as wristbands, lanyards and pens with recording functions, and the benefits of high-quality transcribing software. Most talk is then analysed qualitatively, and there have been criticisms levelled at qualitative analysis because researchers “often omit a detailed description of how analysis is conducted within published research reports” (Nowell et al. 2017, p. 1). This limitation is also evident in published articles about classroom talk. In this chapter, we hope to offer detailed descriptions of three possibilities for coding talk – deductive coding, inductive thematic analysis, and critical incident technique – illustrating the analysis processes with examples of classroom dialogue. Each description draws on a different nationally funded research study conducted in classrooms in England, and connects to our research interest in students’ metalinguistic understanding about writing.

Metalinguistic and dialogic talk about writing Our own research interests have focused on the role of dialogic discourse in the teaching of writing, particularly in terms of developing students’ metalinguistic understanding of the linguistic choices they make in writing. The concept of metalinguistic understanding refers to moving from simply being a language user to looking at and reflecting on how language is used. This has two integrated strands: “the activities of reflection on language and its use” and students’ ability “intentionally to monitor and plan their own methods of linguistic processing” (Gombert, 1992, p. 13). Research on metalinguistic understanding, however, has rarely considered writing and the teaching of writing, nor has it addressed the role of talk in enabling metalinguistic understanding of writing. Our research, in contrast, has signalled the DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-13

142  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman critical role of talk in developing writers’ metalinguistic understanding of linguistic choices in writing. Crucially, giving students opportunities to reflect on, discuss, and justify the choices they make in their own writing serves to develop their thinking about writing, being a writer and authorial decision-making. Detailed analysis of classroom discourse has indicated that, to be effective in supporting student learning, this kind of talk needs to be dialogic: the talk is a mediational resource for learning about writing (Chen & Myhill, 2016; Jesson et al., 2016). Students’ ‘meta’ thinking is facilitated when teachers create space for dialogic metalinguistic talk, which gives students opportunities to verbalise their thinking. As with all dialogic talk, the teacher needs to initiate and extend thinking through a shared line of enquiry – opening up space for thinking, widening the possibilities to consider, and deepening metalinguistic understanding through inviting elaboration, justification and explanation (Myhill et al., 2020; Wegerif, 2013;). Alexander’s six principles for dialogic talk (2020) have strongly informed our theoretical thinking. The first three – collective, supportive, and reciprocal – “characterise the classroom culture within which dialogue is most likely to prosper” (p. 131), and this has indeed been important in facilitating metalinguistic dialogue. However, our principal interest has been with the second three principles, as they relate most strongly to the substantive metalinguistic learning through talk. Deliberative talk, where participants “seek to resolve different points of view, to evaluate arguments and to arrive at a reasoned position” and cumulative talk, where participants “build on their own and each other’s contributions and chain them into coherent lines of enquiry” (p. 131) have particular salience for metalinguistic talk. Students exploring the language choices made by themselves, their peers, or published authors need to move away from formulaic schooled responses about writing. They must acquire an understanding of how different language choices work in different contexts and develop agency in making their own independent choices. This requires teachers who can orchestrate and manage classroom metalinguistic talk which invites exploration, evaluation, justification and accumulation of ideas (Myhill et al., 2022; Newman & Watson, 2020). Likewise, the sixth principle, talk which is purposeful, “open-ended”, but “structured with specific learning goals in view” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131) is particularly relevant to metalinguistic talk – in our lesson observations, we found examples of talk about writing which was so wide-angled that students found it hard to pursue a coherent line of enquiry. But we also found teachers who initiated dialogic talk focused on a particular aspect of language choice, making the talk purposeful and focused. This purposeful talk drew on the teacher’s authoritative understanding of language and grammar but created space for exploration and analysis. Indeed, we have argued that, at least in the context of dialogic metalinguistic talk, authoritative teacher talk is part of dialogic discourse, not its opposite (Myhill & Newman, 2019). In the examples of data analysis which follow, the first example relates more to collective,

Writing talk  143 supportive and reciprocal talk in that it is helping students to understand productive talk, whereas the second and third examples focus more on deliberative, cumulative and purposeful metalinguistic talk.

Analysing collaborative group talk using deductive analysis Creating opportunities for students to engage in collaborative group talk is one important teaching strategy for enabling dialogic talk (Gillies, 2016; Michaels et al., 2008; Reznick et al., 2015; 2018) and important in generating productive metalinguistic talk about writing. But in practice, students do not always work together in the genuinely collaborative ways through which dialogic talk can emerge (Warwick et al., 2010). Repeated studies have emphasised the need for explicit teaching of how to talk together collaboratively (Phillipson & Wegerif, 2020; Rojas-Drummond & Zapata, 2004; Sutherland, 2015). This section draws on a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and British Telecom (BT) as a university/industry partnership, triggered by BT’s concern that too many students entered the workplace insufficiently skilled in collaborative dialogue crucial to effective team-working. It set out to investigate how teachers could support dialogic collaborative talk, and how students develop their understanding of collaborative talk. Crucially, the study focused on talk processes, not simply the organisation of groups and tasks (see Newman 2016a, 2016b). The study involved two classes of secondary students, aged between 13 and 15, in two schools with a diverse intake of students of differing prior attainment and with differing socio-economic status, but limited ethnic diversity. The research involved the teachers implementing an intervention designed to support teachers’ pedagogic management of collaborative talk and to heighten students’ understanding of how effective collaborative talk operates. The intervention comprised a sequence of ten lessons, each of which included: a talk analysis task, where students analysed examples of collaborative talk; a collaborative talk task; and a self-evaluation task, where students reflected on and evaluated their contribution to the collaborative talk. The ten lessons were video-recorded as a whole, and through an audio recorder worn by the teacher. In addition, the group talk was captured with a small video camera and a digital recorder on each group’s table. To support both the teaching and student thinking about collaborative talk, a Framework for Collaborative Talk (Newman, 2016) was developed, which made visible the process of collaborative talk, and which was later used to analyse the group talk. We will first explain the Framework for Collaborative Talk itself, and then examine how it was used for analysis. The Framework represents a conceptual model of the process of collaborative talk, synthesising key findings from other research, particularly Alexander (2008), Dawes (2008) and Littleton & Mercer (2013). The model is comprised of three strands – Participating, Understanding, and Managing – each with substrands which describe how each strand might look in dialogic interaction

144  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman Table 9.1  A framework for collaborative talk A FRAMEWORK FOR COLLABORATIVE TALK Participating

Understanding

Managing

P1: Speak clearly and concisely P2: Share experiences and challenge ideas without conflict P3: Show respect for other people’s ideas P4: Build on other people’s ideas U1: Listen carefully in order to understand what’s being said U2: Listen with an open mind U3: Use questions to explore ideas and ensure understanding U4: Make sure that they and everyone in the group understands M1: Manage the talk to make sure that goals are met M2: Keep the talk focused on the goal M3: Manage challenges and objections with sensitivity M4: Encourage others to contribute

(see Table 9.1). The Participating strand refers to the ways in which participants involve themselves in the dialogue, both what they contribute to the dialogue, for example, by asking a challenging question; and how they contribute, for example, by showing respect for each other. The Understanding strand relates to the processes students use to establish their own understanding and to develop shared understanding. Finally, the Managing strand captures how students organise themselves and the group to manage the task and solve problems. This framework was then used as a coding framework for analysis, thus making it possible to examine in detail how the students were enacting group talk in the classroom. The primary goal of qualitative analysis is to make meaning from the data, reflecting the constructivist, interpretivist philosophical assumptions of most qualitative research (Bhattacharya, 2017), and can be achieved through using inductive or deductive coding processes. Using a predetermined framework for coding, as we describe here, is deductive analysis, or top-down analysis. The codes are decided a priori, and the process of interpretation rests in ascribing segments of data to these predetermined codes. Because the framework is a conceptual model, “it takes as its departure point the theoretical propositions that are derived from a review of the literature” (Pearse, 2019, p. 264), and is therefore theory-driven coding (Boyatzis, 1998; Corrigan & Onwuegbuzie, 2020). According to Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 84), the benefit of a deductive analysis is that it can provide “a more detailed analysis of some aspect of the data”. For this study, it is the detailed analysis of how the concepts of Participating, Understanding and Managing are played out in practice in the classroom which made a deductive coding process most appropriate. To illustrate this, let us look at an episode of group talk from the study and its analysis. In this episode, four girls – Krissy, May, Miriam and Rose (pseudonyms) – are working on a task to develop an idea for an iPad app. The extract in Table 9.2 comes part way through the group talk task, when their

Writing talk  145 Table 9.2  Extract of Group Dialogue with coding symbols TURN

SP.

TRANSCRIPT

CODE

1

Miriam

M1

2 3

Rose

4

May

5

Rose

6 7 8

Miriam May Miriam

9 10 11

Rose Miriam Rose

12 13 14

May Rose Miriam

So out of two options that we’ve really come up with are the cinematography and [inaudible] .. but which one do people prefer? I think the cinematography is quite a unique thing The (other) would be quite fun but it’s more of a novelty … once you’ve played it a few times, it’d be, like, yeah Whereas the other one you could use for different things I think that one would appeal to more ages Yeah People would take it seriously, even if you’re an adult doing photography, or children Yeah But you’d have to make sure it’s really simple I was thinking: how are we going to do it and how are we going to explain it? Well, we can show it and explain the central You could include a little step-by-step guide Krissy, maybe you should google it when you get home so you know exactly what we’re talking about [Miriam realises that Krissy has not contributed. The group get the teacher’s laptop to research and explain the concept to Krissy.] I get what you mean now .. it’s like still pictures but with one thing moving? Yeah …’cause these are obviously more adult ones but we could change it … we could do different ones so that Yeah, for like, children just to mess around with

15 16

Krissy

17

Miriam

18

Krissy

U3 P4 P4 P4 P4 P3 P4 P3 P2 M1 P4 P4 U4 M4 P2 U4 P4 P4

idea for an app has begun to crystallise, and shows the deductive coding, using the coding framework symbols from Table 9.1. In this short extract, the coding analysis reveals the subtle interplay of dialogue between the students, illustrating that they are Managing the group talk to achieve their goals, that they seek group Understanding, and that they are Participating actively in the discussion. Students’ turns are cohesive, building on preceding turns to construct a shared justification. Crucially, the ‘bracketing’ of Participation turns throughout the episode with Understanding and Managing turns enables the development of ideas and successful management of the task. The analysis allows us to begin to “characterise the classroom culture within which dialogue is most likely to prosper” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131).

146  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman

Analysing whole class talk using inductive coding In contrast to the deductive analysis process described above, in another of our studies, we adopted an inductive process of analysis. The study was qualitative, accompanying a randomised controlled trial, investigating the efficacy of explicit teaching about grammar and language choices in improving student writing. Teachers were introduced to the pedagogical approach of explicit teaching about language choices through three professional development days, which addressed both the theoretical basis of the approach and its practical application. The pedagogical principles emphasise the idea of grammatical choice, drawing on Halliday’s work (1993) on grammar as a resource for meaning-making, and Gombert’s (1992) account of metalinguistic understanding. After the professional development days, the teachers taught two units of work which we had written to align with the pedagogical principles: one unit addressed persuasive argument, and the other addressed fictional narrative. The focus of the qualitative study was on teacher-led whole-class metalinguistic discussion of language choices in writing because dialogic metalinguistic discussion was one of the pedagogical principles addressed in the professional development days (to read more about this study, see Myhill and Newman, 2016 and Myhill & Newman, 2016). The sample for the study involved 53 classes of children aged 10–11 years, drawn from demographically different regions across England. Two classes in each school were involved in the study: and these were randomly allocated to the intervention or comparison group. The total student sample was 779, and 108 class teachers were involved. The data relevant to this chapter included one observed and audio-recorded lesson from each intervention group: 53 recordings, their transcriptions and contextual observation notes. Because the purpose of this study was to explore how teachers managed metalinguistic talk about writing, a deductive analysis was less appropriate as we had no strong theoretical models of what metalinguistic talk about writing might look like. Indeed, one of our research aims over several studies has been to try to create a better understanding of this under-researched aspect of talk and writing. With an inductive process, the coding themes are generated by close reading and interpretation of the data; this is essentially a bottom-up approach, beginning with the data itself. The goal of an inductive approach is to create a rich understanding of the topic being researched by being openminded about the interpretation of the data. So, whereas a deductive analysis, such as our analysis of collaborative group talk, is seeking to examine how particular predetermined theories or concepts are evident in the data, inductive analysis seeks to generate themes from the data. As a consequence, “the themes identified are strongly linked to the data themselves… without trying to fit it into a pre-existing coding frame, or the researcher’s analytic preconceptions” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84). It is a data-driven approach, rather than a concept or theory-driven approach (Boyatzis, 1998; Schreier, 2012). Patton (1980, p. 306) argues that in inductive analysis “the patterns, themes, and categories of analysis come from the data; they emerge out of

Writing talk  147 the data rather than being imposed on them prior to data collection and analysis”. The principal point made here is emphasising the primacy of the data itself in generating themes, rather than determining them in advance. However, the metaphor of codes emerging from the data is recurrent in research articles and needs challenge. It suggests that the codes and themes are hidden somewhere in the data and the role of the researcher is to find and reveal them – but inductive codes are always created by the researcher. As Braun and Clarke assert, “an account of themes ‘emerging’ or being ‘discovered’ is a passive account of the process of analysis, and it denies the active role the researcher always plays in identifying patterns/themes, selecting which are of interest, and reporting them to the readers” (2006, p. 80). Inductive analysis is always the human interpretation of data, and as a consequence, it is important to demonstrate trustworthiness by providing a clear and transparent account of the coding process. This coding process is necessarily slow and iterative, as the interpretation of the data evolves and deepens. In this study, we used the qualitative software package, Nvivo, to manage the data analysis process. The inductive coding was undertaken by a team of four of us, so we also had to ensure consistency in the coding process. The analysis began with a phase of open coding (Charmaz, 2014), where coders attempt to attribute a meaningful label to segments of the data, based on a close reading of every line and sentence in the data. This is a process of careful interpretation, informed by the question ‘Is this telling me anything meaningful about our focus on teachers’ management of talk about language?’ The phase of open coding is followed by axial coding, where the initial open codes are clustered into themes. In practice, this process is not simplistically linear, but iterative and recursive: regular team meetings were held throughout the analysis process, not simply to check the consistency of coding across the team, but also for discussion and refinement of code labelling, definitions and thematic clustering. Finally, the data allocated to each code was checked carefully to be sure that it had been appropriately attributed to that code. Hopefully, what is evident from this summary of the steps in the inductive coding process is that it is systematic and rigorous, with repeated checking of coding and coder agreement, and a careful scrutiny of the final set of themes and codes “to ensure that the clustered themes were representative of the initial data analysis and assigned codes” (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006, p. 90). Our final dataset was clustered into five themes (see Table 9.3) which represented the key findings from the analysis related to how teachers used whole-class metalinguistic talk to discuss language choices in writing. The coding process generated 36 open codes which were clustered into each of these themes, providing more explanatory depth for the interpretation of the findings. For example, the Discussion theme noted in Table 9.3 includes six codes which provide a deeper level of analysis of the nature of the discussion (Table 9.4). A further benefit of using a software package such as NVivo is that not only does it facilitate the relabelling, merging and splitting of codes, and the

148  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman Table 9.3  The final set of themes derived from the inductive coding Theme

Explanation

Discussion

Refers to the characteristics of the teacher’s management of discussion Refers to points where the teacher makes a connection between a grammar choice and its use in writing Refers to talk which reveals either a strength or a weakness in the teachers’ metalinguistic subject knowledge Refers to student responses in whole class talk which show how they have understood the metalinguistic point under discussion Refers to points in the talk where a student quotes from their writing, showing metalinguistic understanding

Connections between grammar and writing Subject Knowledge Student Understanding Evidence in Writing

Table 9.4  The codes clustered in the Discussion theme Code Name

Explanation

Skilful management

The teacher manages the discussion skilfully across a sequence of interactions, including through refocusing, to draw out understanding The learning purpose for the discussion is clear The learning purpose for the discussion is not clear or is confused The teacher pushes students to explain and justify choices, including challenging inappropriate choices An episode is dominated by teacher talk, including by labouring a point too long The teacher misses a valuable opportunity to explore a grammar–writing connection

Clear focus Unclear focus Justification of choices Too much teacher talk Missed opportunity for learning

checking of the attribution of codes to data, but, when the coding is complete, you can look at the results for an individual lesson or across the whole sample. You can also create reports which show the frequency of data attributed to a code or theme, and how representative this is of the whole dataset. So, for example, in this analysis, we were able to use these reports with the data in the Discussion theme to observe that 53% of the talk was dialogic metalinguistic talk (i.e. Skilful Management, Clear Focus, and Justification of Choices), whereas 47% was less dialogic. We were also able to note that although some teachers were strongly oriented to being either dialogic or monologic in their teaching, about half the teachers were sometimes dialogic and sometimes monologic. This aligns well with Alexander’s preference for the notion of talk repertoires, rather than the more crude “dichotomising tendencies” (2020, p. 134) which do not recognise the complexity of judgement and choice playing out in classroom dialogue.

Writing talk  149

Analysing talk using the critical incident technique In this section, we will consider the use of Critical Incident Technique as a way of analysing classroom talk. The method of Critical Incident Technique has a long history, originating first in the context of analysing human behaviours in the armed forces (Butterfield et al., 2005; Flanagan, 1954), but has been widely transferred into other areas, particularly medical and teacher education (Khandarwal, 2009; Tripp, 2012; Voulgari & Koutrouba, 2021). Typically, it has been used in these professional contexts to enable critical reflection on professional practice with the goal of developing professional learning and improving practice. In teaching, it is often combined with the use of video- or audio-recorded lessons as a way of stimulating professional reflection. This approach is often argued to be particularly valuable for teachers because it gives them agency and voice (Lasky, 2005; Sisson, 2016), and because it acknowledges the complexity of professional practice, shaped by teachers’ identity, sense of self-efficacy and attitudes and beliefs (Farrell, 2013). At its core, the Critical Incident Technique involves the identification of critical incidents for discussion and reflection, but of course, this begs the key question of what constitutes a critical incident. There is little consensus about this in the research literature, and it is clear that the idea of a critical incident is reinterpreted in different contexts. In teaching, a critical incident is not necessarily a dramatic event, as the phrase might imply, but an incident that for some reason may make you question your actions or prompt you to rethink some aspect of professional understanding. Farrell describes critical incidents as “specific classroom events and experiences that teachers deem meaningful and significant for their professional development” (Farrell, 2013, p. 10), and in most situations where it is used, there is a specific professional focus for the identification of a critical incident. This emphasis on meaningful and significant events, and on critical thinking about professional practice is what prompted us to use the Critical Incident Technique as an analytical tool for exploring classroom talk. Uniquely, we have adapted the technique, using recorded and transcribed data from lesson observation to focus specifically on the orchestration of dialogic metalinguistic talk, and using these to stimulate discussion and reflection with teachers. Khandarwal (2009) saw potential in Critical Incident Technique to improve teaching through identifying the characteristics of effective or ineffective performance. We prefer to talk about less effective practice rather than ineffective practice, recognising the realities and challenges of classroom practice, but we have found it a helpful way to collaborate with teachers to better understand the characteristics of effective dialogic metalinguistic talk, and thus a valuable resource for professional development. To explore the use of Critical Incident Technique, we will use data from a follow-on study from the project described in the previous section. This study had the same focus on developing students’ metalinguistic understanding of

150  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman language choices they could make in their own writing, and the same interest in the teachers’ management of dialogic metalinguistic talk. It involved 17 classes of 10–11year-olds in different schools, and each of the class teachers attended three professional development days, addressing the same pedagogic principles as in the previous study. One difference, however, was that greater emphasis was given in the professional development days to the management of metalinguistic talk, and the teaching materials had been adjusted to provide stronger support for this kind of talk. To identify critical incidents, we systematically analysed the transcripts to find sequences of talk on a single teaching point where we could see that the teacher’s management of metalinguistic talk raised questions or exemplified effective dialogic metalinguistic talk. It is important to state unequivocally at this point that analysis of a critical incident is not intended to be a judgement of the teacher. All the teachers in the study were voluntary participants and we are grateful for their willingness to allow us the privilege of scrutinising their spontaneous classroom talk in this way. A key point about critical incidents is their capacity to stimulate professional discussion in a collaborative, exploratory fashion, not as an evaluation of the teacher. In the critical incident reproduced in Table 9.5, the class have been working on writing their own narratives about an invented Arthurian character. Table 9.5  A critical incident Turn

Speaker

Transcript

1

Teacher

2 3

Student A Teacher

4

Student B

5

Teacher

6 7

Student C Teacher

8 9 10 11

Student D Student E Teacher Student C

BEAUTIFUL LONG THICK FLOWING TAIL’. What do you think? ‘BEAUTIFUL LONG THICK FLOWING TAIL. You need to describe the flowing tail, like, with a colour? I think now looking at it, I think I can see why that’s not great. Not great? S? It could have, err, erm BEAUTIFUL LONG FLOWING CHARCOAL BLACK TAIL. Oh. That’s getting even more complicated, isn’t it? What do you think, F? I think you should cut down the adjectives. I think so too. Sometimes, if you put too many adjectives you lose it a little bit. It becomes a little bit too prescriptive and a little bit… it’s almost, you’re putting adjectives there for the sake of putting them there. So can somebody, I want to say that it’s got a beautiful tail, I want to say it’s long, it’s thick, it’s flowing. But I don’t want a list of adjectives followed by the noun. How can I turn that around? HIS RIVER OF A TAIL WHIPPED HIS SIDES BEAUTIFUL TAIL, LONG, THICK AND FLOWING’ Smashing, so - anyone want to change anything else there? F? BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW TAIL WAS DANCING IN THE BREEZE.

Writing talk  151 In this learning sequence, the teacher’s learning goal is to explore how adjectives are used in character description, and particularly to open up an awareness that expanding noun phrases with an excess of adjectives before the noun is not always a wise linguistic choice. She begins the sequence by drawing on a description from her own writing where she has rather overdone the premodifying adjectives – the sequence is reproduced in Table 9.5 with each interaction numbered for ease of reference. This was selected as a critical incident because it represents a complex interaction which cannot simplistically be categorised as either dialogic or monologic metalinguistic talk. Instead, a close analysis of the nature of interactions in the sequence opens up critical thinking about dialogic metalinguistic talk, and strategies to manage it effectively. The teacher’s initiating question (1) is an open question, inviting student response to her choice of description. By sharing her own writing as the basis for discussion, she is helping to create a community of writers where sharing their own writing is a comfortable practice: although we might query whether it is wise to have an inauthentic example of a deliberately overdone description. Students A and B’s responses (2 and 4) reveal their thinking that adding adjectives improves the description, an apt reminder that generating metalinguistic talk is a valuable pedagogical tool for the teacher as it makes student understanding more visible. Student B builds directly on student A’s response, demonstrating engagement in collaborative talk, listening to and building on each other’s ideas. The teacher’s first response (3) does not acknowledge student A’s offer – it is possible she did not hear this, as her comment extends her opening question by modelling her thinking, showing how a writer might reflect on their own language choices. The teacher’s next response (5), however, builds directly on the two student answers by offering a gentle challenge in suggesting the description is even more complicated, and again inviting the class to think about this. The invitation elicits student C’s offer (6) that the adjectives should be cut, prompting a more extended explanation from the teacher (7) about not using too many adjectives, the learning point of the sequence. Here, we might wonder if it would have been more helpful to ask student C to explain their answer in more detail to make their metalinguistic thinking visible. Equally, we might question whether the teacher’s explanation of why not to overdo premodifying adjectives is precise enough. Nonetheless, she does make clear her authorial intention as a writer, and then asks students to think of alternate ways to describe the tail. The three suggestions from students D, E, and C (8, 9, 11) are interesting because again they reveal students’ metalinguistic understanding and learning – all three do indeed perform some kind of relevant change to the initial noun phrase. Student D creates a wholly new noun phrase with post-modification (his river of a tail) and no adjectives, perhaps picking up on the idea of ‘flowing’ in the teachers’ version with the metaphor of the river. Student E moves three of the adjectives to a post-modified position (beautiful tail, long, thick and flowing), linking back

152  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman to an earlier lesson where the class had explored how positioning adjectives after the noun like this gave additional emphasis to the adjectival description. In response to the teacher’s invitation to change anything (10), student C adds in a different adjective (rainbow) to replace the earlier choices. There is no formal end to this sequence, no summing up or consolidation of understanding, and the next interaction from the teacher moves the discussion to a different point. Again, we might wonder if the teacher has missed an opportunity to explore further what students D, E, and C think about the language choices made in their respective suggestions. This analysis of a critical incident creates a ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973; Ponterotto, 2006) of these few moments of teaching and learning. It shows the skill of the teacher in opening up dialogic metalinguistic talk through her questions, including asking challenging questions to move thinking on, and modelling, to an extent, her own thinking. It also shows that she misses opportunities to probe students further to elaborate upon their answers. Importantly, it suggests too that the key learning point about adjectival ‘pile-ups’ may not have been explained with sufficient precision, nor was it clearly consolidated at the end of the sequence. It represents a good practical example of cumulative talk, which attends to the “epistemic content and trajectory of talk” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131), but which also makes high demands on the “teacher’s professional skill, subject knowledge and insight into the capacities and understandings of each of his/her students” (p. 132).

Conclusion In this chapter, we have taken a close look at three different methods for analysing dialogic discourse, explaining the thinking behind each approach and illustrating the analytical process. There are, of course, many other approaches, particularly (critical) discourse analysis and conversation analysis (see Chapter 2); and increasingly, multimodal techniques which bring together video and audio data (see also Chapter 6). We hope we have demonstrated that qualitative research investigating classroom talk can be systematic, rigorous, and clearly described, countering concerns of insufficient detail of analysis processes in published research (Nowell et al., 2017). At the same time, we hope that we have illustrated how qualitative research can present rich interpretative insights into the complex and nuanced ways in which dialogic discourse is realised in practice.

Ethics statement The three projects described here all received formal ethical approval from the University of Exeter and were conducted in line with the expectations of the British Education Research Association’s ‘Ethical Guidelines for Education Research’ (2018).

Writing talk  153

References Alexander, R. J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Bhattacharya, K. (2017). Fundamentals of qualitative research: A practical guide. Routledge. Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Sage. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/1478088706q p063oa Butterfield, L. D., Borgen, W. A., Amundson, N. E., & Maglio, A. T. (2005). Fifty years of the critical incident technique: 1954–2004 and beyond. Qualitative Research, 5(4), 475–497. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794105056924 Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. (2nd ed.). Sage. Chen, H., & Myhill, D. A. (2016). Children talking about writing: Investigating metalinguistic understanding. Linguistics in Education, 35, 100–108. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.linged.2016.07.004 Corrigan, J. A., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2020). Toward a meta-framework for conducting mixed methods representation analyses to optimize meta-inferences. Qualitative Report, 25(3), 785–812. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3579 Farrell, T. S. (2013). Critical incident analysis through narrative reflective practice: A case study. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 1(1), 79–89. Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 327–358. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0061470 Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The Interpretation of Cultures (pp. 3–31). Basic Books. Gillies, R. (2016). Dialogic interactions in the cooperative classroom. International Journal of Educational Research, 76, 178–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijer.2015.02.009 Halliday, M. A. K. (1993). Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education, 5(2), 93–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/0898-5898(93)90026-7 Jesson, R., Fontich, X., & Myhill, D. A. (2016). Creating dialogic spaces: Talk as a mediational tool in becoming a writer. International Journal of Education Research, 80, 155–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2016.08.002 Lasky, S. (2005). A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agency and professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21 (8), 899–916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.06.003 Littleton, K., & Mercer, N. (2013). Interthinking: Putting talk to work. Routledge. Michaels, S., O’Connor, C., & Resnick, L. C. (2008). Deliberative discourse idealized and realized: Accountable talk in the classroom and in civic life. Studies in the Philosophy of Education, 27, 283–297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-007-9071-1 Myhill, D., & Newman, R. (2016). Metatalk: Enabling metalinguistic discussion about writing. International Journal of Education Research, 80, 177–187. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2016.07.007 Myhill, D., & Newman, R. (2019). Writing talk – Developing metalinguistic understanding through dialogic teaching. In N. Mercer, R. Wegerif, & L. Major (Eds.), International handbook of research on dialogic education (pp. 360–372). Routledge. Myhill, D., Newman, R., & Watson, A. (2020). Going meta: Dialogic talk in the writing classroom. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 43(1), 5–16.

154  Debra Myhill and Ruth Newman Myhill, D., Newman, R., Watson, M., & Jones, S. (2022). Writing dialogues: Enabling metalinguistic thinking through dialogic talk. In R. Solheim, H. Otnes, & M. O. Riis-Johansen (Eds.), Samtale, samskrive, samhandle (pp. 71–90). Universitetsforlaget. Newman, R. M. C. (2016a). Engaging talk: One teacher’s scaffolding of collaborative talk. Language and Education, 31(2), 130–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/0 9500782.2016.1261891 Newman, R. (2016b). Working talk: Developing a framework for the teaching of collaborative talk. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 107–131. https://doi.org /10.1080/02671522.2016.1106698 Newman, R., & Watson, A. (2020). Shaping spaces: Teachers’ orchestration of metatalk about written text. Linguistics and Education, 60. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.linged.2020.100860 Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. F., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847 Patton, M. Q. (1980). Qualitative evaluation methods. Sage. Phillipson, N., & Wegerif, R. (2020). The thinking together approach to dialogic teaching. In Manalo, E. (Ed.) Deeper learning, dialogic learning and critical thinking (pp. 32–46). Routledge. Ponterotto, J. G. (2006). Brief note on the origins, evolution, and meaning of the qualitative research concept thick description. The Qualitative Report, 11(3), 538– 549. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2006.1666 Rojas-Drummond, S., & Zapata, M. P. (2004). Exploratory talk, argumentation and reasoning in Mexican Primary School Children. Language and Education, 18(6), 539–557. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500780408666900 Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. Sage. Sisson, J. H. (2016). The significance of critical incidents and voice to identity and agency. Teachers and Teaching, 22(6), 670–682. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354 0602.2016.1158956 Sutherland, J. (2015). Going ‘meta’: using a metadiscoursal approach to develop secondary students’ dialogic talk in small groups. Research Papers in Education, 30(1), 44–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2013.850528 Tripp, D. (2012). Critical incidents in teaching: Developing professional judgement. Routledge. Voulgari, R., & Koutrouba, K. (2021). Examining the depth of primary schoolteachers’ reflection through the critical incident technique. Educational Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2021.1980863 Warwick, P., Mercer, N., Kershner, R., & Kleine Staarman, J. (2010). In the mind and in the technology: The vicarious presence of the teacher in pupils’ learning of science in collaborative group activity at the interactive whiteboard. Computers & Education, 55(1), 350–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.02.001. Wegerif, R. B. (2013). Dialogic: Education for the Internet age. Routledge.

10 Street Smarts A developing critical thinking talk framework for adolescents Maree Davies, Simon Esling and Patrick Girard

Introduction This chapter describes the development of a talk model, Street Smarts, purposefully designed to make critical thinking (CT) skills accessible for adolescent students in group and class dialogical discussions. It is a model that encourages students to view CT as a collective activity (Davies et al., 2018). Street Smarts acknowledges that students should feel comfortable expressing their prior experiences within a dialogic context so that all voices are heard. Traditionally, the focus for CT has been on objective argumentation and logical reasoning but, increasingly, understanding the importance of students feeling self-confident and having the disposition of open-mindedness towards each other is becoming evident. The model has also been designed to strengthen CT within the principles of dialogic talk (Alexander, 2020) for secondary school-aged students. CT is mostly taught and assessed as an individual enterprise, but the authors believe that adolescent students practising the use of CT in low-stakes group discussions may increase the chances of it becoming a collective, habitual process. In particular, the model aims to enhance Alexander’s (2020) recommendation that talk should be for democratic engagement. By providing a framework of talk that includes key CT skills, adolescents will be more likely to execute Alexander’s goal that all people can argue, challenge, question, present and evaluate cases and can then test the arguments and rhetoric of others. The researchers acknowledge that for adolescent students to use CT through interactive dialogue within group discussions requires a combination of sociocultural, cognitive and affective factors. This complicated mix of factors necessitated longitudinal work on developing a framework within empirical, quasi-experimental research using a mixed-methods methodology. Despite interest in the promotion of CT in secondary schools, recent empirical research on these skills in this context is sparse (Hennessy & Davies, 2020). A recent Swedish study analysed 76 individual students’ CT in national tests in History, Physics, Mathematics and Swedish (Nygren et al., 2019). This study concluded that CT skills are comprised of different, subject-specific skills and, given the complexity of their findings, it was important that future research helped to clarify for students what it means to think DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-14

156  Maree Davies et al. critically (Nygren et al., 2019). Furthermore, a review of secondary education in New Zealand by Hipkins et al. (2016) concluded that there was an inequitable opportunity for students to practise complex CT skills.

Explanation of the Street Smarts model The Quality Talk framework had been designed to feature the dialogical talk indicators that were proven to foster critical analytical thinking for primary-aged students (Wilkinson et al., 2010). Following research into the use of CT within dialogical discussions using this framework (Wilkinson et  al., 2010) in secondary schools, the researchers could see where it needed to be adjusted to suit the higher cognitive needs of secondary school-aged students. The previous intervention study demonstrated that students who participated in curriculum activities outperformed students in control classes in their ability to talk and write from a critical analytical stance (Davies & Meissel, 2018). However, while this confirmed the finding of Reznitskaya et al. (2009) that students who participate in collaborative reasoning interventions write stronger arguments, many secondary students in the study said they would only use CT with their friends. Many did not know how to form an argument and believed that multiple perspectives meant only perspectives within the group – not wider perspectives that sat outside the group. When students contributed their own stories to the discussion, this seemed to anchor the dialogue with relevancy for them, and this, in turn, benefited the learning of students who followed them (Davies & Esling, 2020). The previous intervention study (Davies & Esling, 2020) revealed that when minority students indicated their affective needs were not met, and they felt uncomfortable, they would not participate. This is a matter of concern, as it is crucial that all students learn to engage in important conversations. Our goal was to develop a model of talk, accessible to students, that addresses the increasingly sophisticated cognitive demands placed on adolescents. We sought to develop a pragmatic pedagogical tool to provide greater equitable opportunities for students to learn and practise age-appropriate CT skills within group dialogical discussions. Therefore, the newly developed model sought to strengthen the subjective aspect of the dialogic and CT talk model by providing a formal lens for stories (Respect for Self  ); strengthen the students’ abilities to present cases, evaluate them and test the argument (Respect for Reasons); test the rhetoric of others (Respect for Difference); and formalise a time to reflect on their original arguments (Respect for Change) (Figure 10.1). Respect for Self The first stage of the model considers Alexander’s (2020) principles that talk should be collective and supportive. It is essential that all students,

Street Smarts  157

R FO

F EL

RE SP

RE

T

S

R FO

EC ON AS

RE SP E

CT

R

C

FO

R

RE

SP

E

F DIF

CE

FO

E

EN

EC

AN

T

T

SP

CH

RE

G

ER

Figure 10.1  Simplified Street Smarts Model showing circuitous, iterative process (Davies, Girard & Haddon, 2016).

particularly minority students, feel that their ‘street smarts’, their personal experiences, are validated and respected by the group. Instead of ignoring this developmental feature, we believe it is important for teachers to provide time for students to express their emotional reactions, as topics worthy of discussion are often controversial. Suppressing emotions or personal experiences/stories may lead some students to remain silent while dominant voices in the group are heard. Respect for Reasons Respect for Reasons focuses on encouraging students to formulate and communicate arguments with a focus on reasons for their views, rather than associated feelings. This stage is underpinned by two more of Alexander’s principles, that dialogic talk should be purposeful and deliberative (2020). Presenting and evaluating arguments through structured talk is key to the model. Respect for Reasons also encourages going beyond mere agreement with peers on an issue. A group of students might, for example, agree that there are circumstances in which not always following the law is justified, but each may have different reasons for this view. CT can be developed through well-structured talk because communicating reasons, with arguments, helps

158  Maree Davies et al. students delve deeper into an issue, perhaps finding reasons they had not thought of before, or realising that their reasons did not offer logical support for their view. In dialogue, confirmation bias might cloud a student’s judgement, leading them to think that reasons, on balance, favour their own view and prevent them from paying attention to alternative reasons offered by different world views. Although we do not intend to incorporate a comprehensive teaching of fallacies (often found in CT courses), the model does make some exceptions, such as for the ad hominem fallacy – which is typically presented as an argument that rejects a view because of the person who offers it, rather than the view itself. It is important that secondary school-aged students learn to base arguments on pertinent, relevant logic and reason and not on personal and unrelated factors, arguing by discrediting the person for unrelated factors. Respect for Difference Respect for Difference is the second component in which students share and compare arguments with an emphasis on recognising why they might hold a particular viewpoint and discussing this critically amongst their peers. Respect for difference first entails modelling that people are different – in gender, race, religion, sexuality, experience and so on. All of these factors will influence students’ perspectives on a topic. Respect for Difference is underpinned by Alexander’s principle of reciprocity (2020). Listening and considering alternative viewpoints is key to Respect for Difference. Second, Respect for Difference encourages students to recognise a variety of reasonable views on the same topic. Respect for difference does not mean that all arguments have equal weighting, even if they are all given in support of the same view, i.e., not all reasons will be equally compelling or provide the same logical support. Respecting difference is a way to help students realise that they may have the same view as their peers without all having the same reasons for the view. Respect for Difference in the context of a dialogue starts with respect for the difference of the interlocutors. At school, adolescent students are required to consider and understand ideas that include complex and differing opinions that sit in the wider community. For example, within the model, students are encouraged and enabled to explore power structures within society and external factors which influence that society, be they media, gender, ethnicity or religion (Apple, 2010; Giroux, 2015; McLaren, 2016). It is important that, when students consider differing opinions and views, they do not stereotype ethnicities or religious groups, and that if they do employ such stereotypes, they recognise this. Finally, respecting difference invites better listening skills within dialogues. Instead of waiting for a turn to express one’s view, students are encouraged to engage critically with peers’ arguments and show genuine dialogical reciprocity (Alexander, 2020).

Street Smarts  159 Respect for Change Our previous research on dialogical discussions (Davies & Esling, 2020) also revealed that students had not been given enough formal time to consider if their position(s) had changed. This stage of Street Smarts is based on Alexander’s principle that talk is cumulative (2020). Students need to understand that our thoughts are built on both our own and others’ thoughts and should continue to be revised. Holding a belief and being unwilling to change it is not conducive to democratic engagement (Alexander, 2020). Respect for Change offers an opportunity for students to update or change their views after interacting with other views. The updated views are then fed back into the cycle, providing a continuous means for students to evolve their thinking. Respect for Change is the disposition to change one’s view when reasons no longer support it. To change one’s view might be adopting different reasons for the same view, but it could also be reformulating it to something for which better reasons are available. Students might come to realise that an opposing view is better supported than the one they hold, or they might soften a more radical view to account for flaws. Respect for change also includes an opportunity for the students to listen to their audio-recorded or video-recorded group discussions and self-assess the degree to which they used critical thinking indicators and the degree to which they used Alexander’s key principles of dialogic talk. This is an opportunity for the teacher to work with students and provide them with feed-­ forward ideas (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Present study To assist us to develop the model further, we conducted a study in New Zealand secondary schools to trial the model to determine what indicators of CT within dialogical discussions the students would adopt. The study’s aim was to find out whether and how the students benefited from the Street Smarts training programme/intervention. We hypothesised that students whose teachers were trained in the Street Smarts model would use more of the indicators of CT in group discussion than the students in non-intervention classes.

Method Participants Participants were teachers and students from secondary schools in a large metropolitan city in New Zealand. There were two rounds of data collection, which were conducted in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Overall, there were 33 teacher participants and 824 student participants (average age 15 years). Students identified ethnically as New Zealand European (46.1%); 17.1% as Asian, 10.6% as Pasifika, 5.2% as Māori and 4.3% as other; undisclosed ethnicity (16.7%).

160  Maree Davies et al. Design and procedure The study employed a longitudinal, quasi-experimental design with intervention and control group classes in English and Geography, matched in ability in senior secondary classes across various socio-economic environments. There were nine intervention and nine control classes in the 2018 sample and eight intervention classes and seven control classes in the 2019 sample. The non-intervention teachers were given the same professional development (PD) at the end of the study. Teachers in both classes were asked to place the students into groups that would remain, as closely as possible, the same throughout the duration of the study. Baseline data (Time 1) were gathered in the form of 15-minute student group discussions that were audio-recorded. Teachers asked the students to engage in a 15-minute group discussion as aligned to regular/typical practice as possible – the time was closely monitored to ensure the reliability of empirical data across the classrooms. The teachers were encouraged to give the students a provocative and ambiguous topic to discuss and to align with their ‘sister’ classrooms. Previous research had indicated that when teachers interrupted the dialogical discussions, the complexity of the discussions shifted to surface thinking (Alexander, 2020; Davies et al., 2017). The teacher’s role was to remind the students of the principles of dialogical discussions and the indicators of CT as per the Streets Smart model. Therefore, group discussions were designed to be student-centred, with the teacher’s role to redirect if students began off-task talk. This is a high-trust and respectful model for the adolescent learner. Teacher professional development Following Time 1, the researchers invited the intervention teachers to PD workshops that included explaining Alexander’s principles of dialogic talk and giving instruction on CT, based on the philosophical, sociological and education indicators. The importance of dispositional skills – collective, supportive, reciprocal, cumulative, purposeful (Alexander, 2008) – was discussed as a group. These conversations continued throughout the duration of the project via emails, discussion boards and face-to-face communication. NB: Since this data was collected the sixth principle of being deliberative (Alexander, 2020) has been incorporated into the model introduced above. Teaching the Streets Smarts model The Principal Investigator (PI) worked with the teachers to develop a PowerPoint to assist in teaching the Street Smarts model. This was based on Salvador Dali’s 1947 painting, Three Sphinxes of Bikini. The picture was chosen because it was interesting and likely to generate strong debate. The lesson began with a discussion on why valuing CT might be important and the dispositional skills necessary for its implementation. The students

Street Smarts  161 wrote down their observations about the picture and what they thought Dali’s intentions were. They were then shown a video of students their own age using CT in a group discussion. As the students were senior secondary, they were asked to come up with their own ‘talk’ rules, such as one person speaking at a time. One group agreed that when the student was holding onto a baseball cap, then no one else could talk. Students were put into the groups that they would participate in for the study’s duration and practised the skills of Street Smarts during a group discussion based on the Dali painting. Following the PI-designed lesson, the intervention teachers then instructed their own classes using a train-the-trainer approach (Martino et al., 2011). The PI remained in close contact with the teachers throughout the study. Provocative topics that adolescent students would likely find interesting and motivating were examined together. For example, “The Merchant of Venice neither endorses nor critiques anti-Semitism; Shakespeare merely portrays anti-Semitism on the stage” was one topic explored and the students were encouraged to consider wider political power structure issues on this topic and who would hold varying views on it. Following the baseline data collection and the lesson by the PI, the students had approximately two weeks to practise. They were then asked to again engage in 15-minute groupwork discussions (Time 2). The same process was repeated in the third term (Time 3), approximately six weeks after Time 2. The students were given transcripts of their group interactions to assist them with their discussions. The group discussions of the students practising the use of CT were audio recorded, transcribed and coded using the Analysing Critical Thinking in Group Constellations scheme (Davies et  al., 2018). Regular inter-coder agreements and disagreements were discussed between the coder and the PI. Tables 10.1–10.3 illustrate the coding framework.

Results Descriptive statistics Descriptive statistics of all the CT indicators showed that Providing a statement of evidence was the most frequently observed indicator in both 2018 and 2019, followed by Building points and Uptake questions. The deeper cognitive features of High-level questioning, Power structures, Situated awareness challenge and Situated awareness – self and group were only observed in several classes of mixed ability whose teacher was extremely committed to the study and the groups of students who were in the high ability streams. Field notes revealed that several of the teachers in the study enthusiastically taught the critical indicators to their students outside of data collection times, more so than other teachers. This variation in uptake from teachers in research is often problematic and simply reflects the complex role teachers have. The students had been put into groups and encouraged to tell their own stories/narratives. If they had no experience, they were encouraged to use

162  Maree Davies et al. Table 10.1  Analysing Critical Thinking in Group Constellations Coding – Respect for Reasons Respect for Reasons Code

Description

Example

A – Argument

Speaker provides a group of statements some of which (the reasons) are intended to support another (the conclusion). Conclusions usually need an indicator such as therefore

E – Providing a statement of evidence

Speaker provides clear evidence for a claim by supporting their argument with data or relevant examples (Facione, 1990). Speaker may use conjunctions such as because, in view of the fact that, given that, since, for the reason that, assume that Speaker stays on topic and builds on the discussion but the statement does not include evidence Evidence of a speaker providing a strong, or insightful counter example to a particular argument or point. Shows engagement with and critical thought about ideas presented (Facione, 1990) Speaker recognises that, just because they see an idea presented often, it does not make it true (Kahneman, 2011) Speaker recognises that, they believe something because the information confirms previously existing belief or biases (Kahneman, 2011)

“This painting was done during the time when nuclear testing was controversial and the two heads look like nuclear heads so I think the Salvador Dali picture might be about nuclear testing” “There was nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958, and Dali was painting then, so then the picture might represent the destruction of humanity from the tests”

BP – Building point CE – Critical engagement

RAB – Recognising availability bias RCB – Recognising confirmation bias

“It looks like a head full of activity, or smoke to me” “The tree is closer to the explosion than the other head though, so maybe it doesn’t represent the destruction of humanity but the destruction of nature?” “I heard on the news that was a flood of migrants to Germany, I wonder what they mean by a flood of migrants though?” “I am worried about flying now because of a possible terrorist attack. But I wonder if that is because terrorist attacks are made such a big deal of the media?”

their intuition or to simply listen. The students were encouraged to connect their own experiences to the topic. Ideally, they listened respectfully to each other with no judgements made. They were free to express emotionally how they felt. Once they had expressed their own stories, they moved on to Respect for reasons to check that their stories matched respected evidence.

Street Smarts  163 Table 10.2  Analysing Critical Thinking in Group Constellations Coding – Respect for Difference Respect for Difference Code SASQ – Situated awareness question PS – Power structure

SAC – Situated awareness challenge SASG – Situated awareness – self and group ILE – Imagination, intuition, emotion

Description Speaker asks who in society would challenge our group’s view Speaker identifies a relevant societal power structure, showing knowledge of contexts likely to impact arguments. External influences such as media, politics, gender, ethnicity, religion are examples (Apple, 2010; Giroux, 2015; McLaren, 2016) Speaker suggests what other group(s) in society may challenge the group’s view on the discussion topic Speaker acknowledges why the group or themselves would hold a particular perspective Opening up the discussion to new ideas that haven’t yet been explored (Thayer-Bacon, 2000)

Example “Who would challenge our view”? “Only 200 Micronesians inhabited the islands when the US conducted the nuclear tests, I think they thought they would get away with it because they ‘are’? such a big and powerful country” “A person who holds liberal views might not agree with our view that health insurance should be compulsory” “New Zealand has a strong anti-nuclear history so perhaps that is why we think it is about nuclear testing” “Maybe there is another message than the effect of nuclear testing that Dali was trying to say”.

The following extract illustrates a typical Respect for Self episode with one of the boys explaining to his group why he did not get vaccinated. I didn’t get vaccinated because I don’t trust the health system. When my mum had her baby, they said to her that the baby was going to die because the baby had a disease that couldn’t be cured. That baby is now 12 and perfectly fine. Why would I trust the health system and get vaccinated when they got that so wrong about my baby brother? Following the sharing of stories and experiences, the students, on their own, researched their own arguments to present to the group. They needed to have reasons to justify their argument and be prepared for counter arguments. As shown in Table 10.4, the students were asked to discuss the topic, “You should always follow the law”. This extract demonstrates students agreeing but for different reasons; uptake questions are used to elicit further information. The students are encouraged during Respect for Reasons to use uptake questions and high-level questioning to foster interaction.

164  Maree Davies et al. Table 10.3  Analysing Critical Thinking in Group Constellations Coding – Other (Questions or Discourse to Foster Interaction) Other Code

Description

Example

DM – Discourse management

A question or statement which aims to keep the group on task, a sign of positive and honest engagement with ideas (Facione, 1990) Student seeking further information from a student in the group (Nystrand et al., 2003) Student talk that is off the topic Student seeking further information by asking a question that elicits either a generalisation, analysis or a speculative question (Applebee et al., 2003)

“I think we are getting side tracked” “We haven’t heard from Peter, what do you think Peter?”

UQ – Uptake question OT – Off task HLQ – Highlevel question

“When you said you think your family would think the nuclear testing was necessary why do you think that, Sara?” “Who’s going to the school ball?” Generalisation – “Would all artists have been anti-nuclear?” Analysis – “I wonder if Dali had a friend involved in the nuclear testing and that inspired him to paint the picture?” Speculation – “I wonder to what extent would famous artists like Dali impact political opinion with their work?”

(Adapted from Davies et al., 2018).

Several classes showed similar shifts in their use of the Respect for difference indicators, in a similar way to that shown in Table 10.4. Though the quantitative results did not show a significant shift across the intervention classes, there was evidence that, if students are taught to consider Situated awareness concepts, they will use them. The students in the control classes did not consider other perspectives in their group discussions. The results of the study showed that students using a dialogic talk model that includes CT indicators did have an impact on their ability to use reasoning evidence to a greater extent and that this was mostly achieved through the increased use of Uptake questions followed by Situated awareness questions. In the following episode (Table 10.5), the students are discussing The Chocolate War, and the provocation for the class is the quotation, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”, sometimes attributed to Edmund Burke. This episode illustrates how important talking collectively is to critical thinking, to help the students understand

Street Smarts  165 Table 10.4  Example of Students Using ‘Respect for Reasons’ Student Name

Episode Showing Respect for Reasons

CJ

My argument is that you should always follow the law isn’t true, because if you think about it a while ago the law was you had to have segregated bathrooms for black people and white people that was the law. Where was that law? America during the slavery age and they wouldn’t allow black people on the same buses or did not give a nice service to black people. The law is just basically, I don’t know it is just like a compilation of ideas that the government has like introduce it is mainly the majority is the, I don’t know how to explain it. Do you mean not necessarily the white people but like the righteous people? It is mainly the wider opinion of the say state or place that was created, but I believe you should always follow the moral law just because it is generally what has led people in the world like of course people stop following the government’s law of segregation and all those things because they felt it wasn’t morally right whereas you had people that did follow the law and if we only had those types of people then we would still be in that age of segregation. Do you mean if people were still the same? Yeah, like the law the law kind of sets guidelines, you know, don’t (?) at people that is obviously a thing.

Steven CJ

Steven CJ

Steven CJ

Table 10.5  Example of Students Using Respect for Difference Student Name

Episode Showing Respect for Difference

Kylee

I have a question, what if like if it defeats evil but the consequences of the evil actions still live on for a while does good really actually win then. Well, no one has won. The majority good but evil has a long-term consequence. Because like look at what Hitler did with the Jewish like you still see the effects today with the Jews and stuff so was Hitler really defeated. I mean after a long time like another 2,000 years. There are a lot of people that agree still with Hitler. Really! Yeah. There are white supremists who think he was right and to this day. There are white supremists who even live here in New Zealand.

Luna Mary Kylee Luna Abby Luna Abby

there are different perspectives. One of the students, Luna, expresses immense surprise that some people agreed with Hitler. Conversations like these can be uncomfortable but it is important for students to habitually consider who would think differently on any topic.

166  Maree Davies et al. Table 10.6  Example of Students Using Respect for Difference With an Ad Hominem Attack Student Name

Episode Illustrating Respect for Difference

Juliette

Adding onto that they always told you when you were younger oh you can do anything you want but then there was Hilary Clinton and she was little who wrote to the White House no she wrote to NASA and said how do I become an astronaut and they replied back with I’m sorry girls cannot be astronauts. And they tell us to dream as big as we can but depending on where we are our background or just who we are just because of our gender doesn’t mean we always get to our dreams. What are your thoughts on this Tess have you ever been asked about dreams that you have and then been told you are dreaming too big? But I also feel that like with the statement about how Hilary Clinton asked to be an astronaut and stuff and they said she couldn’t because she was a woman, I feel like this statement is true in the way that women did have to fight and they had to work really, really hard to… To achieve any sort of dream… …in a man’s world and I think that has come from a lot of hard work and they achieved their dreams eventually which has bettered our world and I you also mentioned about, you know, when you are younger things were sugar coated and stuff and how people tell you to dream big but not dream too big. But why do our dreams have to be defined by the people around us. Why is it that social acceptance is so wanted for each and every single one of us? Trust you to say that Tess, “in a man’s world”, you are always banging on about that feminist stuff. Get over it.

Milana Tess

Juliette Tess

Terry

Another example of Respect for Difference is recognising power within society and how this can affect people’s lives. In the following episode, the students are discussing the novel “Of mice and men” and the idea that, if you work hard, no matter your background or where you live, you can achieve your dreams. The students discuss the role gender can play as a ‘power’. Terry also shows how quickly the discussion can turn personal (ad hominem) and holds on to his view despite the cumulative progression of ideas. Following Terry’s statement, the students then got off the topic and argued with Terry. This type of statement of Terry’s demonstrates that a conversation can quickly lose the cumulative principle and become disputational. The following examples are illustrative of the students’ reflective talk through the phase of Respect for Change. They illustrate students identifying availability bias, CT skills and principles of dialogic talk; and also changing their minds. Yeah I think that the next thing that, you know, if we do something similar regarding to social platform(s) or anything like that what I think we can think about more is not just our own views, but the view of the

Street Smarts  167 company and the view of other people as well. For example, you know, in this one about the models and the fashion industry there is a lot of talk about false expectations and beauty standards, but I think that not a lot of people, you know, talked about the fact that there are different beauty standards around the world and it is not just what we here in New Zealand see. I didn’t know that some people agreed with Hitler and I am shocked about this. It was interesting listening to Abby explain about white supremist(s). I talked to my dad about it when I got home.

Discussion This study set out to trial a new discussion model for promoting CT skills especially designed for the increased cognitive demands faced by students in senior secondary schools and to recognise the affective needs of adolescent learners. Further to using logical reasoning and argumentation (Respect for Reasons) the students were encouraged to look at wider macro societal issues such as power and the multiple perspectives that sat outside their own experiences Respect for Difference). The model also acknowledges the importance of the students’ ‘street smarts’ by valuing their own stories and narratives that accompany controversial topics (Respect for Self). Reflecting on their group discussions was integral to the study (Respect for Change), as students were able to self-regulate their growth in the use of CT within dialogical discussions. We were interested to see which dialogic indicators of CT would be incorporated by the students following an intervention. Of those students who participated in the three time points in the first year of the study, there was a statistically significant increase in the intervention students’ use of evidence and Uptake questions compared with the students in the control classes. There was also a statistically significant increase in their time on task compared with the control classes, which perhaps indicated higher levels of motivation and engagement. The second year of data analysis revealed that the intervention students also increased their use of Building points; Providing a statement of evidence and Situated awareness questions. Although the use of the Respect for Difference indicators did not emerge as a statistically significant factor across all of the intervention classes, there was some evidence of some groups of students using these macro indicators. The control classes did not show any evidence of the Respect for Difference indicators. When the PI showed the sample transcripts to teacher Francis after Time 2, and asked him why he thought there was a shift in the students’ abilities to use CT indicators, he conjectured it was because he believed strongly in CT and welcomed being part of a project that demonstrated a practical framework for adolescent students. This is a good example of effective professional development enabling a teacher to formulate their own theoretical engagement. Theories of action for teachers are important because, rather than relying on a researcher to impose an intervention on a teacher,

168  Maree Davies et al. the teacher responsively develops their own theory to solve a problem within their teaching (Robinson, 2018). In this case, Francis had identified the problem of a lack of deep CT being taught in his English classes and the study provided a platform for him to engage in more sophisticated CT.

Conclusion A major finding from the study was that the students were able to self-govern their group discussions without the facilitation of a teacher once they had been taught a CT talk framework underpinned by dialogic principles. The study also confirmed the importance of teachers forming their own theory in action (Robinson, 2018) around their practice. Research in secondary schools in the use of dialogue and CT supports the development of the Street Smarts model. Rombout et al. (2021) argue that teachers’ questioning must first be connected to the students’ real-life context so that they can learn to think critically around their own experiences and then transfer that knowledge to other scenarios. Bird and Rice’s (2021) research in high schools in the USA demonstrated that when students were involved in the process of learning through sharing ideas and problems they were more likely to use CT skills. Yuan and Stapleton’s (2020) study with pre-service teachers suggests that the definition of CT is still under discussion and that this makes CT “a notoriously fuzzy construct in education” (p. 41). Our model of Street Smarts attempts to give secondary teachers a pragmatic and usable framework of dialogic talk underpinned by CT skills, that takes into consideration the dispositional, cognitive and ethical considerations of teaching and learning. Rather than facilitating the discussion, we recommend that, following the teaching of CT skills and the principles of dialogic talk (Alexander, 2020), the teacher’s role when teaching adolescent students is to allow time for these types of group discussions. That is, students should engage with each other around their stories/experiences (Respect for Self); have time to discuss the evidence, reasons, arguments and counter arguments (Respect for Reasons); and have time to consider macro issues about power, agency and multiple perspectives (Respect for Difference) and opportunity for reflection (Respect for Change).

Ethics statement Ethics approval was sought from The University of Auckland and was granted for the study, Approval number 17339.

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11 When monologue isn’t Towards a linguistic description of Alexander’s six principles Erika Matruglio

Introduction Educational disadvantage and questions of equity have driven educational research for decades. Research addressing this issue is spread across multiple fields and sub-fields (Alexander, 2011), including curriculum (Roberts et al., 2019) the sociology of education (Bernstein, 1990; Maton, 2014) ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (Freebody, 2013) and applied/ educational linguistics (Rose & Martin, 2012; Veel, 2006). A major motivator for researchers in these areas has been to understand and address achievement gaps between students and repeated cycles of educational disadvantage. Classroom research projects across these intersecting areas of research have all highlighted the importance of classroom talk for knowledge-building and educational success (Freebody et al., 2008; Macnaught et al., 2013). Importantly, it is not just the quantity of talk that matters, but also its quality and design (Alexander, 2018; Painter, 1986). Both research into dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2018) and systemic functional linguistic (SFL) research (Rose & Acevedo, 2006) have shown that carefully designed and scaffolded classroom interaction can improve students’ educational outcomes and that verbal language gains can be transferred to written work. Research in both these areas has also demonstrated how talk is more than just a pedagogical tool but part of the epistemology of school subjects (Alexander, 2018; Martin et al., 2010). This makes the study of dialogic teaching practices within specific subjects critical if we are to fully understand how educational knowledge might be made accessible to all students equally. The subject of Community and Family Studies (CAFS) in the New South Wales (NSW) senior secondary curriculum in Australia has been identified as being associated with lower educational outcomes than other subjects available for the centralised and standardised end-of-school examination, the Higher School Certificate (HSC) (Matruglio, 2018a; Roberts et al., 2019). Students who study this subject score lower university entrance rankings than students who study Physics or History, for example. However, the subject is positioned as “an interdisciplinary course drawing upon selected components of family studies, sociology, developmental psychology and students’ general life experiences” (Board of Studies NSW, 2013, p. 6) and it aims DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-15

172  Erika Matruglio towards social change (Matruglio, 2017, 2018b). There is therefore the potential for CAFS to equip its students for more critical civic and social engagement (Alexander, 2019). The talk in the classroom, as part of the subject’s epistemology, is key for this equipping of students. Results from classroom research have indicated that some teachers of this subject spend a great deal of time and energy in classroom discussion unpacking content and preparing students for high stakes examination (Matruglio, 2019). While, on the surface, the talk in the lessons observed for this chapter appears largely monologic and teacher-centred, Alexander’s assertion that teaching may be “monologic in form but in its content more dialogic than at first sight it appears” (Alexander, 2019, p. E9) raises the question of what linguistic features might make it so. Accordingly, this chapter begins with an exploration of each of Alexander’s dialogic teaching principles and applies linguistic analysis to classroom data to reveal some of the language resources implicated in enacting dialogic pedagogy (Jones & Hammond, 2016). It is hoped that an understanding of the language involved in teaching dialogically will better enable teachers to consciously and consistently design it, and that more dialogic pedagogy will enable teachers to push towards more critical and social engagement in CAFS. I begin by introducing the data and methodology before focussing on each dialogic principle in turn, using linguistic analysis to demonstrate how language helps enact the principle. I then discuss some implications of the analysis and point forward to further avenues of research.

Data and methodology The data for this study are four one-hour lessons in a year 12 CAFS classroom in an NSW school. These lessons were taught by a teacher who is an expert in CAFS. She has helped write the textbook most commonly used in the subject, is an experienced HSC marker and has helped establish and maintain an online community of CAFS teachers. The lessons were video-recorded and transcribed to allow for easier analysis and to protect participants’ identities. Participants were given pseudonyms in all transcripts and the teacher was given copies of the recordings and transcripts to provide an opportunity to remove portions of the data she felt did not reflect her regular classroom practice (no sections were removed). The data were analysed using linguistic tools from the recently developed SFL concepts of Mass (Martin, 2017) and Presence (Martin & Matruglio, 2013). Mass and Presence involve a re-theorisation of what condensation of meaning and contextual dependency mean for language, inspired by the dialogue between SFL and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) (Maton et al., 2016). Before the development of the concepts of Mass and Presence, condensation of meaning was understood as primarily seen in technicality and distillation of meaning, as part of the register variable of field. Contextual dependency was understood from the perspective of the register variable of mode. However, research collaboration between SFL and LCT has prompted

When monologue isn’t  173 a re-theorisation of condensation of meaning and contextual dependency, implicating all three metafunctions (see Chapter 2 for a description of the metafunctions). That is, it is possible to have ideational, interpersonal and textual condensation and contextual dependency. Initial analysis of classroom talk in CAFS using these tools has demonstrated that much of the teacher talk in the classroom serves both to unpack or ‘decondense’ some of the technicality of the examination questions and to enact shifts in contextual dependency between concrete examples and more abstract themes and ‘-isms’ of the course (Matruglio, 2018a). Many of Alexander’s principles of dialogic teaching also implicate contextual dependency and condensation of meaning. For example, collective dialogue is achieved in the here-and-now between-you-and-me context of the classroom and talk which is cumulative necessitates condensation of meaning as previous talk and experiences are captured up over time to build integrated knowledge. It is likely that at least some of the tools from Mass and Presence would be useful in understanding some of the linguistic resources involved in enacting dialogic teaching. For this chapter, the purpose of the linguistic analysis was to begin an exploration of which linguistic resources might be implicated in Alexander’s six principles of dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2020).

Method and results Collective Beginning with Alexander’s principle that dialogic teaching is collective, it is clear from the talk in the CAFS classroom involved in this study that the teacher works hard to build a “site of joint learning and enquiry” where “students and teachers are willing and able to address learning tasks together” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). In the following excerpt, the teacher speaks collectively, including herself in the class through the use of the plural first-person pronoun ‘we’. She delineates her class as a community separate from those at other schools and even talks about our writing. Her use of first person is bolded in Table 11.1.

Table 11.1  Use of first person One example, what are we going to do. We have to say that this group is trying to change community attitudes, how have they done it? Our example, write this in your syllabus. Our one example is Men’s Shed. Most schools are going to do something really simple like grandparents’ day. We’re going to try and do something a little bit different. Our examples is what’s going to make our writing stronger. If you do grandparents’ day and the marker keeps reading the same thing over and over you’re going to be compared to the marking criteria and everybody’s else in the state who’s written about grandparents’ day. We’re going to look at the Men’s Shed. It’s not your typical example.

174  Erika Matruglio Table 11.2  Creating a collective environment T S T S T S T S T S T

If I have a shortage of aged care nurses, I ultimately have a lack of resources. What resources am I lacking? Staff. Staff, what else? What else am I lacking if I lack the staff? Knowledge. Good, so I’m lacking knowledge. [inaudible]. What else am I lacking? Money. I’m lacking money. What else am I lacking? What does each person bring? [inaudible]. Good girl, but what do we know about the ageing population? We’re going to have more residents needing care. We’re going to be massively under staffed, but with more people needing the care massively, but each person brings their 24 hours that they have each day. If I have less people I don’t have that 24 hours that they can provide me, which means I don’t have as much time as I could if I had other people. Time is an extra set of hands, an extra set of eyes to support the aged. Why is this an issue? You tell me, why is it an issue?

The use of person (small caps indicate the name of a linguistic system) is one of the linguistic strategies which can function to manipulate contextual dependency. Martin and Matruglio (2013) suggest that a higher ratio of first- and second person to third-person subjects in a text serves to increase interpersonal Presence or contextual dependency. In the classroom discussion over all four lessons, the teacher frequently uses first person to insert herself or the students into the situations the students are studying, contextualising them by applying them to herself or to her students (Table 11.2). In this stretch of dialogue, the teacher aims to help the students make a link between an example of an inequity issue they are studying, the shortage of aged care nurses and the impact this has on quality care through the more abstract notion of ‘lack of resources’. In her attempts to elaborate the concept of ‘lack of resources’ by getting the students to volunteer which resources might be lacking, she increases the contextual dependency by inserting herself into an imagined situation for the students so they are not now discussing ‘a shortage of aged care nurses’ or ‘a lack of resources’ but a situation in which she runs a nursing home and doesn’t have staff, money and time. This involves a shift away from more abstract notions of lack of resources and into the more here-and-now, you-and-me situation. She also brings the students into the picture through the use of ‘we’ to position the issue as something relevant to all of them. Her use of the first person in this lesson helps to create a collective environment in a double sense. Firstly, teachers and students work together on addressing the learning task, which is presented as belonging jointly to the students and the teacher. Secondly, the teacher’s use of the first person to contextualise the issue also includes herself and her students in the broader social issue that they are studying, this way of reducing contextual dependency involves collectivising the issue.

When monologue isn’t  175 Supportive The second of Alexander’s dialogic teaching principles is that students feel supported “to express ideas freely, without risk of embarrassment over contributions that are hesitant or tentative, or that might be judged ‘wrong’, and they help each other to reach common understandings” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). The supportive nature of the classroom can be highlighted by an appraisal analysis. In SFL Appraisal is the system which can be used to explore types of evaluations and their targets (attitude), the intensification or scaling back of evaluation (graduation) and the sourcing of evaluation (engagement). Analysis for this chapter draws on the system of attitude to show how the teacher’s talk establishes an environment in which students feel encouraged and supported. Instances of evaluative language in the discussion below are bolded. There are three main choices which can be chosen from the system of attitude to evaluate. Emotions can be evaluated through the use of resources of affect (‘I feel safe knowing that my issues are actually getting out there’), people or their actions can be evaluated through the use of judgement (‘Because you’re more vulnerable’) or things can be evaluated through the use of appreciation (‘we’re also a leading source of accurate, reliable and up to date information’). While affect is the most personal expression of evaluation, and therefore more contextually dependent, judgement and appreciation are less personal, as they represent more institutionalised expressions of emotion. They are therefore also less contextually dependent forms of evaluation. A simplified network of the appraisal system is provided in Figure 11.1. An analysis of the classroom talk reveals a very high amount of positive evaluation in the teacher’s language; the students represent the overwhelming

affect

attitude

appraisal

graduation

engagement

Figure 11.1 Simplified appraisal system network.

judgement

appreciation

176  Erika Matruglio Table 11.3  Evaluations, categories and targets in teacher talk evaluation Lesson One Good girl Good Good Adequate standard of living Adequate standard of living good girl Beautiful, good girl, Good girl Good girl this one’s going to be hard

attitude

category

polarity and sub-category

target of evaluation

judgement judgement judgement appreciation

+ capacity + capacity + capacity − valuation

the student the student

appreciation

− valuation

judgement appreciation judgement judgement judgement appreciation

Good girl that’s pretty good thinking good girl Good girl in normal people language normal people language

judgement judgement judgement judgement judgement / appreciation

good girl Bronte Good girl does it mean their quality of life is going to get better The extent, good Good girl Beautiful, good girl

judgement judgement appreciation

+ capacity + react: quality + capacity + capacity +capacity − comp: complexity + capacity + capacity + capacity + capacity + normality invoked + appreciation + capacity + capacity react: quality

appreciation judgement appreciation judgement

+ react: quality + capacity + react: quality + capacity

standard of living (curric content) standard of living (curric content) the answer the student the question student’s thinking the student people language

quality of life (curric content) the answer the student the answer the student

majority of the evaluative targets. Most evaluations are positive judgements about their capacity to answer a question. Where negative evaluation does occur, it is often negative appreciation tied to the curriculum content itself, e.g., negative valuation of standards of living. Table 11.3 shows the analysis from the first nine minutes of the classroom talk, with the evaluation in bold in column one, the attitude categories in the following two columns and the target of the evaluation in the final column. Evaluations which do not directly evaluate students or their answers are included but greyed out. The table demonstrates the high degree of positive evaluation of the students and their performance in answering questions in a nine-minute lesson segment comprising 66 turns and approximately 100 lines. The analysis also makes visible how much positive evaluation of the students the teacher does compared to evaluations which arise from the curriculum or field of study.

When monologue isn’t  177 The language in the complete data set follows this pattern, except for when the teacher reads aloud to the students. It could be concluded from this that one of the main goals of the teacher is to boost the confidence of her students and provide a supportive classroom environment, as she devotes so much of her talk to positive feedback. The creation of a supportive environment through frequent praise of the students serves to increase the contextual dependency or interpersonal Presence through a repeated judgement of students in the classroom as opposed to the appreciation of curriculum content, which would represent a more institutionalised form of emotion. Reciprocal The third of Alexander’s dialogic teaching principles is that students “listen to each other, share ideas, ask questions and consider alternative viewpoints; and teachers ensure that they have ample opportunities to do so” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). Of all the principles of dialogic teaching, this is the hardest to identify when the teaching appears more monologic, i.e., when the teacher is doing most of the talking. There are simply not enough extended student turns to provide evidence of reciprocity. The data analysed here do not demonstrate clear examples of reciprocal teaching; however, only four classes were observed and the teacher was asked to select classes for observation when the teaching was on writing for examination, so this may have skewed the data. It is reasonable to suspect that if the teaching displays several other features of dialogic teaching despite its initial monologic appearance, there would be reciprocal moments at times during the teaching which were just not observed in this particular data collection process. The data may only showcase part of the teacher’s repertoire, from which she has selected the most appropriate classroom structures, activities and types of talk for the task at hand (Alexander, 2020). More research is needed on this front. However, as the purpose of this chapter is an exploration of how the linguistic concepts of Mass and Presence, as linguistic theorisations of contextual dependency and condensation of meaning, could be used to make the linguistic bases of dialogic teaching more visible, I would like to suggest, with caution pending further research, that modality is a probable linguistic resource which might be found in talk which characterises reciprocal teaching. Modality is another resource (together with person and appraisal explored above) which can be used to adjust interpersonal Mass or contextual dependency. The use of high modality, such as ‘must’ or ‘will’, leaves less room open for negotiation around the proposal or proposition being advanced, while lower modality, such as ‘may’ or ‘could’, leaves more room for negotiation of probabilities and obligations, moving away from the observable here-and-now and towards more hypothetical possibilities. Teaching which is reciprocal could therefore be expected to contain significant amounts of language to express lower modality to open up possibility and reduce contextual dependency.

178  Erika Matruglio Deliberative Alexander’s deliberative principle describes an environment in which “[p] articipants discuss and seek to resolve different points of view, they present and evaluate arguments and they work towards reasoned positions and outcomes” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). As with collective and supportive teaching, the deliberative nature of the talk in the observed CAFS lessons can also be viewed through the lens of interpersonal Presence (contextual dependency) or negotiability. In the excerpt below, which follows on from the example used above in the discussion of collective teaching, the teacher draws on both person and modality to resolve a difference of views in the classroom. As discussed above, a common strategy of the teacher is to use the first person to insert herself and her students into an imagined hypothetical situation, making the discussion more concrete. However, sometimes her strategy of using first and second person (bolded in Table 11.4) to locate an issue for this purpose seems to backfire. Here, the teacher tries to increase Presence by relating a generalised concept, pay disparity, to the student’s own life to locate it in the here and now. However, because the student is now speaking Table 11.4  First and second person T S T

S T S T S T S

T S T

So acute care nurses in hospitals, so much so that the average pay difference across New South Wales is $114.00, that’s the difference. Can you write it? The pay difference between acute care and aged care is $114.00 on average. [inaudible]. Acute care, so hospitals and aged care. In Northern Territory, the average is $295.00 difference. So if you’re a nurse, and most of you guys are going to leave school, did anyone put in for early entry nursing? You did? Are you, so this is your occupation of choice, are you going to say you know what I’m going to work in aged care, or I’m going to go work in a hospital to earn more money. Well I don’t know like I kind of don’t feel like [inaudible] It’s like, my mum does aged care and she loves it. Would you consider going into that? Yeah! Yeah, is that… maybe that’s because you’ve got family. Yeah, but like when you like look at the pay difference it’s going to be expensive, like it’s going to be a bigger benefit to go to a hospital and get actual [inaudible]. What would be an incentive for you to get into aged care? Like my mum works at [name of institution and suburb] and like her aunt is in there. So like that was my main reason…like something was wrong with her location at [suburb] but because my mum was there she was able to fix it. So if you were to put your mum into [name of institution and suburb] that’s where you would try and work so you could care for her as well. Yeah. In New South Wales it’s $114.00, in Northern Territory on average its $295.00. It’s a massive difference don’t you reckon. If I worked in Northern Territory, I would certainly work in a hospital and not in aged care.

When monologue isn’t  179 from her own perspective, the argument that the teacher is trying to advance, the proposition that the pay difference between hospitals and nursing homes prevents people from getting jobs in aged care nursing, is challenged by the student, who is in a sense given the opportunity to take the generalised discussion about pay disparity and turn it on its head when applying it to her own circumstances. In this excerpt, the teacher resolves the difference of opinion by further locating the discussion in the detailed context of the student’s own experience, offering the argument that the pay disparity may not matter if it’s in the context of caring for one’s own family. She then relocates the hypothetical to a different state (the Northern Territory), saying that if she herself were in the Northern Territory then she wouldn’t work in aged care. She thus relies on adjustments up in interpersonal Presence, locating the issue firmly in the students’ own spheres of life, and then down in interpersonal Presence, distancing the issue to create a deliberative atmosphere in which differences of opinion can both arise and be resolved. Cumulative Cumulative teaching describes situations in which “[p]articipants build on their own and each other’s contributions and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and understanding” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). This can be described linguistically as aggregation or textual Mass. Aggregation describes ways in which meaning is condensed through a kind of ‘collecting up’ across stretches of discourse, through the use of resources such as text reference, periodicity, metadiscourse and internal conjunction. Aggregation is emerging as an important resource when considering pedagogy involving the type of ‘round robin’ reading practice in the classroom where a text is read aloud in sections, interleaved with discussion and ‘unpacking’ led by the teacher (Matruglio, 2018a). Table 11.5 illustrates one such episode of aggregating from reading in order to prepare for answering a written examination question. The teacher begins with the instruction that the class needs to read some instances in order to investigate the issue of “shortage of aged care nurses and its impact on quality care”. Some of the signals the teacher uses to aggregate are presented in bold. Readers are advised that the discussion lists examples of elder abuse which may be upsetting for some readers. The stretch of aggregating material from stories stretches over the course of 30 minutes of the lesson, continuing until the teacher decides they have enough material and arrives at the issue of job shortages, at which point she turns the discussion back to ‘investigating the current inequity issue and its impact on quality care’. While she uses a variety of linguistic resources to do this, here space precludes detailed discussion of more than periodicity, or the way that information flow and hierarchy is managed in a text. Indenting can be used to display the structure of the discussion in terms of higher-level condensed themes and more concrete examples collected up to illustrate

As I am reading, what I want you to do is I want you to stay with me because I noticed that some of you read ahead and highlight ahead so stay with me, and then we’re going to add stuff to it as we get to it. “Residents’ aged care reports says people are being shackled.” What does that mean? [Discussion of the title] Skip over the next bit … and we’re going to go to resident stories. We’re going to look at what the report calls for a little bit later. Resident stories. “In the nursing home residents with dementia were administered drugs and sat like zombies in a circle around a TV from 9 o’clock in the morning where they were supervised by one staff member.” Why, you guys tell me, why do you think nursing homes may resort to giving a sedative? [discussion] Second story. “My husband was tied to a chair in the nursing home for the rest of the day. I complained, and I was told he wanders into other people’s rooms; he got aggressive when four people changed his pad, so he was subdued with a tranquiliser. He was treated like a dog. I couldn’t get anyone to listen to me. Finally, I found a … and I found a nursing home.” Why do you think he may have been aggressive when four people changed his pad? [discussion] Next one. “My husband was turned into a zombie within a couple of weeks. He wandered into ladies’ rooms and was put on an anti-psychotic.” [more reading and discussion] Next one. “I was shocked that my father had been put on a sedative without his or my knowledge despite a request for this not to be done.” The next one. “There was willingness to sedate people with Alzheimer’s. There is a link to anti-psychotic drugs leading to other illnesses. Nursing homes wanted her to be manageable and therefore sedated her. I believe the longer the resident is in their home the better. The bullying, there is no other word I can use. The bullying that we’ve come across in nursing homes from hospitals and the doctors.” [about six more stories are read through and discussed in various levels of detail] Flick over. I think from that article I think we’ve got what we need to get, it goes further on to seeing a lot of other different cases of what he saw at the nursing home across the two weeks. Keep flicking, keep flicking, keep flicking. Then job shortages in aged care Australia, can you go to that one for me, keep going, keep going. “Job shortages in aged care in Australia. Carers for the aged should be included in Australia’s skilled occupation list for overseas visa applicants because of the severe shortage in the profession it is claimed…” Good, so what Australia does in order to get skilled immigrants coming to Australia is that they’ve got a list. If your skills in the country that you were born in meets that list then you’re pushed to the top of the immigration list, but you’re more likely to be accepted into Australia under a specialised visa, the skilled immigration visa. But aged care is not considered one of the occupations that we’re trying to target immigrants for. We’ll be targeting them in our skills shortages, which might be like building and manufacturing… Go back to our student learn to, learn about. What’s my student learn about? Investigate…the current inequity issue

180  Erika Matruglio

Table 11.5  Aggregating from reading

When monologue isn’t  181 them, as below. In this lesson segment, stretching over 30 minutes, the stories elaborate on the issues and the whole discussion builds towards answering an examination question on the current issue. This analysis provides clear evidence of aggregation used to build on contributions from reading and to link ideas together into coherently organised chains of thinking. This is a type of textual condensation of meaning which enables talk to be cumulative in nature. A broad outline of the structure of the discussion as higher-level ideas which are then unpacked and elaborated through the collection of stories and then re-packed and condensed into the higher-level themes of the syllabus is provided in Table 11.6. Table 11.6  Structure of the discussion Learn to: investigate current issue – shortage of aged care workers and impact on quality care We can’t find out about the issues unless we read about the instances resident story second story next one etc. Carers for the aged should be included in Australia’s skilled occupation list for overseas visa applicants because of the severe shortage in the profession Go back to our student learn to, learn about. What’s my student learn about? Investigate something, what are we investigating?

Purposeful The final principle involves talk which may be open-ended but is nevertheless structured with clearly visible learning goals. One of the ways this principle can be seen in the teacher’s talk is through her unpacking and repacking of the syllabus technicality, varying the levels of ideational Mass (ideational condensation of meaning). In the four lessons analysed for this chapter, discussion of the field of study is always retraceable to the purpose of writing for examination. The teacher spends a lot of time unpacking and elaborating on the syllabus terms before any discussion of content. One such instance is exemplified in Table 11.7. In this example, ‘analyse’ is treated as a technical term that needs elaborating into a far less condensed form for the students to understand. In fact, the class has historically engaged in so much discussion of ‘syllabus terms’ and ‘syllabus dot points’ that they are able to communicate in a kind of ‘CAFS code’ where they can readily link specific examples they have studied to the concepts which form the technicality in the course, in this case, ‘needs’ such as ‘safety and security’, ‘health’, ‘identity’ and the more overarching concept ‘wellbeing’, all presented in bold in Table 11.8.

182  Erika Matruglio Table 11.7  Unpacking and elaborating on the syllabus terms T S T S T S T

S T S T

Think, think what does analyse mean? Remember analyse, I have to do something first, and then I put something at the end of it to make it the analysis, so what step am I doing first? [inaudible]. What’s this one? Cause and effect. Cause and effect, which is… explain something, explaining something first. What does explain mean? Cause and effect, but ultimately in normal people language, what do I have to do? Relationship? You just have to show a relationship between the two things. What is causing the change in this question? What’s going to cause change in this question? What’s changing? This is going to cause my change. What’s changing? Their… Needs. Their needs, good girl [student name], okay, what’s this bit? Implications. Good girl, implications. So cause/effect, show me the relationship between something and then what is the implication because of that?

Table 11.8  Technical concepts in CAFS T S T S T S T S T S T S T S T S T S T

Now Telecross, who runs that? The Red Cross. Good girl, the Red Cross, okay, put it up there because that’s going to be a really good one that we can look at. Within the Red Cross, there’s the service of Telecross. [Name] do you remember what it is? [inaudible]. Beautiful, cool, when do they call them? Is it once a month? Every day. Every day, perfect, so what need? Safety and security. Good girl, so their safety and security. Why health Shayla, justify… [inaudible]. Beautiful, good, so indirectly it’s going to support their health needs in case they do fall. What’s that chat that I get every day? Sense of identity. Beautiful, why is it sense of identity? Because they have someone to talk to [inaudible]. Cool, link it to wellbeing for me, so justify it now. [inaudible]. Good, any other aspect of wellbeing? Social. Good girl, social, why?

These examples demonstrate not only the purposeful intent of the teacher, but the students’ ability to discern and follow this purpose. Teaching and learning for high stakes examination requires students to be able to relate the cases they are studying to the concepts condensed in the syllabus technicality

When monologue isn’t  183 and to be able to move back and forth between them, in a sense understanding that the purpose of the content is to exemplify and elaborate the technicality. The ability to both condense and uncondense meaning is therefore critical in purposeful learning in CAFS.

Discussion The intent of this chapter was to explore Alexander’s dialogic teaching principles through a linguistic lens to begin to understand what makes seemingly monologic teaching dialogic. It does so in the context of teaching in the school subject CAFS, a subject which typically leads to lower educational outcomes for students but which has the potential to lead to strong social and civic participation. A summary table showing the types of Mass and Presence, the linguistic analyses related to each of these drawn on in this chapter and the dialogic principle they are associated with is provided in Table 11.9. The analysis suggests that the linguistic conceptions of contextual dependency or Presence and condensation of meaning or Mass can be useful in understanding how talk dominated by the teacher can be more dialogic than it first appears. The discussion above particularly emphasises the importance of interpersonal contextual dependency or negotiability for dialogic teaching, although textual condensation of meaning or aggregation and ideational condensation or technicality were also implicated. The linguistic analysis shows that the teacher of this class is, to some extent, enacting pedagogy that is dialogic in nature, despite the large amount of teacher talk. It also reveals several ways in which the talk could be further engineered to become even more dialogic. One of these ways concerns the supportive nature of the talk. In the data analysed for this chapter, the supportive environment was entirely built through the teacher’s talk. While she Table 11.9  Mass and presence in the data

Mass (condensation of meaning)

Presence (contextual dependency)

metafunction

linguistic systems

associated with dialogic principle

ideational (technicality) interpersonal (iconisation) textual (aggregation) ideational (iconicity)

technicality

purposeful

periodicity

cumulative

interpersonal (negotiability)

person

collective, deliberative supportive

textual (implicitness)

appraisal

184  Erika Matruglio was at great pains to praise students when they made contributions, their contributions were mostly limited to single sentences. There was not much scope for the students themselves to ‘help each other to reach common understandings’ other than through the way the teacher purposefully strung together contributions from several students through initiation-response-feedback cycles (see Chapter 2) to build towards a larger point. As mentioned above, the request that I observe lessons in which the teacher was teaching for high-stakes examination may have somewhat skewed the data and more research in this area is warranted. More extensive data across different periods of the school year would avoid the potential to collect only lessons which function as a kind of ‘triage’ intervention in order to prepare for examination. It would also be interesting to investigate whether the language the students use to build a supportive environment would differ substantially from the teacher’s (I somewhat doubt they would consistently say ‘good girl’ to each other!). Nevertheless, based on the observed lessons, it could be helpful for this teacher to consider ways in which space could be created for supportive student talk. Another consideration could be purposeful planning for more reciprocal talk. One way this could be achieved, especially in the context of writing for examination, is through the practice of writing together with students, often called joint construction when it occurs as part of a genre-based teaching and learning cycle (Rose & Martin, 2012). In this practice, the teacher usually leads the writing of a paragraph or two together with students, prompting contributions from the class with carefully worded questions and then using a kind of think-aloud strategy and further prompting students to craft their contributions into a jointly constructed piece of writing. This pedagogical strategy has been demonstrated to make the process as well as the product of writing clearer for students because of the explicit talk about language and the demonstration of the unfolding process of text creation. While the benefits of joint construction have mainly been framed in the research as a way of addressing literacy issues, it is a clear strategy to increase reciprocity of talk when teaching writing and therefore is a useful talk-based pedagogical strategy for teachers to add to their repertoires.

Conclusion CAFS is often understood as a subject which can lead to lower educational outcomes (Roberts et al., 2019), meaning that students who wish to score a high ranking in the NSW end-of-school examination, the HSC, might be advised not to study it. The subject, however, has the potential to equip students with tools for thinking and for participating in their academic and civic lives. While the teaching represented in this chapter seemed monologic and perhaps teacher-centred at first, linguistic analysis demonstrates not only that the talk is more dialogic than it appears, but also the efforts the teacher is making towards equipping students with the ways of thinking they need for high-stakes, gatekeeping examinations. There appears to be a connection

When monologue isn’t  185 between dialogic teaching principles and the movements between more context-dependent and uncondensed meanings and context-independent and condensed meanings that have been shown necessary in navigating the school curriculum (Macnaught et al., 2013). Teaching which is more dialogic may prove useful in reaching the aspirations for the subject CAFS to which the syllabus writers aspired. Teachers could use dialogic principles to plan teaching and learning, and an understanding of the linguistic systems which are implicated in enacting dialogic teaching would give educators a way of designing talk which enables more cumulative learning. This would increase students’ access to the types of knowledge they need for success in schooling and their abilities to express that knowledge in the written forms valued in high-stakes gatekeeping examinations.

Ethics statement Full ethics approval was obtained from both the University (HE16/212) and from the NSW Department of Education (SERAP2016247) to conduct the research in the school.

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186  Erika Matruglio Martin, J. R., Maton, K., & Matruglio, E. (2010). Historical cosmologies: epistemology and axiology in Australian secondary school history discourse. Revista Signos, 43(74), 433–463. Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2013). Revisiting mode: Context in/dependency in Ancient History classroom discourse. In L. Zhanzi (Ed.), Studies in functional linguistics and discourse analysis (Vol. 5) (pp. 72–95). Higher Education Press. Maton, K. (2014). Knowledge and knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education. Routledge. Maton, K., Martin, J. R., & Matruglio, E. (2016). LCT and systemic functional linguistics: Enacting complementary theories for explanatory power. In K. Maton, S. Hood, & S. Shay (Eds.), Knowledge-building: Educational studies in Legitimation Code Theory (pp. 93–113). Routledge. Matruglio, E. (2017). Being the right kind of person: The ideal CAFS student. Paper presented at the Second International Legitimation Code Theory Conference (LCTC2), hosted by the LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building at the University of Sydney. Matruglio, E. (2018a). The Community of CAFS: capacity-building and cultural capital. Paper presented at the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association National Conference, University of South Australia, Adelaide. Matruglio, E. (2018b). ‘Life is CAFS! CAFS is life!’: Exploring interdisciplinary teaching with autonomy codes. Paper presented at the LCT Roundtable Series, University of Sydney. Matruglio, E. (2019, May 10). The tension in the teaching. Paper presented at the Friday SFL Seminar Series, The University of Sydney. Painter, C. (1986). The role of interaction in learning to speak and learning to write. In J. R. Martin & C. Painter (Eds.), Writing to mean: Teaching genres across the curriculum (pp. 62–97). Sydney ALAA. Roberts, P., Dean, J., & Lommatsch, G. (2019, Dec 13). Still winning? Social inequity in the NSW senior secondary curriculum hierarchy. Centre for Sustainable Communities. Rose, D., & Acevedo, C. (2006). Closing the gap and accelerating learning in the Middle Years of Schooling. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 14(2), 32–45. Rose, D., & Martin, J. R. (2012). Learning to write, reading to learn: Genre, knowledge and pedagogy in the Sydney School: Equinox. Veel, R. (2006). The write it right project - Linguistic modelling of secondary school and the workplace. In R. Whittaker, M. O’Donnell, & A. McCabe (Eds.), Language and literacy (pp. 66–92). Continuum.

Part 5

Dialogic pedagogy in Tertiary Education contexts

12 Dialogic pedagogy Blended learning in initial teacher education Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang

Introduction This study examines how dialogic pedagogies were used to influence the learning outcomes of a cohort of pre-service teachers (PSTs) to support their decision-making in planning for diverse student needs. By exploring what occurred in the classroom through this purposeful pedagogic stance, as well as why it occurred (Alexander, 2020, p. 46), we provide evidence highlighting the challenges inherent in adopting dialogic approaches to teaching in support of teacher and student agency. The learning described in this chapter took place during the Covid pandemic. The classroom context was altered to support PSTs who studied remotely as well as those who attended classes in person. The creation of hybrid learning spaces (Simpson & Goodyear, 2022) resulted in the use of blended classrooms where common access to shared epistemic artefacts, for example, Google docs, enabled the co-construction of knowledge in dynamic interactions hosted on a Zoom platform. Reflecting on this work from the perspective of talk repertoires, we argue that across the semester the success of the networked approach to learning depended strongly on the “fit between teaching talk and pedagogical aim” (Alexander, 2020, p. 185). Considering Alexander’s proposition “Teaching, in any setting, is the act of using method x to enable students to learn y.” (2020, p. 39), in the initial teacher education (ITE) setting the ‘y’ aspect is dualistic. According to Shulman (2015), to be effective teachers need knowledge of what, that is, content knowledge (CK); as well as knowledge of how, that is, pedagogic knowledge (PK); and a combination of the two, that is, pedagogic content knowledge (PCK). As teacher educators, our responsibility is to help PSTs learn disciplinary content knowledge about literacy, language and literature as well as enable them to learn how to teach successfully with pedagogic strategies that are appropriate to context and student needs. Informed by prior research, which demonstrates the importance of dialogue for learning (Alexander, 2017, 2020; Wegerif, 2008), Simpson, the unit coordinator and an author of this chapter, took a deliberative stance in designing dialogic pedagogy (Alexander, 2020, p. 47) into this ITE program. Hence, this chapter uses transcript analysis to exemplify the quality and dynamics of the DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-17

190  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang classroom discourse, critiquing its strategic framing and noting its limitations. We ask the question: “What does dialogic pedagogy contribute to initial teacher education?” Here, we first situate the study of ITE classroom discourse in its contemporary political and educational context where teacher professionalism is often contested (Hargreaves & Goodson, 1996). We then introduce Alexander’s work on dialogic pedagogy to demonstrate how it aligns with constructs of teacher agency. Two key analytic frameworks are then employed to explore ITE classroom interaction in detail. The first framework provides dialogic principles and repertoires by which pedagogic design can be categorised according to its epistemic activity (Alexander, 2020). In our chapter, we are seeking proof of successful epistemic activity by tracing PSTs’ display of specific CK about teaching writing with children’s literature. The second framework, informed by systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theory (Halliday, 1980/2004), provides insights into discursive interaction from the close-up analysis of linguistic variables such as field (for further detail see Chapter 2, this volume). Linguistic analysis can highlight aspects of iterative learning designed to cumulatively scaffold PSTs’ dialogic capacity through the development of pedagogic understanding, as well as identify the technical vocabulary associated with disciplinary content knowledge. This approach has been reported in previous studies, which demonstrated the benefits of harnessing these two analytic frameworks to examine the development of epistemic awareness through dialogue (Simpson, 2016; Thwaite et al., 2020; Wang & Simpson, 2020).

Teacher professionalism The policy context for ITE preparation of “classroom ready” teachers (Buchanan & Schuck, 2016, p. 1) suggests adherence to standards/syllabus will future-proof the teaching profession. However, as Alexander warns, “the relationship between a curriculum as specified nationally and as transacted and experienced locally is rarely isomorphic, and all teaching entails a greater or lesser degree of curriculum translation and indeed re-creation” (2020, p. 56). Therefore, for recent graduates to successfully enact the role of ‘teacher’, they must demonstrate the capacity to adapt their teaching of content knowledge through critically reflective design of pedagogic strategies according to context. To encourage PSTs to become “intellectually creative and adaptive teachers” (Simpson et al., 2021, p. 20), many ITE providers in Australia prepare graduates capable of making complex, intellectual judgements through development of their pedagogic awareness (Mayer et al., 2017). One of the key aspects of teacher professionalism identified by researchers is teacher autonomy or agency (Eteläpelto et al., 2103; Renshaw, 2016). Various studies have noted the struggles teachers have enacting agency in their classrooms when working with conditions limited by standardised practices and accountability measures controlled by regulatory bodies (Day, 2020; Mayer et al., 2017; Toom, 2019). However, other

Dialogic pedagogy  191 research demonstrates the potential teachers have for contextualised agency depending on social and material constraints (Eteläpelto et al., 2013; Priestley et al., 2015). Actions negotiating pedagogic design are viewed as worthwhile (Renshaw, 2016), as they reveal evidence of professional judgement (Simpson et al., 2018). Given our interest in promoting PST alertness to pedagogic design, we have added expectations of pedagogic meta-awareness to Shulman’s set of CK, PK and PCK (2015) and used this as an additional analytic component that focuses on teachers’ epistemic intent. This aspect, which relates to pedagogic reasoning, provides the foundation for teachers’ critical interrogation of their own teaching (Loughran, 2019; Shulman, 2015). The data analysed below reveals PSTs are not only working at the “intersection of pedagogy and content” (Shulman, 2015, p. 8) but also how dialogic pedagogy encourages them to adopt meta-reflective practices associated with professional authority.

Dialogic pedagogy As noted in the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2010), teachers need to do more than just what they are told if they are to model productive ways of thinking to their students. Because teachers are a “driving force” shaping classroom dialogue (Vrikki et al., 2018, p. 13), we argue that a line can be drawn from their adoption of dialogic pedagogy to the creation of more equitable learning conditions for students in their classrooms. The end goal of the dialogic pedagogy adopted in this unit of study focussed on the teaching of English in primary schools is to help PSTs see things from the dual perspectives of learner and teacher. That is, the PSTs learn both “through dialogue” and about teaching “for quality dialogue” (Phillipson & Wegerif, 2020 p. 32) [Author italics]. The pedagogic design deliberately models the triggering impact of teacher talk on learning, which is intended to scaffold learner agency. However, our analysis reveals strong discourse norms that work against this epistemic intent. Awareness of talk for teaching is crucial for PSTs to achieve during ITE because it will influence their future teaching. Therefore, it is also critical that teacher educators pay attention to the interactive culture their pedagogic design creates. We acknowledge the importance of context to investigations of teaching, so as well as analysing talk repertoires, we have also examined elements of lesson framing (Alexander, 2020) informed by current theorisation of learning space (Lamb et al., 2022).

Research design The chapter is a case study investigating an ITE classroom as an instance of a contextually situated phenomenon (Yin, 2018). As the teaching took place during Covid, the classroom interactions were designed for blended learning and some data was collected online.

192  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang Participant demographics The participants in the study are final year Bachelor of Education (Primary) PSTs in a four-year undergraduate program taught by an ITE provider in urban NSW, Australia. The PSTs are enrolled in a core unit of study based on the NSW English Syllabus and Australian Curriculum: English and shaped by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Data collection setting Simpson, who taught on the unit, met seven groups of PSTs for 20-minute reflective discussion sessions to assist in preparation for summative assessment at the end of the semester. Each group was made up of three to five PSTs who chose to work together as collaborative teams. The teacher, Simpson, hosted Zoom meetings and created a waiting room to ensure appropriate PSTs were present and groups were kept separate. All attendees were able to share screens with the group once admitted to the room. The pace of the lesson moved swiftly to give each student time to answer a prompt question directed at them by the teacher. Data source Recordings were made of online meetings where participants discussed disciplinary knowledge and pedagogic strategies adopted to teach literacy through literature to primary-aged students. The meetings followed a recurrent phasal structure – that is, each meeting can be sliced into a series of discussion phases, including obligatory and optional phases with relational and epistemic functions. Obligatory phases were pre-designed by the teacher; the optional phase only occurred if the teacher judged that the previous obligatory phases did not sufficiently prompt PSTs’ reflections on dialogic pedagogy. The optional phase served as a backup phase/component in the meeting for the teacher to facilitate PSTs’ critical thinking about their dialogic pedagogy. We call this series of dialogic phases, the Big Wave (see Table 12.1). Table 12.1  The Big Wave Phase number and function

Phase type

Phase 1: Welcome, screen navigation & identity checking Phase 2: Session instruction frames professional discourse as epistemic intent. Phase 3: Questions posed by teacher to individual PST expecting response and possible follow up from group members.

Obligatory Obligatory

NB: this phase is expanded below as a Small Wave in Table 12.2 Phase 4: Group discussion of dialogic pedagogy Phase 5: PSTs ask clarifying questions Phase 6: Wrap up & Farewell

Obligatory

Optional Obligatory Obligatory

Dialogic pedagogy  193 Remembering that the goal of the meetings was to stimulate the co-construction of knowledge, which must be supported by the development of expert knowledge through didactic teaching, the phases in Table 12.1 demonstrate the deliberate selection of options from a repertoire that were chosen to manage classroom talk purposefully. For example, in Phase 2, the teacher expressed the need for PSTs to take an authoritative stance in the dialogue at the start of each meeting. For example, stating to one group: TEACHER:  It’s

a bit like – if you imagine working with students in a writing conference – so instead of you submitting an assignment, and then me writing notes in the margin afterwards, I’m trying to have a conversation with you ahead of time, just to prompt the kinds of questions that I might’ve asked you otherwise, and to make sure that you really understood the through thread of what you’d planned. So, it’s not a test. You’re not going to pass or fail on this discussion. It really is a way of us getting some shared understanding between us.

However, though the teacher explicitly names the purpose of the meeting as dialogic, the example reveals the complex difficulty in achieving “handover” (Bruner, as cited in Alexander, 2020, p. 109). From a semantic perspective, the instruction strongly encourages PSTs to take up the position of authority in the discussion. But the wording backfires, as the teacher’s intent to ask PSTs to argue the case for their pedagogic rationale has been implied semantically, but not articulated explicitly. So, the emphasis lands on the PSTs answering questions correctly. The Big Wave provides an overview of the full meeting; however, the analysis below focusses on ‘small’ dialogic waves that occurred with each group of PSTs at Phase 3 – the teacher questioning phase. This phase reveals the potential weaving together of PSTs’ content knowledge (CK), PCK and pedagogic rationale (PR), which enables the teacher to assess the PSTs’ growing professional understanding. In a Small Wave (see Table 12.2), dialogic flow is prompted by the teacher’s question to the PST and evolves according to subsequent response/s. The recurring pattern of obligatory and optional phases is listed below. This flow formed a loop, which was repeated in each of the seven groups until every member had an opportunity to respond to a question on behalf of the group. The Small Wave represents the underlying framing of dialogue that the teacher intended to provoke through the use of structured questions, which probed for deep understanding within the group.

Analytic methods According to Alexander, an analysis of classroom interactions should reveal evidence of the pedagogic stance taken on “teachers and teaching; learners and learning; the knowledge, understanding, skills and dispositions to be

194  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang Table 12.2  A Small Wave Phase number and function

Phase type

Phase 1: Academic poses a question to a specific PST Phase 2: PST responds to the question Phase 3: Academic asks follow-up questions if answer judged incomplete Phase 4: PST responds to follow-up questions

Obligatory Obligatory Optional

Phase 5: Academic provides positive comments and shifts discussion posing another question to a different PST.

Obligatory if phase 3 occurs Obligatory

encountered” (Alexander, 2020, p. 39). To achieve these epistemic perspectives and gain rich insight into the multilayered data, we adopted two complementary analytic tools that help to map the pedagogic outcomes of the meeting in which the dialogic exchange used for scaffolded reflective discussions took place. We use Alexander’s concepts informing dialogic pedagogy (Alexander, 2020) and register theory from SFL (Halliday, 1985; Martin, 1992). The analysis reveals recurring patterns of interaction between the PSTs and their teacher. Dialogic pedagogy First, we use Alexander’s work on principles and repertoires to assess the overall achievement of co-constructed knowledge about dialogic teaching through dialogic pedagogy in the target lesson. As explained in Chapter 1, the six principles can be used to identify characteristics of talk that is dialogic and the framing classroom culture that supports it. Awareness of these principles informs the commentary below. The concept of repertoires encourages us to see teaching as a purposeful act where teachers make choices “according to circumstance and need, ideally reconciling professional agency with dialogic principle” (Alexander, 2020, p. 127). As the study site is in ITE, in the analysis we have chosen to focus closely on Repertoire 4: talk for teaching, noting that teaching talk “triggers and shapes” the dialogic opportunities for PSTs to learn (Alexander, 2020, p. 144). Though there is always a need for transactional and expository teaching talk so teachers can explain what students are expected to achieve in a lesson, identifiers of teacher talk such as discussion and dialogue are the markers of a classroom culture that encourages student learning through their talk. The most productive teacher talk will create a classroom culture that encourages all six of the dialogic principles to be enacted through relational and epistemic interactions over time. The analysis of transcripts below explores an extract of talk that was intended as dialogue: “working towards common understanding through structured questioning, probed and elaborated responses” (Alexander, 2020, p. 145).

Dialogic pedagogy  195 As it is important to account for the pedagogical context, we use concepts from Repertoires 1 and 2 to examine the online context. We attend to the interactive culture that Repertoire 1 names as “discourse norms” and the interactive settings Repertoire 2 notes as how student learning is facilitated in space and time allocation (Alexander, 2020, p. 138). This analysis allows us to track the epistemic evidence identified in discipline-specific vocabulary relevant to CK/PCK used by the PSTs as well as the relations in space imposed by the Zoom platform. Register theory Second, we adopted register theory from Halliday’s (1985) and Martin’s (1992) work with SFL as a tool to give fine-grained linguistic support for the dialogic analysis. This analysis helps us understand two of the key themes: PSTs’ reflections on their dialogic learning design and the framing of dialogic pedagogy in online learning. As explained in Chapter 2, register is a concept that refers to the interplay of three parameters: field, tenor and mode, operating in the immediate context of any text (Martin, 1992). Field analysis provides linguistic insight into PSTs’ reflections on pedagogic strategies focussing on both the dialogic-related verbs/verb groups and the associated content knowledge-related nouns/nominal groups. Through this approach, we can highlight how PSTs viewed dialogic teaching as a pedagogic tool through which they could co-construct school students’ knowledge about writing. In relation to online learning, the three register variables (i.e., field, tenor, mode) are used to identify key linguistic resources specific to the Zoom context. We claim the functions of the linguistic resources, which may be aligned with Lamb et al.’s concepts of “embodiment, inclusion and connectedness” (2022, p. 3), are evident in both the teacher’s talk and PSTs’ responses. Although only appearing in Phases 1 and 6 of the Big Wave, these expressions are important to acknowledge, as they shape relational and epistemic interactions (Alexander, 2020, p. 138).

Findings Transcripts from meetings with all seven groups of PSTs were annotated using the two frameworks named above. Analysis of the phasal structure and patterns of interaction demonstrates the pedagogic and epistemic relationships that created the culture of the classroom (Alexander, 2020, p. 120). The authors note a tension was revealed in Phases 2 and 3 of the Big Wave between the intended empowerment of PSTs to take an authoritative stance in dialogic exchanges and the unconscious imposition by the teacher of controlling measures. Three themes emerge from the exploration of dialogic pedagogy in online teaching: 1. The impact of teacher talk on knowledge co-construction through dialogue.

196  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang . The development of PSTs’ PCK about dialogic teaching. 2 3. The reframing of dialogic pedagogies in online learning. Though we have extensive examples of repeated patterns, in this chapter we address each theme below with brief detailed examples. Theme 1: The impact of teacher talk on knowledge co-construction through dialogue The dialogue in Table 12.3 is a typical example of one full loop of a Small Wave (see Table 12.2). This example shows how the co-construction of content knowledge by PSTs prompted by a targeted question from the teacher is limited by the teaching talk. Although the teacher intended to create a dialogic space within which formative feedback could be given, the talk turns were strongly controlled through follow-up questions (highlighted in bold Table 12.3  One loop in the Small Wave Turn

Speaker

Speech

1

Teacher:

2

PSTP:

3

Teacher:

4 5

PSTP: Teacher:

6

PSTP:

7

Teacher:

8

PSTP:

Why is it important for students to know how to write complex sentences? There’s a specific question for you. Yes. So… we realized that many of our students use compound and simple sentences… Okay. That’s probably where I missed the point in your first one… why complex sentences? Just go back to that again for me. Why complex sentences? I just thought… You’re completely correct. I’m not trying to make you wrong. I just want you to think in all layers. Yes. Well, like I said earlier, they… Amongst our letters, there were just a lot of simple sentences, and then just like: “I like this book,” full stop… Yep. You’re getting there. You’re getting there. What is it about complex sentences that allows you to do that work that you want them to do? You’re so close PSTP: I just…

9

Teacher:

10 11

Teacher:

That’s all right. Someone else come in. It’s not a test for P. OK, let’s park that idea. It’s the complexity of the grammar…

Commentary

The PST does not extend the response No one speaks

KEY: Questions in the dialogue are highlighted in bold; speech is written in italics.

Dialogic pedagogy  197 in the excerpt) and the use of evaluative talk (e.g., You’re completely correct.; You’re getting there.; You’re so close). These positive evaluations indicate that the teacher, as a content expert, has an anticipated response to the question in mind. This may explain why towards the end of the wave, though other PSTs in the group were explicitly prompted to join the discussion, no other responses were given. In terms of dialogic analysis, after the use of a probing question, the teacher adopted extensions to encourage cumulative thinking. However, as the time frame was short, when the answers were not expanded by others, the teacher reverted to evaluative talk and moved on rather than continue the exploratory challenge. In terms of linguistic analysis, semantic evidence from the field variable demonstrates topical disciplinary knowledge as appropriate to the task; for example, simple sentence, full stop, complex sentences. So, while the PSTs did not demonstrate an authoritative stance by expounding on their pedagogic rationale, they spoke with accurate content knowledge. The question-led turn-taking demonstrates that the teacher is in control at all times. A deliberative and purposeful exchange has taken place but little cumulation has been achieved given the quick shift of focus to the next targeted prompt question. This pattern is repeated across the full data set with little variation, disappointingly showing successful dialogue was not achieved. Although in the Big Wave the teacher talk signalled a shift in discourse norms with an optional move in each group, the space for reflective discussion was offered insufficient time to develop. In effect, the interactive setting was working against attempts to change the interactive culture. Theme 2: The development of PSTs’ pedagogic content knowledge about dialogic teaching The example below presents three PSTs’ responses to Phase 4 from the Big Wave (see Table 12.4). The teacher posed an optional question about dialogic teaching that was designed as a challenge to encourage spontaneous Table 12.4  Phase 4 optional question Turn

Speaker

Speech

1 2

Teacher: PSTS:

3

PSTM:

4

PSTJ:

What are you thinking about the value of dialogic learning? It links to construction, presuming that you are talking with your classmates and socially learning. Kids love sharing their own ideas and hearing others. Probably more sharing their own ideas. When you stop teaching, you give the kids a chance to teach each other and learn from each other. Get some feedback off someone on the same level as you.

KEY: Dialogic-related verbs/verb groups are highlighted in bold; associated CK-related noun groups are underlined.

198  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang responses. A key finding is that PSTs’ talk includes multiple dialogic-related verbs/verb groups: express, scaffold, talk, construct, teach. The types of vocabulary used by the PSTs in their discussion demonstrate that pedagogic knowledge about dialogic teaching is developing well and pedagogic rationale is emerging. Importantly, the significance of dialogic learning is recognised by several PSTs as an opportunity for students to learn from their peers. The verbs hear and talk associated together highlight the two supplementary aspects of dialogic learning. In terms of dialogic analysis, after the use of an unexpected question, the teacher ‘stepped out of the way’ and let the PSTs build on each other’s thinking. The extract shows 3 consecutive turns where PSTs support each other’s ideas and use exploratory and deliberative learning talk to present their understanding. Ironically this kind of “academically productive dialogue” (Alexander, 2020, p. 151) occurred each time the optional question was introduced. As the PSTs speak here with greater confidence, and the teacher has encouraged reciprocity, the discussion flow contrasts dramatically with PSTs’ responses to the targeted questions. In terms of linguistic analysis, the verbs used by PSTs across the data sample clearly demonstrate they have designed dialogic learning for two main pedagogical purposes: either as a tool to prompt learner engagement or to prompt discussions about the literature-related knowledge like complex sentences and book themes. A sample of dialogic-related verbs/verb groups and associated disciplinary knowledge-related nouns/noun groups frequently used in PSTs’ responses are presented in Table 12.5.

Table 12.5  Two types of dialogic learning

PSTs’ own ideas

Literaturerelated CK

Dialogic learning for learner engagement

Dialogic learning of literary knowledge

hear – perspectives engage – deeper thinking feel – motivated sharing – their own ideas hearing – others teach – each other learn from – each other get – feedback hear from – other group members (about other themes) construct – knowledge socially learning

modelling – conversation

talk – complex sentences having an informal discussion – book themes discuss – book themes

KEY: Dialogic-related verbs/verb groups are highlighted in bold; associated CK-related noun groups are underlined.

Dialogic pedagogy  199 Theme 3: The reframing of dialogic pedagogies in online learning Because the teaching episodes took place in the virtual classroom platform of Zoom, it is important to report the material intrusion of the online context into the dialogic learning space. At the preliminary and end points of the meeting in Phases 1 and 6 of the Big Wave, the intent of discussion was largely collective, highly supportive and strongly reciprocal. Yet these dialogic principles were compromised as each participant had to ‘enter’ the Zoom room using different technological affordances. It became particularly clear through multiple linguistic references that the physicality of virtual space both shaped and interrupted the interactions. A sample analysis of talk directly related to the online context is given below under the headings field, mode and then tenor. Field In terms of field, the online context was shaped through talk about typical actions such as: sharing screens, stopping screen sharing, using waiting rooms and checking the audio/internet connection. In the examples below, we use underlining to highlight references to the material field. Did you want to share your screen? Can I have the screen back please? So, I’ll stop sharing. Would you like to share your screen to show me your document? Oh, he’s waiting in the waiting room… Can you not hear me? Oh dear. I think she’s dropped out. You’re on mute! Mode In terms of mode, the role language plays in shaping the context is a distinctive feature of online teaching. Apologetic language is frequently used to explain action that is concurrent with the PSTs’ physical environment but extraneous to the learning activity in the virtual classroom. Again, this underlines how online learning environments are part of a “wider entanglement of actors and infra-structure” (Lamb et al., 2022, p. 4). For example, PST:  Sorry my dog is barking in the background. TEACHER:  Sorry my mouse is not working.

Tenor In terms of tenor, the teacher–PSTs relationships enacted in the teaching context reveal distinctive online features. In a face-to-face teaching context, identity is coherently embodied in a student’s face, voice and name. In an

200  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang online teaching context, each of these three identifying resources may separately ‘stand for’ a person’s identity (Simpson & Goodyear, 2022). For example, the PSTs may be represented by an ID name or photo/avatar on their ‘tile’, the face may be visible if the camera is on, or the voice may be the only notification of attendance if the camera is turned off. Confusion can be caused by shifting identity boundaries, which reduce or enhance perceived connectedness (Lamb et al., 2022). As seen below, where PSTs’ identity could not be easily verified, the teacher works to reassure the student that they are acknowledged as an approved member of the class. This kind of talk upholds the principles of reciprocity and support. TEACHER:  Oh,

is that the right E? She’s got a different surname. [The PST identity could not be checked against her ID] PST:  I am here … Sorry, my mum… TEACHER:  I believe you’re here… As long as your voice is here, that’s fine [The PST’s identity could not be visually verified] In contrast, other examples of talk in Phase 1 clearly underline the authoritative role of the teacher who controls access to the online platform as the host. This overt management works against the interactive classroom culture the teacher tries hard to inculcate. The teacher may apologise for their power, but the discursive signal is clear that they can limit entry to, or forcibly exit PSTs from the class: TEACHER:  Sorry, B. I forgot to check the waiting room. Apologies. TEACHER:  Hello. I just had to boot the others out of the room to make space for you guys. While the impact of virtual and physical boundaries has been well noted in previous studies of online learning (Lamb et al., 2022; Simpson & Goodyear, 2022), here we call out the impact on relational aspects of interactions as significant to the classroom culture. In terms of dialogic analysis, Phases 1 and 6 in the Big Wave were highly relational, yet even these interactions were framed in a learning space that allocated each speaker from separately dispersed contexts an individual ‘tile’ on a screen, which stood in for a representation of the collective classroom. Therefore, we believe that the intended pedagogic design was impacted by the “interaction of digital and non-digital entities that construct educational environments” (Lamb et al., 2022, p. 3).

Discussion The RQ asked, “What does dialogic pedagogy contribute to initial teacher education?” In the discussion, we address two key points arising from the findings. The first is the challenge of shifting discourse norms to establish a dialogic classroom culture designed to empower PSTs with an authoritative stance in ITE. The second important finding relates to the impact of online contexts on dialogic learning.

Dialogic pedagogy  201 Establishing a new classroom culture in ITE The analysis shows how hard it is to shift ‘discourse norms’ despite the deliberate adoption of repertoires for dialogic teaching that attempts to match the communicative approach to teaching purpose. There was some indication of culture shift as the teacher attempted to position the PSTs as authoritative. However, evidence from the Small Wave analysis shows the meetings were heavily teacher-led with little interaction within the group. The teacher now recognises how much more difficult it is for PSTs to adopt a role of professional authority when they continue to position themselves as learners. The judgement that the PSTs made in the context of answering the teacher’s prompt questions was to demonstrate CK and the worthwhile nature of their pedagogic designs (Shulman, 2015). However, PSTs were tightly focussed on providing the ‘right’ answers and were not responsive to the dialogic opportunities woven into the teacher talk to demonstrate more sophisticated, professional meta-awareness (Loughran, 2019; Simpson et al., 2018). The most successful dialogue, where traces of reciprocal and cumulative contributions could be seen, was when an open question was asked of the group and space was created for reflection. It was here, when the emphasis was taken off the pre-prepared questions, that the PSTs demonstrated their deep understanding. Each time this optional part of the lesson phase was introduced a broader range of more complex dialogic engagement ensued across a “spectrum of student learning talk” (Alexander, 2020, p. 145). As the intent of the lesson was for PSTs to demonstrate epistemic fluency (Markauskaite & Goodyear, 2015) in crossing the professional boundary from the role of learner to graduate teacher, it appears redesign is necessary for future reflective discussions. More explicit signalling of the interactive culture shift is needed to encourage this kind of argumentation as an appropriate claim for professional authority. As shown earlier in the chapter, the analysis reveals how the teacher unintentionally signalled conflicting messages by scaffolding PSTs’ professional agency while simultaneously claiming back the key authoritative stance. This double standard only became visible to the teacher through a close study of the stunted interactions in a process of critical self-review. The findings suggest it is just as important for teachers as it is for PSTs to attend to the impact of discursive layering from word level, for example, technical vocabulary demonstrating content knowledge, through to the explicit scaffolding of patterns of interaction. The impact of online contexts on dialogic learning The failure of the interactions to become more dialogic was not only due to the role played by the academic and the learning design. The nature of the meetings in Zoom meant that PSTs experienced more hurdles through which they had to negotiate interactions (Lamb et al., 2022). The materiality of the learning context impacted both social and intellectual outcomes. Turn-taking became more hesitant and dependent on the ‘host’ naming the next speaker.

202  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang As PSTs were ‘admitted’ from a waiting room, and then often sought permission to speak, this also delayed contributions. During the welcome part of the lesson, the teacher and PSTs collectively shared their technological challenges. It was often in this first Phase that the academic deliberately downgraded their authority by apologising for glitches. However, as soon as the mandatory question sections started, a more formal structure was imposed that focussed on purposeful discussion. As this interaction was managed through naming of individuals or visible use of raised hands [emoticon or actual], time lapses occurred, and the control of the turns was held by the academic. It is noticeable that the one group who met face-to-face in one classroom to speak to their teacher in Zoom did not need to negotiate turns in the same way and their speech patterns were far more fluid. They adopted the commonly used strategy of finishing each other’s sentences, looking at each other and adding quick overlapping commentary, which increased the supportive nature of their talk. Comparing the two different learning setups, it is clear that the interactive settings of the physical classroom and the online environments provided different affordances for dialogic learning (Lamb et al., 2022). Implications for practice and future research questions In an ITE context, where there is an increase in mandated content and emphasis on skills-based learning, time needs to be taken to explore pedagogies that enable teacher agency. As “dialogic teaching is about the agency of teachers as well as students, and with agency comes responsibility” (Alexander, 2020, p. 2), the study has demonstrated the need to teach explicitly about dialogic teaching for it to become effective. Future research could (a.) explore ways to authorise PSTs’ legitimacy as disciplinary experts by building opportunities for more dialogic pedagogy and (b.) promote PSTs’ leadership roles in online interactions. These moves are both significant and necessary and need to be realised explicitly using appropriate linguistic markers.

Conclusion In this ITE context where the PSTs were learning through dialogue about dialogue in teaching, the teacher sought to validate the subject being taught (Alexander, 2020, p. 132) by scaffolding a shift in the PSTs’ understanding of dialogic pedagogies. However, the analysis shows the teaching talk was not a good ‘fit’ with the teacher’s pedagogic aim. The learning for ITE providers that can be derived from this exploration of dialogic pedagogy shows the need for increased adaptation of the educative cultures in which and from which PSTs learn how to shape their future teaching. Alexander warns of the unequal power relations that exist in classrooms, noting that past experiences socialise students into habits of learning that are hard to shift, if teachers hold control of initiating moves (2020, p. 119). As we wish these future teachers to cross the professional boundary marker from PSTs to classroom-ready teachers, more intentional work needs to be done with

Dialogic pedagogy  203 teacher and learner talk. We need to ensure that the dialogic pedagogies we adopt encourage a shift of discourse norms so PSTs can both develop and demonstrate their professional agency.

Ethics statement The data was collected under HREC Ethics protocol 2019/250.

References Alexander, R.J. (Ed.) (2010). Children, their world, their education: Final report and recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review. Routledge. Alexander, R.J. (2017). Developing dialogue: Process, trial, outcomes. Paper presented at the 17th Biennial EARLI conference, Tampere, Finland. Alexander, R.J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (n.d.). Australian Curriculum: English. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/ english/ Buchanan, J., & Schuck, S. (2016). Preparing a ‘classroom-ready’ teacher: The challenge for teacher educators, In I. Gibbs (Ed.), Teacher education: Assessment, impact and social perspectives (pp.1–21). Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Day, C. (2020). How teachers’ individual autonomy may hinder students’ academic progress and attainment: Professionalism in practice. British Educational Research Journal, 46(1), 247–264. Eteläpelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research Review, 10, 45–65. Halliday, M.A.K. (1980/2004). Three aspects of children’s language development: Learning language, learning through language, learning about language. In J.J. Webster (Ed.), The language of early childhood (pp. 308–326). Continuum. Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. Edward Arnold. Hargreaves, A., & Goodson, I. (1996). Teachers’ professional lives: Aspirations and actualities in I. In Goodson & A. Hargreaves (Eds.), Teachers’ professional lives (pp.1–27). Falmer Press. Lamb, J., Carvalho, L., Gallagher, M., & Knox, J. (2022). The postdigital learning spaces of higher education. Postdigital Science and Education, 4, 1–12. Loughran, J. (2019). Pedagogical reasoning: The foundation of the professional knowledge of teaching. Teachers and Teaching, 25(5), 523–535. Markauskaite, L., & Goodyear, P. (2015). Epistemic fluency and professional education: Innovation, knowledgeable action and working knowledge. Springer. Martin, J. (1992). English text: System and structure. John Benjamins. Mayer, D., Dixon, M., Kline, J., Kostogriz, A., Rowan, L., Walker-Gibbs, B., & White, S. (2017). Studying the effectiveness of teacher education: Early career teachers in diverse settings. Springer. Phillipson, N., & Wegerif, R. (2020). The thinking together approach to dialogic teaching. In E. Manalo (Ed.), Deeper learning, dialogic learning & critical thinking: Research based strategies for the classroom (pp.32–47). Routledge. Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: An ecological approach. Bloomsbury Publishing.

204  Alyson Simpson and Tingjia Wang Renshaw, P. (2016). On the notion of worthwhile agency in reformist pedagogies. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 10(1), 60–63. Shulman, L.S. (2015). PCK: Its genesis and exodus. In A. Berry, P. Friedrichsen, & J. Loughran (Eds.), Re-examining pedagogical content knowledge in science education (pp.3–13). Routledge. Simpson, A. (2016). Dialogic teaching in the initial teacher education classroom. Invited paper for special issue: Talking to learn: Dialogic teaching in conversation with educational linguistics. Research Papers In Education, 31(1), 89–106. Simpson, A., Cotton, W., & Gore, J. (2021). Teacher education/ors in Australia: Still shaping the profession despite policy intervention. In D. Mayer (Ed.), Teacher education policy and research: Global perspectives (pp. 11–25). Springer. Simpson, A., & Goodyear, P. (2022). Dialogic teaching and the architecture of hybrid learning spaces: Alexander meets Alexander. In E. Gil, Y. Mor, Y. Dimitriadis, & C. Köppe (Eds.), Hybrid learning spaces (pp. 265–286). Springer. Simpson, A., Sang, G., Wood, J., Wang, Y., & Ye, B. (2018). A dialogue about teacher agency: Australian and Chinese perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 316–326. Thwaite, A., Jones, P., & Simpson, A. (2020). Enacting dialogic pedagogy in primary literacy classrooms: Insights from systemic functional linguistics. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 43(1), 33–46. Toom, A. (2019). Shaping teacher identities and agency for the profession: Contextual factors and surrounding communities. Teachers and Teaching, 25(8), 915–917. Vrikki, M., Wheatley, L., Howe, C., Hennessy, S., & Mercer, N. (2018). Dialogic practices in primary school classrooms. Language and Education, np. https://doi. org/10.1080/09500782.2018.1509988 Wang, T., & Simpson, A. (2020). Facilitating effective pedagogic design in initial teacher education through dialogic learning. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 43(3), 193–204. Wegerif, R. (2008). Dialogic or dialectic? The significance of ontological assumptions in research on educational dialogue. British Educational Research Journal, 34(3), 347–361. Yin, R.K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Sage.

13 A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development Carole Bignell

Introduction This chapter will consider how teacher educators might support in-service teachers to develop dialogic teaching in their classrooms. In doing so, it will draw upon research from a one-year project undertaken with three newly qualified primary teachers in schools in England (Bignell, 2012). The project adopted a dialogic approach to teacher continuing professional development (CPD), within which the researcher (who was also a teacher educator) assumed the role of pedagogical mentor (Yaffe, 2010) to the participant teachers. The following questions informed the research: • Can a dialogic approach to teacher professional development facilitate teacher self-evaluation as a means of developing a more dialogic classroom? • What factors inhibit/enable teachers seeking to develop dialogic teaching in the Primary classroom? The chapter will begin by locating this research project within the current literature related to dialogic teaching before going on to briefly review the challenges in-service teachers might face when seeking to develop their dialogic teaching skills. The research participants and methodology will then be introduced, with the chapter concluding with findings and recommendations related to how teacher educators might support in-service teachers to develop dialogic teaching.

Informing Literature Alexander (2020, p. 128) has defined dialogue as, the “oral exchange and deliberative handling of information, ideas and opinions”, and dialogic teaching as: A pedagogy of the spoken word that harnesses the power of dialogue, thus defined, to stimulate and extend students’ thinking, learning, knowing and understanding, and to enable them to discuss, reason and DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-18

206  Carole Bignell argue. It unites the oral, cognitive, social, epistemic and cultural, and therefore manifests frames of mind and values as well as ways of speaking and listening. (Alexander, 2020, p. 128) In his earlier work, Alexander (2008) identified five dialogic teaching principles that might guide teachers and learners seeking to engage in genuine learning dialogue. It was these five principles that informed the research project that is the focus of this chapter. More recently, Alexander (2020) has refined these principles and added a sixth. Outlined in detail in the introductory chapter, they assume that teaching is more likely to be dialogic when it is collective, supportive, reciprocal, deliberative, cumulative and purposeful. Whilst this research project predates the publication of Alexander’s (2020) refined work on dialogic teaching, connections will be made to this more recent work throughout the chapter. Implementing dialogic principles in practice is not without challenges. As early as 2004, Alexander recognised the challenge that teachers face in generating classroom discussion that is both open-ended and purposeful (a point that will be picked up later in this chapter), recommending that teachers be encouraged to engage in professional dialogue with respect to this. Following this, Mercer, Dawes and Kleine Staarman’s (2009, p. 363) research concluded that, even when working with experienced teachers, most “do not have a high level of understanding of how talk ‘works’ as the main tool of their trade and very few have been taught specific strategies for using talk to best effect”. Mercer and Howe’s (2012) recommendations furthered this perspective, noting that teachers should be offered support in identifying specific strategies to promote dialogic forms of talk. However, Boyd (2015, p. 291) was keen to remind colleagues that dialogic teaching requires teachers to demonstrate commitment to assuming a dialogic stance in relation to classroom interactions – a stance that is committed to the purposes and functions of dialogue and not solely “tied to particular overt structures”. In response to these challenges, more recent research has begun to further explore the intersection between linguistics and dialogic teaching (Jones & Hammond, 2019; Hammond, 2016; Jones & Hammond, 2016; Hennessy et al., 2016; Michaels & O’Connor, 2012; Sedova, 2017) in order to better understand how the “twin perspectives of dialogic teaching and educational linguistics” (Simpson, 2016, p. 102) might offer complementary ways of researching pedagogic action in the field of dialogic teaching. As Jones & Hammond (2016, p. 1) note, educational linguistics can provide the tools for “making dialogic moves more visible so that they may be better understood with respect to their educational consequences”. More recently, Alexander (2018) has presented the findings of a large-scale UK randomised control trial focussed on teacher professional development for dialogic teaching, with an emphasis on promoting teacher understanding of talk repertoires. He notes that there is a need for teachers to develop “a broad repertoire of talk-based pedagogical skills and strategies” (Alexander,

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  207 2018, p. 3) that might support them in making decisions about how to promote dialogue that is responsive to classroom context and pupil capacities. These repertoires address interactive culture and settings, learning talk and teaching talk, questioning and extending, and discussing and arguing. Through these repertoires the teacher can scaffold pupil exchanges, guiding and prompting students with the intention of expediting the ‘handover’ of key curricular concepts and principles. In the practical application of the repertoires, teachers are encouraged to select the type of talk that best suits the learning purpose and to focus on the quality and dynamics of classroom interactions when seeking to further dialogic teaching. Within repertoires five and six, Alexander (2020) considers how teachers might deliberately enact talk moves to encourage students to listen carefully to one another, think together, deepen reasoning and expand and clarify their thinking. These moves, he argues, can serve to replace evaluation in the ubiquitous initiation-response-evaluation exchange (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) and, in doing so, open up an interactional space for students to engage in talk repertoires that include explanation, analysis, justification, challenge and argumentation. Describing the talk move as the engine of dialogic teaching, Alexander (2020, p. 136) notes, “the move is probably the level that repays the most attention”. Drawing deeply on the work of Michaels & O’Connor (2012), with a reminder that talk moves should be strategically deployed rather than mechanically implemented, Alexander identifies nine talk moves that might open up dialogic opportunities within classroom talk. The repertoires and principles for promoting dialogic teaching are considered in detail in Alexander’s (2020) framework and, whilst the framework is intended to be conceived of holistically, the findings of this chapter more specifically address: how the teachers in this study came to make sense of interactive culture in relation to dialogic teaching; teacher promotion of talk moves to scaffold dialogic discussion; and the challenges the teachers faced in selecting the type of teacher talk that might best support purposeful student discussion.

The Participant Teachers The participants in this research project were three teachers of Primary-age students. They had all completed a BA in Education at the same university and were in their first year of teaching. In England, such teachers are referred to as newly qualified teachers (NQTs). The NQTs were familiar with the researcher as she had been their English specialism lecturer whilst they were at university. They had volunteered to participate in this research. Pseudonyms are used when referring to these teachers. Natalie taught a class of Year 3 students (aged 7–8 years), Deborah taught a class of Year 5 students (aged 9–10 years) and Val taught a class of Year 5 girls. As the project proceeded, the researcher worked individually with the NQTs in the role of pedagogical mentor (Yaffe, 2010), supporting them to better understand the principles of dialogic teaching and interactional

208  Carole Bignell strategies for promoting this. The mentor role was more formal at the start of the project, as a one-hour ‘training’ session was provided for each teacher. In this session, the teachers were introduced to Alexander’s (2008) five principles and invited to discuss definitions of dialogue and dialogic teaching. They were also briefly introduced to research related to talk moves (Alexander, 2003; Nystrand et al., 2003; Wolf et al., 2006, Sharpe, 2008) that might offer a ‘way into’ dialogic teaching. The dialogic nature of this mentor role will be considered in the next section. Over the course of the project, the teachers faced numerous challenges when seeking to enact dialogic teaching in their classrooms. These challenges framed the shared discussions between each teacher and the researcher about dialogic teaching practices. They informed shared attempts to locate pedagogical practice within Alexander’s (2008) principles of dialogic teaching and to enact talk moves that might open up genuine dialogue in the classroom.

Research Design and Conduct Data were collected in the form of videoed extracts of classroom teaching; recordings of discussions between the researcher and each participant when analysing/reflecting upon episodes of videoed talk; pre- and post-project semi-structured interviews; and researcher field notes. The research adopted an ethnographic perspective (Bloome & Green, 2004, p. 184) that sought to describe “particular aspects of everyday life and cultural practices of a social group”. Whilst the researcher was not present in the NQTs’ classrooms, access to videos of classroom practices, and repeated viewings of these, facilitated the kind of ‘extensive listening’ that can be regarded as “a process of ‘mediated’, repeated and repeatable ethnographic observation” (Rampton, 2006, p. 31). Edmonds and Kennedy (2019) note that data collected from such research can guide the researcher to understand the experiences of individuals within a particular culture and interpret behaviours as shaped by cultural context. In the case of this research, the culture was that of three English Primary classrooms, and the behaviours of interest were the practices of the NQTs and their students as they sought to understand and enact dialogic teaching approaches. The research was positioned as a co-constructed teacher/researcher inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993), with each NQT working individually with the researcher. Its purpose was to bring “the world of research and the world of practice closer together” (Savoie-Zajc & Descamps-Bednarz, 2007, p. 578), with the intention of constructing knowledge about dialogic teaching that might lead to better-informed practice. Data collection proceeded as below (Table 13.1). Throughout the period of data collection and analysis, the researcher and teachers sought to assume a dialogic stance. For example, when jointly reviewing teaching episodes, these were iteratively viewed with teacher and researcher pausing or replaying the video extract as needed to initiate or develop a point of discussion. Furthermore, when annotating transcripts for evidence of

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  209 Table 13.1  Research timeline Timeline Start of Term 1

Start of Term 1 (subsequent to interviews) Term 1

Term 2 Term 3 End of Term 3

Teacher/Researcher actions Semi-structured interview – Each NQT was encouraged to talk at length about their beliefs and understanding of talk in the classroom, with an emphasis on dialogic teaching. Interviews were thematically analysed. ‘Training session’ introducing NQTs to key concepts related to dialogic teaching. NQTs negotiated ground rules for talk with their students (based upon Mercer and Dawes’ (2008) principles). NQTs decided where, within the planned curriculum, opportunities for dialogic teaching might be exploited, video-recording lessons of their choice and reviewing these independently of the researcher throughout the term. NQTs selected one episode of teaching to be jointly transcribed and annotated with the researcher. All episodes were teacher-led with group sizes varying from five pupils to the whole class. Initial annotation of transcripts focused on a simple content analysis, identifying where Alexander’s principles of dialogic teaching were evident in the transcript. Joint action planning was undertaken, with next steps identified. Researcher field notes were made during and after each session. As Term 1 – annotation of transcripts also included talk moves (see Findings). As Term 2 Semi-structured interviews (as Term 1).

Alexander’s principles of dialogic teaching, the researcher and teachers discussed whether a word or phrase might seem to signal a particular principle, for example, student use of a phrase such as, ‘Going back to what Eva said…’ might be annotated as an attempt at student cumulation. This process of analysis was constrained by the time available to the teacher and reflected a ‘loose’ analysis – evidence of shared tentative thinking. During these discussions, the researcher assumed a questioning stance, for example, directing the teacher to a particular part of the transcript and asking them to think aloud as to the interaction taking place or encouraging the teacher to elaborate upon a point of analysis. Finally, during joint action planning the researcher acted as a note taker to facilitate this process, seeking not to ‘tell’ but rather to provide a conduit for focused reflection and identification of next steps. The actions outlined above sought to minimise the impact of power relations upon the teachers and, in doing so, to adhere to Robertson’s (2000, p. 311) notion of “maximum reciprocity” within the research. The agreed intention was that the teacher/researcher relationship would seek to embody “give-and-take, a mutual negotiation of meaning and power” (Robertson, 2000, p. 311) and, through doing so, develop a shared understanding of the teachers’ experiences of enacting dialogic teaching in their classrooms. Gee (2011, p. 7) notes that power relations can never be truly undermined since “language is always ‘political’”. Being a teacher educator (and

210  Carole Bignell the participants’ former university tutor), there was clearly potential for the researcher to exert undue influence over the teachers’ interpretations of their developing dialogic practices. Equally, to not exert influence at all would be to fall into the trap of dialogical idealism (Lefstein, 2006) – simply being a fellow participant in discussion with the teachers rather than a dialogic facilitator or mentor. As such, the researcher had continuously to tread a fine line between opening up genuine dialogue with the teachers about their videoed teaching episodes and ensuring that such discussion was purposeful – facilitating new learning for the teachers by steering the professional discussion with specific teacher learning goals in view (Alexander, 2008).

Findings Through consideration of three key findings, this section sheds light on the teachers’ experiences of the dialogic approach to CPD. It considers: how university experiences contributed to the teachers’ understanding of interactive culture; the need for the teachers and researcher to have a shared language for talking about dialogic teaching; and the challenges the teachers faced in promoting both cumulative and purposeful talk. The Impact of University Experience on the NQTs’ Understanding of Interactive Culture All of the teachers commented that their university experience had been influential in developing their commitment to and understanding of dialogic teaching. A commitment to classroom talk was evident in all pre-project interviews. In her interview, Natalie referred to talk as a skill that needs to be learned, noting that students needed to learn to ‘listen as well as talk’. Throughout, the relationship between effective talk and learning was foregrounded, and it was clear that Natalie was keen to ensure that her students felt able to participate in classroom talk. Deborah, in her initial interview, noted the importance of discussion that enabled students to speak and be heard. She also stressed that students should be given time within discussion to think, offer explanations and share reasoning. Deborah also referred to her values related to talk, noting that she was keen to encourage students to have an opinion and recognise that others’ opinions might differ from theirs. In her interview, Val emphasised talk as a tool for thinking and expression. She explained that she valued talk that enabled students to formulate an opinion, spark an idea, develop a point, rehearse thinking out loud and support the thinking of others. She noted of classroom discussion: I think it is integral really. I think it is hugely important that children have a voice and that they are valued and that they feel they can contribute without fear of ever being shot down for what they say, so that any idea is a valid one. (Val, pre-project interview)

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  211 It was clear to the researcher that all the teachers recognised talk as being central to learning in their classrooms, with participation being key to this. However, it was Deborah and Val who conceptualised the talk they aspired to in a way that more closely aligns with the characteristics of dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2008, 2020). Their explanations of the purpose of talk as a tool for rehearsing thinking, developing points, offering explanations, formulating opinions and sharing reasoning align closely with Alexander’s (2020) principles of reciprocal, deliberative and cumulative talk. Of course, the quotation from Val, above, is also indicative of a teacher committed to promoting the all-important supportive context within which dialogue might take place. Ground rules were also introduced and displayed to promote pupil participation in dialogic talk. They were promoted both for the management of turn-taking and listening behaviours and to encourage the deliberative norms of participation in discussion. At the start of each recorded session, Natalie revisited the ground rules, restating the importance of listening to others, considering alternative viewpoints and being willing to develop a fellow student’s point. At the start of one of her sessions, Deborah reminded her students: If somebody says something interesting that you would like to add on to you can say, ‘I agree with such-and-such because’ and if they have said something that you would like to ask them about, you can ask people questions the way I do. So, if I ask somebody something, they give me an answer, I can then prompt them even further by saying, ‘Why do you think that?’. You can do that to your friends too. (Deborah, lesson transcript) Through these actions, the teachers explicitly encouraged a culture of student participation, seeking to promote discourse norms that might better support dialogic interactions. In post-project interviews, the teachers were asked to outline those factors that most enabled dialogic teaching to develop in their classrooms over the course of the project. The teachers’ reflections on the impact of their university teaching were unexpected. They had received only four days in university dedicated to the relationship between talk and learning, with a small amount of this time specifically focused on dialogic teaching. However, all teachers noted that their experiences of talk during their time at university had been fundamental in informing their understanding of the value of dialogic talk. As Deborah reflected: I remember the kinds of questions you used to ask me…it’s pushing you to think more and not just to be satisfied with the first answer you have given, to then go further. And I think there was a lot of that in university… I’ve had the experience of what discussion is like when it works.

212  Carole Bignell Alexander (2020) notes that classroom ground rules, or discourse norms, can become routinised through reinforcement and use. He suggests that they can become part of classroom culture, a means of encouraging participant voice, where teachers model the way they expect students to engage interactionally. For Deborah, it seems that the direct experience of being a participant in dialogic discussions during her university training had provided a schema for ‘doing dialogic talk’ that she could subsequently use to inform her classroom teaching. A Shared Language for Talking about Dialogic Teaching The use of a simple framework of dialogic talk moves, accompanied by shared transcription, analysis and action planning, provided the researcher and teachers with a shared metalanguage to talk about and reflect upon the developing dialogic teaching in the classrooms. Transcribing and analysing the teacher-selected video extracts and discussing next steps were integral to this research. Whilst finding the time to undertake such an activity was a challenge, all the teachers acknowledged the value of this activity in terms of their developing professional practice. The post-project interviews provided an opportunity for the teachers to reflect upon their experiences of shared transcription, analysis and action planning. During this interview, Val commented on the benefit of separating the tasks of transcription, analysis and action planning as a process that allowed her to slow down the teaching and ‘step outside’ of herself in order to analyse talk practices. She noted that this was integral to her professional development ‘because that is where the discovery happens’. Furthermore, both Deborah and Natalie were keen to stress that this ‘discovery’ was facilitated by dialogic discussion between themselves and the researcher. Both commented on the role the researcher had played in steering the discussion of their videoed teaching to ensure that key concepts related to dialogic teaching were drawn out from the analysis. For example, Deborah reflected: Collaborative recording and looking at it and transcribing are hugely useful. If I had done that by myself, I don’t think I would have learned anything. I would have seen things there that weren’t there. I would have missed things that were there. The dialogic research has allowed me to find more characteristics that I can home in on, so that I can understand dialogic talk better and promote dialogic talk rather than just talk. It is noteworthy that, in the first term of this project, the teachers and researcher had relied primarily on Alexander’s five principles (Alexander, 2008) to frame discussion and analysis of transcripts. However, what soon became clear was that, whilst the teachers were able to recognise (and label) occurrences of the principles within their transcripts, this was insufficient in raising their awareness of which talk moves they might choose to enact in

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  213 future interactions with their students. Whilst talk moves had been introduced briefly within the initial training session, they had not been foregrounded or explored in detail. This was partly because the researcher was keen not to lead the teachers towards a misconception that dialogic teaching could be reduced to a tick list of measurable properties to be mechanically implemented. However, it was Natalie, recognising that dialogic talk required her to ‘fine tune’ responses to pupil contributions, who first requested clearer guidance for enacting talk in such a way that it might better open up dialogic possibilities. She was seeking a linguistic scaffold to guide her practice and support reflection on progress in her journey towards dialogic teaching. In fact, it had become clear to all the participant teachers that they were reliant upon the researcher to probe thinking when analysing transcripts yet insufficiently equipped to do this independently. It seemed that these teachers lacked a metalinguistic resource – a specific language to describe, analyse and inform their interactions with students. Thus, as the in-school project proceeded, the researcher drew together a tentative list of dialogic talk moves, drawing upon a range of literature within the field of teacher-student talk. This framework of talk moves included invitations to students to: “explain, justify or amplify their responses” (Sharpe, 2008, p. 138); use linking and thinking phrases (Wolf et al., 2006); and ask questions of peers (Alexander, 2003). For the teachers, the talk moves included the use of teacher linking phrases (Wolf et al., 2006); probing pupils for more extended responses (Alexander, 2003); withholding teacher evaluation (Alexander, 2003; Nystrand et al., 2003) and use of low-control acknowledging moves (Sharpe, 2008). Examples of talk moves were discussed with each teacher, and the moves were used to guide shared analysis/reflection in terms two and three of the in-school project. Talk moves, and the way in which teachers might use these to uptake or promote uptake of student contributions, have more recently been addressed in detail through Alexander’s (2020) repertoires of ‘questioning’ and ‘extending’. What is important with respect to this chapter is the way in which this shared metalanguage informed discussion and teacher action planning. Alongside Alexander’s (2008) principles of dialogic teaching, the identification of talk moves (and the way in which they did or did not broker reciprocal, cumulative and purposeful talk) helped to focus transcript analysis in terms two and three of the project. Furthermore, from this point, the teachers more confidently identified actions specifically related to linguistic interactional behaviour in their action plans. These stood in contrast to the more general descriptions of classroom talk used in their pre-project interviews (as outlined above) and included: Being willing to probe a child’s thinking in order to seek clarification. • • Ensuring that, at key points, teacher contributions move the conversation forward or sum up points made so far. • Withholding teacher feedback in order to indicate to students that a range of views is welcome.

214  Carole Bignell • Greater use of prompting to encourage extended turns and probing for justification and reasoning. • Being conscious of how teacher talk might encourage dialogic rather than just extended talk. • Ensuring that students are invited to cumulate the contributions of others. • Probing students to encourage them to explore an idea further or justify their thinking. It seems clear that observing, participating in and learning about dialogic teaching was insufficiently supportive in enabling the teachers to independently identify and adopt interactional practices previously acknowledged as complex and fundamentally challenging (Alexander, 2004). However, the process of shared transcription and analysis, accompanied by a clear and shared metalanguage for discussing dialogic teaching, had facilitated these teachers in gaining “informed control over how they interact” with their students (Nystrand et al., 2003, p. 47). However, context is important here. The teachers and researcher were engaged in a period of extended professional development, framed by a dialogic discussion that was interested not just in the interactional patterning of talk moves but in a discussion about their impact on subsequent learning dialogue and teacher/student dialogic intent. This discussion foregrounded Alexander’s (2008) dialogic principles and the teachers’ commitment to assuming a dialogic stance and did not seek to reduce dialogic teaching to a tick list of interactional behaviours to be mechanically deployed (Alexander, 2020). The Challenge of Promoting Purposeful Talk All of the teachers initially struggled to reconcile the need to purposefully steer talk with the desire to promote pupil cumulation within the context of genuine dialogue. The challenges of dialogic teaching were discussed during video review sessions, considered during post-project interviews and reflected upon in researcher field notes. A key challenge for the teachers was how to purposefully steer classroom talk (in order to ensure that it remained focused on the intended learning), without controlling the talk. In this context, purposeful talk is understood as that which “though sometimes open-ended, is nevertheless structured with specific learning goals in view” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). The challenge of purposeful talk became apparent in two ways: selecting a knowledge-accountable learning context that might best afford purposefulness and cumulation; and understanding how teacher interventions might shift classroom talk from simply a sharing of ideas to that which expedites a “handover of concepts and principles” (Alexander, 2008, p. 30). Thus, the teachers’ first challenge was that of choosing the ‘preferred’ lesson for practising their dialogic teaching skills. In the first term, all of the teachers chose to video Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  215 lessons. In reflecting upon this decision, Natalie noted that dialogic teaching was most appropriate for a ‘really open subject, such as PSHE’ where students, ‘might be talking about feelings and things like that, so everybody has their own interpretation’. Val’s views were similar: If you are trying to find a space to validate your decision and say, ‘right in this lesson we are going to do dialogic talk’, then PSHE is a brilliant place to do it because it is all about relationships and how we treat each other; and we talk about being respectful and the rules for how you talk with each other and the way that you communicate. It’s a natural place for it. In response to teachers’ choice of preferred subject, the researcher shared with them a transcript of teaching from a mathematics lesson (Chapin, et al., 2003) that seemed to demonstrate Alexander’s (2008) five principles; and, in the second and third terms of the project, all of the teachers began to try out dialogic teaching approaches in more knowledge-accountable subjects. Reflecting in the post-project interviews upon her term three focus on dialogic teaching in mathematics, Natalie noted, ‘there is absolutely no way I could have done this straight off, even with a small group’. It is interesting to note that this challenge of situating dialogic teaching within subjects perceived to be more accountable to knowledge proved also to be an enabler to dialogic teaching for these teachers. As they had practised dialogic teaching skills in PSHE lessons, so they and their students had begun to acquire interactional skills that might subsequently be used in more knowledge-accountable contexts. Alexander recommends that, when starting out with dialogic teaching, teachers might “concentrate first on getting the ethos and dynamics right” (Alexander, 2008, p. 52) – promoting talk that is collective, supportive and reciprocal – before attending to purposefulness and cumulation. By initially selecting less knowledge-accountable contexts for developing dialogic teaching, it seems that this was what the teacher participants in this project had done. Understanding how teacher interventions might shift classroom discussion from simply a sharing of ideas to purposeful talk was the teachers’ second challenge. Natalie’s experience offers a good illustrative example of this. A summary of the recordings of the teacher/researcher discussions with Natalie across the three terms and associated researcher field notes is provided below. When reflecting upon the video that she had shared in the first term, Natalie noted that she had struggled to position her role within dialogic teaching. She had puzzled over the extent to which she should actively intervene to support students in sharing reasoning and cumulating contributions. She was keen not to be a dominant voice in discussion. Essentially, she was grappling with how to be both ‘goal-directed and dialogic in a way that enables students…to express their own ideas and speak on their own terms’ (Alexander, 2020, p. 55). However, after shared analysis of the second

216  Carole Bignell transcript, what had become clear was that, in an attempt not to dominate the talk (as she had done previously), Natalie had neglected to purposefully steer the talk, hoping that the students would step up and cumulate one another’s contributions. As such, in this second episode, almost all teacher talk moves had been used to encourage pupil contributions and no moves were used to guide the students towards the acquisition of curricular concepts through prompts for pupil cumulation or probing pupil thinking. Transcript analysis showed that the talk had quickly deviated from the intended learning outcomes, and the following field note was made: It seems that Natalie might need to consider how to balance the children’s rights to have a view with her right as a teacher to intervene through talk in order to move children’s learning forward. It is not sufficient for students simply to build upon one another’s ideas – the talk needs to be purposeful. The challenge is to address the balance between encouraging participation and structuring understanding. (Researcher field notes subsequent to Term 2 shared reflection) This balance between encouraging participation and structuring understanding (essentially between cumulation and purposefulness) became a focus of discussion during terms two and three. This discussion explored the way in which Natalie had assumed the role of facilitator, setting aside opportunities for constructive teacher intervention that might have both encouraged pupil cumulation and brokered the “handover of concepts and principles” (Alexander, 2020, p. 109) that is so central to dialogic teaching. Thus, action planning in term three focused on the role of the teacher in constructively intervening to ensure that talk remained learning-focused. In the post-project interview, Natalie reflected upon this discussion and action planning, noting: It has made me very aware…I now don’t just accept an answer. My expectations from the children are that I would expect them to tell me about their answers, justify their answers. Whilst in her final interview, reflecting upon the tension between ‘teacher-dominated talk’ and purposeful talk, Deborah commented: I think I talked much less. I tried not to not to sum up after every single comment. I tried to give them [the students] some time just to reflect. And I’m trying to ask them more probing questions after they have given an opinion. Alexander (2001, in Alexander, 2020) reminds us that teachers need a broad repertoire of teacher talk if they are to successfully facilitate students to listen carefully to one another, share reasoning and think together. He  warns

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  217 against the temptation of dichotomous thinking that consigns some teaching talk types (such as teacher exposition and instruction) to the archive of ‘traditional’ methods, going on to note, “a well-judged explanation… may scaffold students learning and understanding no less effectively than carefully judged questioning and follow-up” (Alexander, 2001 in Alexander, 2020, p. 146). Thus, it seems that if the teacher is to purposefully steer talk towards a clear educational goal, then structured cumulative questioning and discussion, which makes use of the range of teaching talk repertoires as required, is the means by which this might be achieved. Keeping discussion purposefully focused on the educational goal, deliberately deploying talk moves that might promote cumulation, and encouraging students to express their own ideas are inherently challenging. For Natalie, the researcher/mentor was influential in leading her back to the key principles that might inform her decision-making around talk and helping her to plan for subsequent dialogic teaching opportunities.

Concluding Remarks Implications for teacher educators seeking to support teachers in their journey ‘towards dialogic teaching’ (Alexander, 2008) might be as follows. Firstly, teacher educators should reflect upon how they provide models of dialogic practice in their teaching and consider whether specific tuition about dialogic teaching might be (more fully) integrated into university sessions. Secondly, if early-career teachers are to be supported in developing dialogic teaching practices, they need not only to observe, participate in and learn about dialogic teaching but also to understand and be able to use the metalanguage of dialogic teaching. There is merit in teachers and teacher educators having access to a linguistic framework of dialogic talk moves that have the potential to scaffold acquisition of this shared metalanguage. This linguistic framework could offer a metacognitive resource for teachers seeking to reflect upon both teacher stance in relation to classroom interaction (Boyd, 2015) and the talk moves that might facilitate dialogic teaching. Such a framework is now evident in Alexander’s (2020) repertoires. Within this, teachers are encouraged to develop “a broad repertoire of talk-based pedagogical skills and strategies” (Alexander, 2018, p. 3) that are attentive to classroom culture and organisation, types of learning and teaching talk, and talk moves within the context of classroom interactions. Finally, teacher educators should consider how they might support schools in making use of such a framework. Ideally, early-career teachers should have opportunities to work with experienced colleagues/mentors (perhaps with the support of teacher educators) to regularly review their teaching and discuss its dialogic intent and interactional patterning. As such, teacher educators should consider how they might support schools in identifying and training those pedagogic mentors who can, in turn support early-career teachers in developing the dialogic tools of their trade (Mercer et al., 2009).

218  Carole Bignell

Ethics statement The research project received ethical approval from the researcher’s institution. All adult participants provided informed consent for recording the interviews, episodes of teaching and shared transcription sessions. Permission to undertake the research was granted by the head teacher of each school, and the researcher spent time with each class introducing the video equipment and explaining the intended conduct of videoed lessons. Students were asked to verbally indicate their consent to participate at the start of each lesson and guardian consent was also sought. Students were reminded that, if they did not wish to be video recorded, the camera would be positioned accordingly. All participants were free to withdraw up until the anonymisation of data.

References Alexander, R.J. (2001). Culture and pedagogy: International comparisons in primary education. Blackwell. Alexander, R.J. (2003). Talk for Learning: The firset year. First formative evaluation of North Yorkshire’s Talk for Learning Project, part of the Council’s Education Development Plan for 2002-7. Retrieved from: http://robinalexander.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2019/12/North-Yorks-report-03.pdf Alexander, R.J. (2004) Talk for Learning: The second year. Second report from the formative evaluation of North Yorkshire County Council’s Talk for Learning project, Autumn 2004. Retrieved from: http://robinalexander.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2019/12/North-Yorks-report-04.pdf Alexander, R.J. (2008). Towards dialogic teaching (4th Ed). Dialogos. Alexander, R.J. (2018) Developing dialogic teaching: Genesis, process, trial. Research Papers in Education, 33(5), 561–598. Alexander, R.J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Bignell, C.A. (2012). A dialogic endeavour: A study of three newly qualified teachers’ journeys towards dialogic teaching. EdD thesis, University of Sheffield. Retrieved from: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3402/1/Carole_Bignell_%2880217855% 29_Thesis_Final_for_EdD%5B1%5D.pdf. Bloome, D., & Green, J. (2004). Ethnography and ethnographers of and in education: A situated perspective. In J. Flood, S. Heath and D. Lapp, (Eds.), A handbook for literacy educators: Research on teaching the communicative and visual arts (pp. 181–202). Macmillan. Boyd, M.P. (2015). Dialogic teaching and dialogic stance: Moving beyond interactional form. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(3), 272–296. Chapin, S. H., O’Connor, M.C., & Anderson, N.C. (2003). Classroom discussions: Using math talk to help students learn, grades 1–6. Math Solutions Publications. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1993). Inside/outside teacher research and knowledge. Teachers College Press. Edmonds, A.W., & Kennedy, T.D. (2019). Ethnographic perspective. In An applied guide to research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (4th ed., pp. 152–158). Sage Publishing. Gee, J. P. (2011). An introduction to discourse analysis theory and method (3rd ed.). Routledge.

A Dialogic Approach to Teacher Professional Development  219 Hammond, J. (2016). Dialogic space: Intersections between dialogic teaching and systemic functional linguistics. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 5–22. Hennessy, S., Rojas-Drummond, S., Higham, R., Márquez, A.M., Maine, F., Ríos, R.M., & Barrera, M.J. (2016). Developing a coding scheme for analysing classroom dialogue across educational contexts. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 9, 16–44. Jones, P.T., & Hammond, J. (2016). Talking to learn: Dialogic teaching in conversation with educational linguistics. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 1–4. Jones, P.T., & Hammond, J. (2019). Talking to learn. Routledge. Lefstein, A. (2006). Dialogue in schools: Towards a pragmatic approach in working papers in urban language & literacies. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/ 6465356/WP33_Lefstein_2006_Dialogue_in_schools_Towards_a_pragmatic_ approach Mercer, N., & Dawes, L. (2008). The value of exploratory talk. In N. Mercer & S. Hodgkinson (Eds.), Exploring talk in school (pp. 55–72). Sage. Mercer, N. Dawes, L., & Kleine Staarman, J. (2009). Dialogic teaching in the primary science classroom. Language and Education, 23, 353–369. Mercer, N., & Howe, C. (2012). Explaining the dialogic processes of teaching and learning: The value and potential of sociocultural theory. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 1, 12–21. Michaels, S., & O’Connor, C. (2012). Talk Science Primer. Retrieved from: https:// inquiryproject.terc.edu/shared/pd/TalkScience_Primer.pdf Nystrand, M., Wu, L., Gamoran, A., Zeiser, S., & Long, D. (2003). Questions in time: Investigating the structure and dynamics of unfolding classroom discourse. Discourse Processes, 35(2), 135–198. Rampton, B. (2006). Language in late modernity interaction in an urban school. Cambridge University Press. Robertson, J. (2000). The three Rs of action research methodology: Reciprocity, reflexivity and reflection-on-reality. Educational Action Research, 8, 307–326. Savoie-Zajc, L., & Descamps-Bednarz, N. (2007). Action research and collaborative research: Their specific contributions to professional development. Educational Action Research, 15, 577–596. Sedova, K. (2017). A case study of a transition to dialogic teaching as a process of gradual change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 278–290. Sharpe, T. (2008). How can teacher talk support learning? Linguistics and Education, 19, 132–148. Simpson, A. (2016). Dialogic teaching in the initial teacher education classroom: “Everyone’s voice will be heard”. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 89–106. Sinclair, J.M., & Coulthard, R.M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse: The English used by teachers and pupils. Oxford University Press. Wolf, M.K. Crosson, A.C., & Resnick, L.B. (2006). Accountable talk in reading comprehension instruction. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED492865. Yaffe, E. (2010). The reflective beginner: Using theory and practice to facilitate reflection among newly qualified teachers. Reflective Practice, 11(3), 381–391.

14 Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education Marion Heron

Introduction The university seminar has become a ubiquitous and fundamental feature of higher education both in the UK (Demissie, 2016) and internationally (Aguilar, 2016; Gbadamosi, 2015; Goodman et al., 2014). Seminars are generally structured around small group interaction and aim to “foster criticality and promote individualised thinking” (Walsh & O’Keeffe, 2010, p. 154) through “theory-practice disciplinary dialogue” (Aguilar, 2016, p. 335). Educational classroom talk (Vrikki et al., 2019) is fundamental to successful seminar participation as students are expected to articulate their ideas, challenge each other and justify their claims – all part of developing their higher-order thinking (Heron & Palfreyman, 2021). Although the performative nature of higher education learning, with its ‘tyranny of participation’ (Gourlay, 2015) and deficit view of silence (Sequeira, 2021) has been contested, this study is premised on sociocultural theory in which classroom talk is central to the development of understanding (Clarke et al., 2016). Academic speaking skills are key to accessing academic discourse (Mauranen, 2012) and demonstrating disciplinary knowledge (Arkoudis & Doughney, 2014). The dialogic interaction is thus viewed as an opportunity for ‘deep learning’ (Lueg et al. 2016) and key to developing disciplinary understanding (Mah, 2016). For example, in the context of High School biology classes, Clarke et al. (2016) identified that a minimum level of verbal participation was necessary for developing conceptual understanding. There is no reason to doubt that this claim would also hold true in a higher education disciplinary context. Seminars take place in particular educational and sociocultural contexts which may present certain challenges such as institutional constraints and lack of awareness around the rules of participation. The dialogic interaction in a seminar will be influenced to some extent by teachers’ and students’ dialogic stances (Alexander, 2020; Heron, 2018) or dialogic dispositions (Lefstein, 2010). Despite the centrality of seminars to the higher education experience, little is known about how dialogue ‘gets done’ in its particular educational and sociocultural context (Heron & Dippold, 2021) and even less across disciplinary contexts. A number of handbooks on teaching in higher education provide techniques and tips for managing and leading DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-19

Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education  221 seminars (e.g. Fry et al., 2008), yet few studies reveal the reality of the university seminar (Goodman et al., 2014; Heron, 2018) and even fewer highlight the teacher’s voice in exploring these realities. Foregrounding teachers’ experiences of dialogic teaching in seminars can help to move away from an idealised perception of dialogue (Lefstein, 2010) and instead contribute to a context-appropriate understanding of dialogic interaction in higher education disciplinary seminars. To explore face-to-face seminar interaction across three different disciplinary contexts, this chapter puts to work Lefstein’s (2010) conceptual framework of the interactional, cognitive and relational dimensions of dialogue and Alexander’s (2020) six principles of dialogic teaching. The study was driven by the following questions: • How are dialogic dimensions and the six principles of dialogic teaching reflected in classroom discourse? • Which dialogic dimensions and principles of dialogic teaching are reflected in teachers’ commentary on their classroom discourse?

Context Taking a broad perspective on learning and teaching, Gravett (2020) argues that in education we tend to focus on the cognitive and humanist whilst ignoring the social and the material, which includes aspects such as artefacts, spaces, time and power. Gravett (2020) reminds us that these sociomaterial features are entangled with educational experiences “as opposed to simply existing as a backdrop to learning activity” (p. 9). In exploring seminars, we can see how the dialogic interaction could be ‘entangled’ with a number of sociomaterial aspects such as the size of the classroom, the curriculum, disciplinary traditions and the tasks, all part of the pedagogical context (Alexander, 2020) and which can contribute to dialogic tensions (Lefstein, 2010) or incongruences (Alexander, 2020). A number of tensions may arise in seminar interaction. Students may feel inhibited or unwilling to verbally participate due to a perceived lack of content knowledge, lack of linguistic resources or unfamiliarity with the format (Engin, 2017). Furthermore, students may not agree with the interactive nature of the seminar. For example, Demissie (2016) found that students in an HE seminar did not see the point of divergent discussion. A further tension may be the disconnect between the teacher’s dialogic stance and the curriculum. For example, Goodman et al. (2014) identify the challenges of allowing opportunities in the seminar for discussion while following a prescriptive curriculum. These findings highlight the realities of the seminar setting.

Theoretical framing The theoretical perspectives informing this study are Lefstein’s (2010) multidimensional perspective on dialogue in education and Alexander’s (2020)

222  Marion Heron six principles of dialogic teaching. Considerable evidence supports claims that a dialogic teaching approach which is collective, supportive, reciprocal, deliberative, cumulative and purposeful (Alexander, 2020) provides opportunities for students and teachers to co-construct understandings (Alexander & Hardman, 2017), which is relevant to an exploration of seminar interaction. The theoretical framework is discussed below with reference to other seminal literature in the field of dialogic interaction and educational dialogue. The framework is an attempt to map across dialogic dimensions and dialogic teaching principles whilst recognising that this may not be as clear cut as Table 14.2 portrays, and that in practice, seminar discourse may reflect multiple dialogic strategies and purposes. The meta-communicative dimension (Lefstein, 2010). This dimension highlights dialogue as an interactional structure. The structure is evidenced by discourse patterns of question/answer, in particular, the default classroom interaction identified by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) of Initiation – Response – Feedback (IRF) (See Chapter 2, this volume). The IRF pattern, or recitation script (Alexander, 2020), has been expanded in recent literature and includes feedback moves which involve probing and follow-up questions to prompt deeper thinking (Hardman, 2016), reflecting the dialogic teaching principle deliberative. The interactional structure can be supported by strategies such as Talk Rules (Mercer & Dawes, 2008) or Ground Rules for discussion (Brookfield & Preskill, 2016). Also of relevance is the importance of listening, as reflected in the dialogic teaching principle reciprocal (Alexander, 2020) and the teacher’s planning of the lesson, reflected in the dialogic teaching principle purposeful. The ideational dimension (Lefstein, 2010). This dimension is concerned with the development of cognitive processing through dialogue. In other words, classroom talk is seen as a tool for thinking. Mercer and Littleton’s (2007) exploratory talk, in which students make their thinking visible through articulating ideas and challenging others, is an example of the ideational dimension in practice. Similarly, Michaels et al.’s (2008) Accountable Talk and Alexander’s (2020) cumulative, deliberative and purposeful dialogic teaching principles are examples of discourse strategies which support the construction of knowledge and development of critical thinking. Of particular significance to an HE context is Hennessey et al.’s (2016) framework of educational dialogue which identifies particular talk codes as being crucial for conceptual understanding. What unites these different frameworks is a notion that cognitive processing can be supported and evidenced through certain linguistic functions where learning, knowledge and understanding are co-constructed in the dialogue (Heron & Palfreyman, 2021). The interpersonal dimension (Lefstein, 2010). This perspective views dialogue as a means of showing and maintaining care, respect and appreciation. Alexander’s (2020) supportive, collective and reciprocal principles of dialogic teaching recognise the significance of the relational through dialogue which develops and maintains positive classroom dynamics. It is arguable that without the prerequisite trust and openness developed through the

Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education  223 relational dimension of dialogue, the ideational dimension – may not thrive. In a classroom context, this means that students will only feel comfortable or safe sharing ideas and grappling with new concepts in an environment which is respectful and caring. A summary of dialogic dimensions mapped onto Alexander’s (2020) principles of dialogic teaching can be seen in Table 14.2 with corresponding features and codes from the current study. Reference to Lefstein’s (2010) dialogic dimensions and Alexander’s (2020) six principles of dialogic teaching allows us to analyse the linguistic features of dialogue as well as the relationships and dynamics of the classroom context. However, whilst an analysis of classroom discourse and linguistic features can reflect the dialogic principles of the classroom talk, such an analysis is limited. To understand the pedagogic context and ‘backdrop’ of the classroom discourse we also need the teacher’s voice reflecting beliefs and attitudes towards a dialogic classroom. It is also important to understand the reasons for interactional choices and decisions made in real time. A broader analysis acknowledges the tensions and incongruences of a dialogic classroom (Alexander, 2020), such as the challenge of promoting cognitive engagement on a topic through deliberative dialogue whilst ensuring a comfortable and safe place for sharing ideas.

Methodology Research design and methods This was a qualitative study drawing on transcripts of face-to-face classroom interaction and stimulated recall interviews (SRIs) with teachers with the aim of exploring dialogic dimensions in seminars in terms of classroom practices and teacher experiences (Silverman, 2020). This chapter reports on part of a larger project which involved six seminars across a range of disciplines and year groups. For the purposes of this chapter, three disciplines will be examined. The details of these three seminars are presented below in Table 14.1. The seminars ranged from undergraduate to postgraduate programmes and the teachers’ experience ranged from novice (e.g. PhD student) to experienced teachers (e.g. 30 years).

Table 14.1  Contextual details Tutors’ teaching experience

Level

Discipline

Students’ background (UK/ international)

Number of students in class

A B

25+ years Less than a year

UG PG

Mixed Mixed

15 8

C

Less than a year

PG

Liberal Arts Tourism Management Health Psychology

Mixed

20

224  Marion Heron The three seminars were audio recorded by the author, who was also present in the seminar to take observational notes and collect teaching materials. Following the seminar, the audio recordings were transcribed verbatim. Shortly after the seminar, the three teachers were invited to a SRI to discuss their classroom interaction. The SRI was centred around the author’s choice of a number of short extracts in which there was evidence of dialogic interaction or a lack of dialogic interaction. This was to ensure the discussion was based on focused aspects of the dialogic interaction (Meier & Vogt, 2015). During the SRI the teacher had access to the transcript and the relevant section of the recording was played. The SRIs were recorded and subsequently transcribed verbatim. SRIs were used as they can provide the teacher’s perspective and reasons for decision making which may not be evident in the classroom transcripts (Dippold, 2014). Since the aim of this study was to foreground teachers’ voices, experiences and “cognition-in-action” (Li, 2013, p. 67), SRIs were an appropriate method. SRIs provided a richer and more nuanced picture of dialogue in practice, highlighting beliefs and values as well as challenges and tensions (Gass & Mackey, 2000; Heron, 2018). Gass and Mackey (2000) suggest the use of an artefact or ‘stimulus’ in the SRI and it was felt that the transcript and audio recording would prompt the teacher to reflect on what they did rather than what they think they did (Dempsey, 2010). Researcher positionality Researcher positionality needs to be explicated in this study to provide contextual and background information (Baker et al., 2019). The author was familiar with the research site of the study and with two of the three teacher participants, having worked with them either in the capacity of colleague or tutor. The researcher has a background in educational linguistics and an interest in the area of dialogic teaching. These ‘resources’ (Holliday, 2016) were drawn on in the study. To ensure rigour and transparency, a colleague unfamiliar with the research context and participants acted as a critical friend. Data analysis A framework based on Lefstein’s (2010) three dialogic dimensions and Alexander’s (2020) six principles of dialogic teaching was used as a heuristic to analyse the seminar and SRI transcripts. Table 14.2 outlines indicative features of each dimension and dialogic teaching principle which could be evidenced through linguistic indicators from the classroom interaction (e.g. the question type). The coding framework was also used to analyse teachers’ reflective comments in the interviews (e.g. how the teacher refers to dialogue). The data analysis was iterative, using Table 14.2 as a guide. Evidence of the dialogic dimensions was mapped onto the framework and cross-checked several times. As noted above, a critical friend provided feedback and critique

Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education  225 Table 14.2  Coding system for linguistic features Dialogic dimension (Lefstein, 2010)

Dialogic principles (Alexander (2020)

Evidenced by

Examples from data

Metacommunicative Dialogue as interactional structure Ideational Dialogue as cognitive activity

reciprocal, purposeful, deliberative

Structures & patterns, Questions Patterns

What did you read? How do we handle them? Start us off.

purposeful, deliberative, cumulative

Tell me something about… Do you have anything to add? What do health disparities mean to you?

Interpersonal Dialogue as relations

collective, supportive, reciprocal

Question types (open, genuine), Cooperative inquiry, Criticality & meaningfulness Reciprocity Attention to emotions

That’s a good point. Excellent!

of the initial analysis. Their feedback has been incorporated into the presentation of the data.

Findings This section presents an analysis of three short illustrative extracts from seminar classroom discourse from each of the disciplinary seminars. In order to represent the teacher’s voice and contextualise the dialogic interaction, the linguistic analysis is followed by a commentary from the SRI highlighting comments which reflect dialogic dimensions and principles of dialogic teaching. Teacher A: Liberal Arts The excerpt in Table 14.3 demonstrates the metacommunicative dimension of dialogue through the question–answer routine, as well as the ideational dimension as reflected in the teacher’s use of open and probing questions. The teacher directs the student to ‘start us off’ in Turn 1. This is followed by a number of seemingly planned, open questions to stimulate critical thinking. For example, the first question ‘so tell me about’ is followed by ‘what did you read?’ and finally ‘what came up?’ S1’s response in Turn 2 is elaborated, as seen in the length of the utterance and the complexity of the clauses. The teacher then asks a probing follow-up question ‘so this pragmatism is about seeing the consequences?’ to encourage the student to further elaborate. The systematic ordering of the questions from open questions to probing questions evidences both deliberative and purposeful dialogic teaching principles.

226  Marion Heron Table 14.3  Liberal Arts seminar extract Turn

Speaker

Coding

1

T

2

S1

3 4

T S1

I asked you to read a paper or a chapter in a book by Elkjær, Bente Elkjær – that was my vague attempt at sounding slightly Danish – who wrote a chapter talking about this notion of pragmatism. But pragmatism from a slightly different perspective from how we in the English language would use the notion of pragmatism. So, tell me something about, or tell our colleagues whose writing [unclear] something that you can write up about the pragmatism chapter by Elkjær. Well, what did you read? What came up? Yes, please, go on. Start us off. [Overtalking] so, everyday language, what we all perceive to be pragmatism in everyday language is a person that’s focused on results and solutions. They often critique [unclear] abandon their morals to get something done or to get a job, something finished or completed. Whereas philosophically, a person that has an understanding or an ability to see the consequences of something, not just want to get something done but be able to see the end result. So, this pragmatism is about seeing the consequences? Yes

The teacher’s comments on this extract (see Table 14.4) both support and refute the linguistic analysis above. Whilst the linguistic analysis suggests purpose in the planned series of questions, Teacher A saw his approach as unstructured: ‘but I don’t quite know what we’ll talk about’ and potentially ‘lackadaisical’ in the students’ eyes. However, the ideational dimension of the interaction is evident in both the linguistic analysis and the teacher’s interview. He states that his aim is to keep the dialogue open and follow the students’ train of thinking ‘what you guys decide you’re going to bring’. The importance of dialogue which is deliberative must be carried out in a context of trust, evidencing Teacher A’s value in the interpersonal dimension: ‘but I think if you’ve got the trust developed with them that’s [a less planned approach] less of a problem’. In summary, the teacher believes in critical thinking and discussion, which he orchestrates through a series of open and probing questions planned around a reading text. Teacher B: Tourism management The extract in Table 14.5 is reflective of dialogue as an interactional structure in which the IRF pattern prevails through teacher questioning, student response and teacher feedback. The questions seem to be guiding the students to a particular ‘correct’ answer rather than providing an opportunity for critical thinking. The extract also reveals the interpersonal dimension as evidenced through praise and positive feedback. The questions in Turn 1 ‘How do we handle profitable but not loyal customers?’ and ‘If you find that they are not part of your customer cohort, what do you do?’ seem to anticipate

Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education  227 Table 14.4  SRI Teacher A Turn

Speaker

1

T

2 3

I T

I think it’s probably, I think the thing, the thing I would comment on in there is that there’s quite a nice example I think of me wandering into an area and then not quite sure where I’m going to go. Where is that bit? So in here, which is the consequence of me planning that we’ll talk about Elkjær, but I don’t quite know what we’ll talk about with Elkjær and it will depend on what you guys decide you’re going to bring, and I have read it and I know it but I’m not quite sure. And I think there are pros and cons to that approach as there probably are with everything. I think the pro, of that, is it allows hopefully the student to experience, or the other people in the room to experience that I’m, they can see that creative process whether it works or not, first hand. There’s the negative that they could lose confidence if they perceive it as he doesn’t, he’s not planned what he’s doing other than broadly, but I think if you’ve got the trust developed with them that’s less of a problem. But, again, that might mean just covering my own backside that actually says because they’re quite happy with that approach that I’m slightly lackadaisical who knows where we’ll go.

Table 14.5  Tourism management seminar extract Turn

Speaker

1

T

2

S1

3

T

Exactly, that’s a good point. You need to really provide them with some access to exclusive events so that this will make them remain attached. That exclusivity makes them feel special. Good point. That’s a more usable strategy you can use to make sure you maintain such profitable and loyal customers or true friends, so to speak. How do we handle profitable but not loyal customers, strangers? How do we handle them? If you find that they are part of your customer cohort, what do you do? You need to identify this early. You need to find out their last purchase. You need to identify it very early and then invest nothing because you’ve identified that they might not or will not be loyal. Exactly. Again, you need to do your research and try to find out where their numbers are, and make sure that this comes very timely so that you don’t have to waste money on this group of customers. The second group, do you have anything to add?

content responses based on the lecture session which preceded the seminar and noted by the teacher’s response ‘Exactly’. The interpersonal dimension is reflected in a number of encouraging and positive comments: ‘Exactly’, ‘that’s a good point’. In terms of the ideational dimension, there is no opportunity in this extract for critical thinking and elaboration, although there is

228  Marion Heron an attempt to evidence the cumulative dialogic teaching principle through the prompt in Turn 3: ‘The second group, do you have anything to add? The SRI on the classroom extract (see Table 14.6) supports the presence of the interpersonal dimension and supportive dialogic teaching principle evident in the linguistic analysis. Teacher B values students’ sense of safety and comfort and identifies his role in ensuring this: ‘that kind of maintaining a happy mood and smiley kind of face really helped them, you know, participate without being scared of me or shy of their colleagues’. However, there are some incongruences between his beliefs about the value of shared power and the actual classroom practice. Although in the interview he highlighted the importance of students taking a lead in the interaction: ‘if I went and I was talking at them the whole time then there’d be no need for them [the students]’, the linguistic evidence would suggest otherwise due to the rigid IRF structure. Table 14.6  SRI Teacher B Turn

Speaker

1 2 3

I T I T

So, you’re happy with the interaction and the participation? Yes, I am happy with it and I would say, keep it up, to myself. Yes, okay. Great. Why do you think the students participate? What encourages them to participate do you think? First I think it is to do with how I made them feel relaxed, you know. Encouraging them to speak when even they don’t feel like doing so. I see you… tell me the last time, that kind of maintaining a happy mood and smiley kind of face really helped them, you know, participate without being scared or me or shy of their colleagues etc. So, I think that’s one thing my demeanour in the classroom contributed to the engagement. The other thing is the kind of activities that I give to them, so that if I went and I was talking at them the whole time then there’d be no need for them … or I wouldn’t really achieve this goal of having them talk, but once you give them very practical assignments which require some time to ponder and then give feedback, then definitely you’ll get them doing what you want them to do. So, I would say mainly the kind of rapport I’ve managed to build between me and my students, as well as the kind of activities I hand to them really, you know, did the trick of helping us engage, yes.

Teacher C: Health psychology The extract in Table 14.7 reflects mostly a metacommunicative dimension of dialogue as demonstrated by the IRF pattern of teacher questions and student responses. The questions in Turn 1 seem to be open but the follow-up question in Turn 3‘so what disparities in particular? suggests there is a correct answer,

Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education  229 Table 14.7  Health psychology seminar extract Turn

Speaker

1

T

2

S1

3 4 5

T S1 T

So before we start, before I start much more, what do health disparities mean to you guys? Does the phrase mean anything in particular; do you have any kind of understanding, any thought about it at all this year? Disparities within population you’re looking at maybe or just the general population I suppose. So disparities in what in particular? Socio-economic status I suppose, accessibility to care. Accessibility to care, yes, absolutely. So really what we’re thinking about is health outcomes. So whether that’s mortality or morbidity.

further confirmed by Teacher C’s response: ‘really what we’re thinking about is health outcomes’. The ideational dimension of dialogue is absent due to the lack of opportunities for students to think critically or elaborate on their ideas. There is linguistic evidence of the interpersonal dimension as seen through the use of collective ‘we’ ‘before we start’ and affirmation of S1’s response through repetition of the answer ‘accessibility to care’ and praise: ‘absolutely’. Table 14.8  SRI Teacher C Turn

Speaker

1

T

2

I

3

T

Yes, I could, yes, that’s fine. So I suppose I kind of at the time, yes, I wanted the students to try and tell me what they thought the lecture would be about or the topic of health inequalities and I suppose I was trying to elicit from them that we’re talking about differences in the health outcomes. And actually they jumped straight into kind of things that lead to differences in the outcomes, which is fine. But certainly at the time and also just generally in the time that you were observing me I was kind of quite aware that – to me they felt like large pauses, I found it quite difficult to get the students to talk. But I mean I thought I did. They did answer but it was very…I suppose partly that’s the first time I’ve lectured to most of the people in that room. I had met some of them but also they’re kind of sussing you out at the same time. So do you generally like to ask questions and then get the students to be thinking about the topics, is that your style generally? Yes, I would say so, I would like…I try to just, so definitely I take a deliberate tactic to try and ask open questions to the students to get them to answer me. But because I’m sort of fairly new I think it’s only about my third lecture sometimes the nerves run away with you and you forget to ask the open question you just…Do you see what I mean?

230  Marion Heron In the interview on this extract (see Table 14.7), Teacher C revealed a dialogic tension between her values and beliefs about the deliberative dialogic teaching principle and the challenge of putting this into practice. For example, although she highlighted the importance of open questions: ‘definitely I take a deliberate tactic to try and ask open questions to the students to get them to answer me’, and identified the first brainstorming question in Turn 1 above: ‘yes, I wanted the students to try and tell me what they thought the lecture would be about’, she acknowledged that it was not always possible to implement this One of the reasons she suggested is lack of confidence: ‘sometimes the nerves run away with you and you forget to ask the open question’. Her lack of confidence is also revealed in her attitude towards silence: ‘to me they felt like large pauses, I found it quite difficult to get the students to talk’: In summary, Teacher C believes in the crucial role of the ideational dimension and seemed to align herself with a deliberative dialogic teaching principle. However, she seemed unable to demonstrate this in the classroom interaction for a number of reasons, possibly due to a lack of awareness and lack of experience (Table 14.8).

Discussion and implications for practice This study set out to explore Lefstein’s (2010) dialogic dimensions and Alexander’s six principles of dialogic teaching as evidenced in HE seminar interaction and teachers’ reflections on the interaction. In particular, the study is concerned with how teachers and students ‘do dialogue’ within the  educational, sociocultural and sociomaterial contexts of HE seminars. The findings from this study are expected to contribute to both HE seminar practice and HE research agendas. This section will discuss the findings and suggest implications for practice and further research. The metacommunicative dimension of dialogue was prominent across all three seminars. This is unsurprising given that it is evidenced in patterns of interaction such as question–answer routines and familiar seminar interaction patterns. Such an interaction pattern can be planned to a certain extent and fulfils the purpose of guiding the students through the content. Teachers recognised the role of seminars in providing question–answer opportunities and Teachers B and C, in particular, commented on their questioning. The educational context here is relevant as both Teachers B and C were PhD students and therefore ran seminars based on previous lectures which were given by a senior colleague. Their role was to provide an opportunity for students to engage with the topic in smaller groups. Teacher B makes this clear in his desire to give students the opportunity to talk but Teacher A was the sole seminar teacher for the subject and this perhaps allowed him to take a less prescriptive approach to the aims of the seminar session. However, whilst all three teachers acknowledged the importance of questions, there was a range in the quality of questioning contributing (or not) to critical thinking and the ideational dimension of dialogue. Teacher A talked about the importance of allowing students to take their thinking where they

Dialogic dimensions of seminars in higher education  231 wanted. This was demonstrated in practice with his probing questions aimed at critical thinking as well as in his reflections on the classroom interaction. However, tension arises in his concern that students may not ‘trust’ his less prescriptive approach. This is borne out by studies which show that students differ in terms of the extent to which they expect guidance and control in a seminar discussion (Demissie, 2016; Goodman et al., 2014). Teachers B and C, possibly due to lack of experience, were more focused on the need to ask questions rather than the type and purpose of the question. This was clear with Teacher C, who valued open questions but did not demonstrate this in practice. Arguably, the nuances of question types, questioning practices and encouraging student-initiated questions (Alexander, 2020) take time to understand and incorporate as part of teaching practice. (See Chapter 12, this volume.) For teachers A and B, the interpersonal dimension was evidenced in different ways. Reciprocity and the sharing of power are demonstrated in Teacher A’s classroom discourse as well as his beliefs about teaching and learning, but Teacher B’s reflection highlights a tension between the desire to allow students room for dialogue and the need to keep to the curriculum. This difference in approach to unstructured, student-centred dialogic teaching reflects the teachers’ dialogic stance (Heron, 2018). Arguably, this may be the result of teaching experience and exposure to teacher education activities. Similarly, there seem to be disciplinary differences in the approaches to knowledge production and co-construction (Neumann, 2001), demonstrating a range of epistemic stances and values on student contributions (Alexander, 2020; Sedova et al., 2016). For example, in the Liberal Arts extract, in which students were discussing ideas from a reading text, the teacher asked open questions, working with the students to develop their understanding and co-construct their understanding of the key concepts. In contrast, however, in the Health Psychology and Tourism extracts, the teachers aimed to impart knowledge and content, and so asked closed, display questions with expected ‘correct’ answers. By recognising the sociomaterial, we see that the nature of the discipline and teacher experience is not just a backdrop (Gravett, 2020), but is in fact entangled with the way in which teachers and students create dialogue and opportunities for dialogue. Although the number of extracts presented in this chapter is small, a few tentative suggestions can be made. These ideas may better help teachers and students understand how the classroom talk and dialogic interaction can support or impede the co-construction of disciplinary understanding in a seminar context. Firstly, the framework of dimensions of dialogue has provided a heuristic in this study for the analysis of classroom interaction, but there is no reason to doubt its efficacy as a tool for self-evaluation and planning. The identification of features of dialogic dimensions can provide an empirical basis for in-service teacher development and evidence-based reflection (Walsh & Mann, 2015) where teachers can examine their own or others’ classroom transcripts.

232  Marion Heron Secondly, teachers and students can explicitly discuss the aims and purposes of a seminar and the importance of engaging in dialogic interaction. The ideational dimension, as reflected in rhetorical functions such as querying, elaborating and challenging, is fundamental to the aims of the seminar in terms of developing conceptual understanding (Hennessy et al., 2021). Teachers can consider the types of questions they ask in seminars, ensure that there is a variety of question types, including questions which probe and promote critical thinking (Brookfield & Preskill, 2016), and use this repertoire of techniques to skilfully guide the discussion. Teaching experience seemed to impact awareness of types of questions and therefore teacher training programmes, such as the Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, could incorporate more activities on the quality of questioning. Thirdly, for the ideational dimension to be fulfilled the appropriate classroom dynamics need to be established (Alexander, 2020). Whilst this involves creating a safe and relaxed environment, it is important to establish what students want and expect from a conducive environment for dialogue (Goodman et al., 2014). As Alexander (2020) notes, students will participate in a number of ways, both vocally by speaking up, and silently by listening and thinking. He argues that giving students a voice to choose how they participate is fundamental to dialogic teaching. As highlighted in the introduction to this chapter, the idealised dialogically interactive seminar is a myth. Contextual constraints, teaching experience, confidence of students and teachers, as well as a lack of shared norms and expectations can present tensions and render seminar interaction challenging (Lefstein, 2010). However, an awareness of these challenges can help us to create realistic expectations for students and teachers and recognise the sociomaterial context in which learning takes place. This study can provide a basis for future research studies, such as practice-based research (action research) by teachers (e.g. Vrikki et al., 2019), as well as further empirical research into dimensions of dialogic interaction, teacher/student perspectives and academic achievement.

Ethics statement This study received favourable ethical opinion from the Ethics Committee of the University of Surrey: UEC 2017 015 DHE Amendment 1.

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15 Collaborative knowledge building The dynamic life of ideas in online discussion forums Janine Delahunty, Pauline Jones and Irina Verenikina Introduction This chapter builds on a question posed to us by Harry Daniels (Professor of Education, Oxford University): “How do ideas live in groups? We expect them to arrive, ferment, go underground…and come up…like a subterranean rhizome” (meeting, 2014). To deepen our understandings of the dynamic life of ideas in online discussion, we revisit an earlier study and reflect upon Alexander’s dialogic teaching principles (2020). The study sought to address the challenge of how to engage students in productive online discussion, which was motivated by our experiences of shifting from face-to-face to online modes of discussion in university courses. While essential components for interacting are similar regardless of context or mode, in face-to-face interactions where opportunities exist for immediate clarification, we naturally draw on a complex range of meaning-making cues which include visual (body language), aural (voice variation) and the material or physical environment. However, these cues are non-existent in interactions which are written, asynchronous and online, increasing the potential for misunderstanding. Halliday & Hasan’s work (1986) provides insight into why asynchronous communication may be problematic. In considering the roles of participants in a communicative event Hasan theorises that the potential for interactivity is afforded by the channel (e.g. written, spoken). If visualised as a mode continuum, the graphic channel (written) offers less potential for interruption (and thus, for interactivity) as the reader and writer are separated, whereas the phonic channel (spoken) offers more potential. Thus, in communicative events which are graphic, interactions will tend towards monologic, or solitary, as Alexander (2020, p. 130) points out, because opportunities for instant feedback are less possible, while dialogic interactions are more possible in phonic events. Herein lies a significant issue as ‘discussion’ per se, should be dialogic. However, asynchronous academic discussions are often a series of solitary posts. Although the written text carries the meaning-making load, skills for effectively communicating in this mode of discussion are often assumed. In higher education, the skills needed to engage in a meaningful exchange of DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-20

236  Janine Delahunty et al. ideas aligned to learning outcomes must be made more explicit (Verenikina et al., 2019), as much is at stake in terms of how participants initiate and sustain academic discussion. An outcome of our research was the development and trial of a Guide for online discussion (see Verenikina et al., 2017) to help scaffold students into productive forum interactions. A collaboration between sociocultural approaches to learning and linguistic analyses of forum texts using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) enabled us to explore issues that arose from our experience of asynchronous online discussion, informed by a review of the literature (Delahunty et al., 2014b). The larger study included linguistic analysis of the interpersonal language used by participants to express attitudes and values (Delahunty, 2012, 2018; Delahunty et al., 2014a). The Guide makes explicit four essential components for fostering online discussion; this chapter focuses on how these align with Alexander’s principles of dialogue as supportive, collective, cumulative, reciprocal, purposeful and deliberative, together with his construct of teachers’ repertoires, described as “a broad array of interactive skills, strategies and moves…to exercise their own judgements about how these are most effectively applied to the particular contexts in which they work” (2020, p. 2; also see Chapter 1, this volume). Our goal in revisiting this earlier research is to describe the “interactive skills, strategies and moves” that are available and taken up, in order to foster productive dialogue in the complex online environment, which become visible through participants’ written contributions to discussions. In this way, we aim to contribute to the extant work on dialogic teaching as we move into increasingly hybridised learning environments. The chapter is underlaid with the rhizome metaphor to help understand the conditions under which dialogic moves to co-construct knowledge become visible in asynchronous online discussion. Just as much of the rhizome activity occurs below the surface of the soil, out of sight, so do many processes of learning. Under the right conditions, stems become the visible evidence of the underground activity as they are pushed up through the soil by plant nodes, either clumping together or giving the impression of individual plants (Baessler, 2020).

Theoretical framework Our study draws on complementary theories of language, learning and pedagogy, all of which recognise educational practice as deeply rooted in the sociocultural world. With respect to language, systemic functional theory (Halliday & Hasan, 1986) posits a close relationship between language and its contexts of use. As such, language users make choices from a reservoir of meaning-making potential available in the culture according to the demands of the context and the individual’s repertoire of resources. These choices configure meanings according to the purpose for which language is used (genre), the field of activity, the social relations or tenor and the mode (spoken or written language, visual, gestural). Thus, because of this close

Collaborative knowledge building  237 relationship between language and context, every instance of language use can be described in terms of its genre and register (Martin & Rose, 2008; see Chapter 2). The asynchronous online discussion forum is a key element of the curriculum genres (Rose & Martin, 2012) occurring in higher education, and, with respect to register, can be described in terms of its field (discipline-related), its tenor (interactions facilitated by the academic staff member for students; other interactions are student to student) and its mode (written language via the medium of the screen). In turn, these register variables are realised in texts in patterns of language as discourse semantics (Martin & Rose, 2007), across a text such as a discussion forum, as wordings in lexicogrammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and as phonology in speech or graphology in writing. Analysis using SFL enables us to see the influence of the online medium on how postings to a discussion forum contribute to the unfolding curriculum genre, how and what they mean in terms of the educational knowledge under construction, and the interpersonal relations at play. With respect to educational knowledge, Halliday argued that “official policy usually equates educational knowledge with the written mode and commonsense knowledge with the spoken; but teachers’ practice goes deeper – educational knowledge demands both, the two often relating to different aspects of the same phenomenon” (1987, p. 80). It is this orchestration of the spoken-like nature of the discussion forum and the written-like nature of the disciplinary knowledge during a sequence of instruction that interests us and we use SFL concepts to identify how disciplinary knowledge is co-constructed among forum participants. Sociocultural theory The pedagogical practices analysed in this chapter were underpinned by modern sociocultural pedagogies which conceptualise learning as a fundamentally social process where knowledge is actively co-constructed in interactions with the educator and peer learners (Daniels, 2001; Vygotsky, 1978). Language is seen as a vitally important part of the learning process, as the means of communication, the means of reasoning, a tool for higher-order thinking (“verbal thought”, Vygotsky, 1986) and the conveyor of the educational content (“scientific concepts” or academic meaning, after Vygotsky, 1986, p. 147; similar to educational knowledge in Halliday, 1987). To actively form their own understanding of the scientific concepts, the learner needs to make personal sense of them by connecting them to their unique experiences (“everyday” or “spontaneous” concepts, intuitively formed, Vygotsky, 1986, p. 148; similar to “common-sense knowledge” in Halliday, 1987). Sociocultural pedagogies suggest that “it is the responsibility of the teacher to establish an interactive instructional situation in the classroom” where “the teacher uses their knowledge to guide learning” (Daniels, 2001, Introduction). Intersubjectivity or the shared understanding in such interactive learning is

238  Janine Delahunty et al. essential for the co-construction of knowledge and its transformation into individual thought via internalisation (Vygotsky, 1986; Wertsch, 1985). However, as already mentioned, the meaning-making cues we rely on in faceto-face communication are absent in the asynchronous online environment, which challenges how intersubjectivity is established. Similar to Halliday (1987), Vygotsky (1986) discussed the differences between written and oral language, noting the strong points of each mode. He particularly emphasised the strength of written language as a tool for reflection and the development of higher-order thinking. Research into online learning argues that in asynchronous environments, the phenomenon of a mixed mode of written and oral communication emerges, drawing on the strength of both (Delahunty et al., 2014b; Hull & Saxon, 2009). This warrants an in-depth investigation of  the educational value of this mode of communication for learning and co-­construction of knowledge. Our previous research revealed that most online discussion lacked explicit communicative strategies for productive discussion that led to the co-construction of knowledge. Productive online discussion has been defined as an interaction which allows learners to collaboratively create new understanding through active engagement with the discipline knowledge (Mercer & Howe, 2012). Asynchronous interactions require mastering a particular set of language-based academic communication skills, which are essential but often not explicitly taught. As this mastery is quite unlike everyday social media interactions, we cannot assume that students (or lecturers) possess the skills to participate in academic online discussions that co-create new meaning in a particular discipline area. Following is a brief description of the communicative strategies (Verenikina et al., 2017), which align with Alexander’s six dialogic principles (2020). Establishing a positive social space This strategy focuses on building relationships through interactions among the participants (including the lecturer) as the “gateway” to developing new meanings (Halliday, 1994/2004, p. 381). The strategy creates the conditions under which joint learning and inquiry can be fostered, linking to the dialogic principles of collective (learning together), supportive (free expression of ideas) and reciprocal (‘listening’ as demonstrated through meaningful responses to each other). These are realised linguistically through interpersonal moves such as naming, acknowledging others/another’s idea, agreeing/aligning with, and collective language (we, us, our, etc.). Building collective understanding This strategy assumes a positive social space has been created and focuses on the collective building of understanding as participants add different perspectives and ideas to the discussion. This strategy links to the dialogic principles of reciprocal, collective and supportive, as well as purposeful (tasks are

Collaborative knowledge building  239 addressed together with clear learning outcomes) and cumulative (ideas are built upon and knowledge is co-constructed). These are realised linguistically through re-stating (rephrase, refine, clarify an idea), extending ideas and proposing alternatives. Constructing new knowledge This strategy is designed to move the discussion into deeper, more critical and analytical discourse to co-construct knowledge from a range of perspectives, linking to the dialogic principles (mentioned above) as well as deliberative (more critical engagement in points of view and justifying particular stances) and realised linguistically through presenting alternatives, challenging ideas and justifying a position.

Methods The data collected were texts from discussions held within six online tutorial forums, from which ideas related to each study topic were grouped, exchanged and discussed. Participants were the lecturer and 14 post-graduate students (pseudonyms used) enrolled in a fully online subject, Sociocultural Studies in the Early Years, in which tutorial discussion occurred asynchronously over 13 weeks. Each forum comprised a number of discussion prompts relating to the study topic which extended over a two-week period. Contributions to the first five forums were not assessed, although they counted towards attendance. The online communicative strategies were gradually introduced over the first three forums, giving students time to practise and build their skills. The sixth (final) forum, in which students were expected to demonstrate their engagement in productive discussion, was assessed (at 5% of the total mark).

The context Each discussion forum was built around a case related directly to a learning outcome and included a case study which presented a controversial idea that required students to take a particular stance. The students were required to be familiar with the topic of the lectures and the readings in order to respond to the task question. The reason for choosing a case was to establish a joint point of reference or intersubjectivity (Wertsch, 1985) by focussing students on the same task at hand – solving a problem together. Students were directed to implement particular discussion strategies in their forum postings. The findings in this chapter focus on two forums which explored the nature of ‘Talk’ as a key tenet in sociocultural theory (capitalised to differentiate from its everyday meaning/usage): Forum 1, where the content delivery had commenced, and Forum 5, where students were familiar with all the communicative strategies. From these forums, we sought to understand how

240  Janine Delahunty et al. Table 15.1  Legend used in the findings Logical relations of expansion (logicosemantic) relation symbols: [=] when there is a restatement or clarification of ideas – elaborating relations i.e. more information [+] when there is addition or variation to ideas – extending relations i.e. new information [x] when meaning is qualified through circumstantial relations – enhancing relations, indicating the construction of knowledge Bolded text is any reference made to the idea of Talk. Underlined text is when connections are made between Talk and other concepts. Bold italicised text is when alternative ideas are proposed.

ideas around Talk had evolved and the communicative strategies used in the unfolding group discussion, drawing upon both SFL and sociocultural approaches. We tracked relations between ideas using logical relations of expansion (logicosemantic relations). These are identified in SFL theory as resources for describing how ideas expand and grow (i.e. new or more information), with the development of new knowledge revealed when links are made between ideas and meaning is qualified through circumstantial relations (of time, place, manner or cause). The following student excerpt exemplifies this (from Delahunty, 2018, p. 19) (see Table 15.1 for an explanation of legend): I read your observations with great interest and of course agree that the trend [=] [restatement/generalising ideas from preceding posts] seems almost inevitable. The reading about Media Literacy, too, gave much food for thought. Cordes’ comment…however true [x of manner], made me wonder [x of cause] whether we are set on a path of inevitable, irreversible polarisation, globally. What made me mull over this [x of cause], is that in South Africa, there is a small percentage of schools… that enjoy access to the kind of technology we are reading about. The majority of schools simply do not have this technology.

Findings We present illustrative texts from the two forums, analysed using the above tools. Our analysis sheds light on practices that include establishing a positive social space, building collective understandings and constructing new knowledge which make visible the interactive skills, strategies and moves of productive online discussion. While we do not include the pre-topic introductory forum analysis in this chapter, importantly this was where the strategy of building supporting interpersonal relationships was introduced and put into practice. This strategy lays the relationship-building foundation and emphasises the notion of ‘attending to’ others as a way of demonstrating active listening/responding and individual responsibility to contribute, as well as a diversity of stances

Collaborative knowledge building  241 within discussion not only to be expected, but to be valued (Delahunty, 2018; Verenikina et al., 2017). Forum 1 The discussions in Forum 1 were on the topic of Children as active agents of their development and learning: constructivist theories and sociocultural approaches. The case study task was for students to (i) study the scenario and to choose which position they would support (i.e. that of Ann, the university student undertaking her professional experience in an Early Childhood Centre, or the supervising educator Ms Brown – adapted from Vialle et al., 2005) and (ii) discuss this on the online forum, using the strategies of building supportive interpersonal relationships (introduced in a pre-topic icebreaker forum); and collectively adding a range of perspectives/ideas to the discussion (addition/variation) (Figure 15.1). The ensuing forum consisted of 31 posts configured into five discussion threads posted by 13 students and the lecturer over a two-week period; during this time students viewed the forum 420 times. The 31 posts were subsequently broken into 359 clauses for close analysis. The first posting from student-participant Karen is included here: After reading the case, I would support Ann’s position. Each week for my specific reading lessons (not the transition story time or relaxation story time etc) I will focus on one particular book for 2–3 days. I will use ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson as an example (my favourite children’s book). The first day we focus on prediction of the text, sometimes I don’t read the text, we just look at the pictures as a class and predict/tell the story. Through this time, I allow children to share their ideas however, I feel it necessary to indirectly scaffold the Children as active agents of their development and learning: constructivist theories and sociocultural approaches An Early Years University student, Ann, was undertaking her Professional Experience In an Early Childhood Centre. She shared later that her supervising educator, Ms. Brown, would not allow her to scaffold children’s reading comprehension during shared reading. The educator demanded of Ann that books be read to the children without comments or leading questions. Her concern was that Ann would impose her own understanding of the story on children which might hinder their free interpretation of the story. Mostly, Ms. Brown was concerned with Ann’s questions on “story prediction”. She didn't think that asking specific questions such as, “Do you think the Duck will come back?” was appropriate. To support her claim, Ms. Brown referred to the theory of Piaget which she had studied in her undergraduate degree two decades ago. Whose position would you support? Ann’s or Ms. Brown’s?

Figure 15.1 Forum 1 Case Study task (Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels).

242  Janine Delahunty et al. children (as Ann does in the case) by hinting or questioning to guide the children’s learning. This allows children to firstly share their own thoughts during the story however be challenged and think more deeply about the text by the questions I pose. This year when reading the Gruffalo one child pointed out “he has purple prickles on his back”, however that is where the description of the Gruffalo stopped. I asked “what else can we see on the Gruffalo?” The children were thinking about the Gruffalo’s appearance, they just needed further guidance to support their description. Prediction of texts is important in my classroom and I guess the approach I use is a social-constructivist. I try to tune into the children’s thinking with the provision of hinting and help. At this initial point, the references to Talk are professionally oriented; that is to say, the focus is on discussing pedagogic strategies for teaching reading rather than talk as a tool for learning. For example, as prediction (The first day we focus on prediction of the text); as sharing (I allow children to share their ideas); children’s contribution to classroom discussion (one child pointed out); description (they just needed further guidance to support their description); pedagogy (that scaffolding the children’s responses is very necessary). Karen’s final comment identifies the theoretical underpinnings of the practices described as ‘social-constructivist’. The discussion thread continues as per Table 15.2 where we can see how ideas are elaborated and extended by individuals as contributions to the collective. In the immediately following posting, Karen responded positively and undertook to try out some “time to think” about the setting, characters and events of the story before sharing. In subsequent postings, students agreed that discussion was an important part of reading a book. While most students took the side of the student in the scenario, one student argued in favour of Mrs Brown, citing Piagetian approaches to learning and leading to some postings in favour of children constructing their own knowledge and the tensions between Vygotskyan and Piagetian approaches. A final thread in this forum focussed on the importance of attending to the kinds of questions teachers posed about texts. In the context of our metaphor of the dynamic life of ideas, as we shall see, this forum can be likened to a ‘seeding’ for future discussion. While discussion did move from pedagogic routines to more theoretical matters such as the nature and source of knowledge and the role of the teacher in fostering thinking, Talk itself was referred to in terms of what children might talk about (pictures, texts or personal experience) and its role in overall language development. A more theoretically robust interpretation of Talk as “thought on the way inwards” (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 94) has yet to emerge in the forum postings. Forum 5 In this section, we show how the concept of Talk developed over the eight weeks since the first forum and, importantly, how it unfolded in terms of

Table 15.2  Forum 1, Discussion thread 1 Analysis

Text/example

Communicative Strategy

Realised as:

Emily

Acknowledge

Hi Karen, Thanks for your sharing. I read with the children in a very similar way [=] and agree that scaffolding the children’s responses is very necessary. After that initial reading, however, we discuss it [+] and I scaffold their thoughts and comments and we discuss the vocabulary, etc. :-)

Social space Social space Social space

Naming Showing alignment Restating (implicit alignment) Adding own experience, differing perspective

The only thing that I would add [+] would be that I usually read the story through the first time without any interruptions, as I believe that it is essential for the students to become fully engaged with the text and the characters and to enter that imaginary world. Hi Karen and Emily It is really great to see that you both think that it is important to work together with young children to enhance their understanding of the meaning of the story [=]. I was interested in what you Emily suggested – to read the story first and then scaffold. I would like to see what others think about it and maybe see some examples or specific details [+], eg would you apply this strategy to any book you are reading to children or would this depend on the complexity and the length of the story?

Collective understandings

= + Soften +

Lecturer

Acknowledge =

+

Collective understandings Social space

Re-aligning interpersonally Extending – Adding new ideas and justifying

Social space Collective understandings

Naming Restating

Collective understandings

Extending

Collaborative knowledge building  243

Responder

244  Janine Delahunty et al. Case study

A four-and-a-half-year old girl Masha was asked to get a candy from a cupboard shelf. A couple of stools and a stick were offered to her as possible tools to reach the candy. Researcher’s description of the process of her problem solving reads as follows: (Masha stands up on a stool, quietly looking, holding the stick). “On the stool” (Glances at the researcher. Puts stick in the other hand.) “Is that really the candy?” (Hesitates.) “I can get it from that other stool, stand and get it.” (Puts the stick down and gets the second stool.) “No, that doesn't get it. I could use the stick !” (Takes the stick and knocks at the candy.) “It will move now.” (Knocks the candy). “It moved, I couldn’t get it with the stool, but the... but the stick worked.” (adapted from Vygotsky, 1978, p. 25). The task: Please discuss the following statement made by Ivan, a student assistant: “Masha finally solved the problem, but it took her a long time. Of course, the task was not easy for a four year old, but she could have solved this problem much quicker if she didn't waste her time talking so much!”

Figure 15.2 Forum 5 Case Study task (Photo by Marta Klimczyk from Pexels).

productive discussion and learning aims. The focus of this forum discussion was The role of language in cognitive and socio-emotional development: private and inner speech. The task was designed around a case study about a fouryear-old child, Masha, who was asked to get candy on top of a shelf. She was given some possible ‘tools’ and the case study recounts what Masha said aloud as she worked through how to get the candy. Ivan, the researcher, acts as the provocateur via his evaluation: “Masha finally solved the problem, but it took her a long time. Of course, the task was not easy for a four year old, but she could have solved this problem much quicker if she didn’t waste her time talking so much!” (see Figure 15.2). Through discussion of Ivan’s controversial comment, the learning aim was that students make conceptual links between talking aloud and cognitive processes. As the last of the non-assessed forums, students were asked to focus on the strategy of constructing new knowledge through presenting alternatives, challenging the idea(s) and justifying a position, with a reminder not to forget previous strategies for building a positive social space and collective understandings (see Communicative Strategies above). The response to the task was configured as six separate discussion threads of 28 posts made by 10 of the students and the lecturer. Over the two-week period, students viewed the forum 395 times. The 28 posts were subsequently broken into 398 clauses for close analysis.

Ideas around talk Wei, an international student from China, initiates the first thread, mounting a direct challenge to Ivan’s position, arguing that ’private speech’ is important for young children’s problem solving. Wei aligns her stance to Masha and uses several synonyms for Talk, including subject specific language (e.g.

Collaborative knowledge building  245 egocentric speech, private speech) and makes reference to other related concepts (e.g. inner thinking of mind, thinking and self-regulation, tool of the mind) albeit not fluently at this point. She moves between everyday language to more technical terms (e.g. talking to herself – children’s talk – egocentric speech): After I reading the case I don’t agree with the statement made by Ivan. Masha worked hard to try to solve the problem by talking to herself through the whole process, it is such a great example to demonstrate how children’s speech move to the inner thinking of mind. This is one of the function of speech based on Vygotsky’s view on egocentric speech increase thinking and self-regulation of young child, we also call it private speech as verbal thinking. As educator we should support and encourage children’s talk because it is a tool of the mind. It might take little bit longer time for child to talk through the problem and finally reach the success or might not be able to finish the task, but the process of private speech is the remarkable achievement for young child to use this tool to help them think. I would like to give Masha as much time as she want to try all her ways to finish the task by encouraging her speak to herself or to me There are five responses: (1) Karen–Wei, (2) Wei–Karen, (3) Wendy–Wei, (4) Susan–Wei and (5) Susan–Karen. The following table (Table 15.3) maps how some of the responses (1–4) unfolded: Table 15.3 shows the strategies used are predominantly to maintain a positive social space (through aligning, naming, acknowledging, and sharing personal experience) as well as contribute to collective understandings (elaborating relations [=] and extending [+]), but that the students are not yet venturing into the more ‘risky’ terrain of taking up alternative proposals, challenging ideas or justifying a position. The concept of not-to-Talk The arrival and propagation of the contrasting idea of not-to-Talk begin when Wendy contrasts children talking aloud to solve problems with her own experience of a selective mute boy. Not-to-Talk goes underground for three responses and as discussion becomes ‘circular’ (Alexander, 2020) the lecturer makes a move to revitalise the not-to-Talk concept, watering and fertilising with the contrasting ideas of theorists, Piaget and Vygotsky (new thread: “HOW does talking aloud assist the child’s problem solving?”). She moves discussion along with a prompt, shown in the context below: Hi all, Many of you who responded so far (thank you!) all seem to strongly agree [acknowledge] that talking aloud was highly important for Masha in her problem solving. You also noted its value for us as educators as her talk provides a valuable insight into her way of thinking

Responder

Analysis

Text/example

Communicative strategy

Realised as:

All All (1) Karen

Acknowledge Agree =

[Use of name] [Agree with respondent] I would give Masha as much time as she needed to try different ways to finish the task

Naming Showing alignment Re-stating Wei by paraphrasing (implicit alignment)

+ +

[+] In my class … I encourage my children to speak through each task. This also allows me to [+] observe their thinking processes I do like the idea you said [=] children’s speech also allows educator to understand how they think and solve the problem. [=] To observe children’s thinking by listening their talk, it will allow us to analysis their developing strengths and abilities, and then [+] we are able to program better practice to support potential problem solving ability and work on the higher level of their developing stage. private speech is important for young children to solve problems and that the young assistant was quick to judge Masha’s solution to the problem

Social space Social space Social space Collective understandings Collective understandings

(2) Wei–Karen

=

= +

(3) Wendy

=

Social space Collective understandings

Adding own experience (story), introducing another concept Re-stating Karen (explicit alignment)

Social space Collective understandings

Unpacking new concept (observing thinking through talk), adding educator roles and responsibilities

Social space Collective understandings

Re-stating Wei (implicit alignment)

246  Janine Delahunty et al.

Table 15.3  Forum 5, Discussion thread 1

Responder

(4) Susan

Text/example

Communicative strategy

Realised as:

+ = + + +

[+] are there times when children choose not to use private speech … [=] what if we asked Masha not to speak while attempting the task [+] or would Masha also feel the need to talk if she was ‘isolated’ from others during the task – would she still achieve the same result? [+] This is where I feel some of private speech has a social purpose too. On a side note [+] I have worked with a little boy who was selective mute … [quotes Wei] [+] own experience] [+] Ivan’s comment about Masha talking so much as she did the task is very negative and will likely have negative results if Masha heard him. Masha is using egocentric language to solve the problem

Collective understandings

Proposing alternative not to speak (re-stating Lecturer question posed 4 days earlier but not yet taken up), adding another concept (social purpose), adding own experience (story)

Social space Collective understandings

Acknowledging Wei (explicit), adding own experience (story), adding another perspective of impact of Ivan’s comment on Masha

Acknowledge + +

Collaborative knowledge building  247

Analysis

248  Janine Delahunty et al. [=]. Yet [+], as pointed out by Pranav, the theory offers us a controversial advice: Piaget would probably agree that Masha’s talk was not essential for her problem solving. Vygotsky, on the other hand [+], would say it was vitally important. So – we need some strong argument or empirical evidence (example from your practice) in favour of Vygotsky’s view [Instructing: directing]. To move discussion forward I would like to pose the following question [prompting]: Would Masha’s problem solving be just as successful if for some reason we asked her NOT to talk aloud? We see that the lecturer elaborates on the concepts of private speech by linking to cognitive processes (her way of thinking), yet she does not use technical language here, which suggests she is unpacking the related concepts to help students understand and think more deeply about them. Of twelve responses, the first three are in agreement with Vygotsky’s view and students include examples from their practice as well as rationalising the stance taken. The not-to-talk alternative proposal is not immediately taken up and goes underground for four more responses until Wei describes her own schooling experience, which seemingly presents a conundrum, as the system in China did not allow for discussion. Wei argues (mildly) that despite not being allowed to talk aloud in class, she has developed problem-solving skills. She thus implicitly poses a possible gap in applying sociocultural theory in classroom contexts: Hi, for your question about Masha’s problems solving could be successful or not if she did not talk aloud, I don’t know the exactly the answer, but [+] I want to share my experience when I was a young student in China … we were asked be quiet and not talk at all in our class when we were on a task…unless teacher asked you to talk. Over several days students join in with their own personal stories to extend experiences related to not talking. A response by student-participant, Lisa, is the first to make conceptual links between talking aloud and cognitive processes: The talking out loud step seems to be a crucial stepping stone to internalising our thought processes [x]. So in response to your question, I think it might have taken Masha longer to solve the problem if she had not been able to talk aloud [justify]. Lisa’s contribution has met one of the learning aims of the discussion topic, which is acknowledged by the lecturer: …internalisation is the key here. The early years is such a great age to work with as we can literally see and hear the ways of young children’s thinking as their talking and hands on actions “are” their thinking before the thought processes become internalised.

Collaborative knowledge building  249 Finally, the unpacking and repacking of concepts is an important part of co-constructing knowledge. For example, synonyms in not-to-Talk interactions unfolded collectively, showing movement between everyday lexis (not talk aloud, be quiet, not talk at all unless asked to, listened, wrote, solved problems, never opportunities for just talking, listening, never spoke) to more technical lexis (one of the brightest children, selective mute) (everyday and scientific concepts, after Vygotsky, 1978).

Discussion and concluding thoughts In the online environment, not available when Vygotsky formulated his ideas, written language becomes a powerful complementary learning tool for oral communication and the phenomenon of the mixed mode of written and oral communication emerges, drawing on the strength of ‘talk’ as writing (Hull & Saxon, 2009). Our study explored the potential of written-oral communication in fostering exchanges of ideas that in turn would enhance the co-construction of knowledge in the online environment. The sociocultural theory provided us with understanding to guide us in the design of tasks to foster a ‘written dialogue’ (Hammond & Gibbons, 2005), characterised by collaborative reasoning (Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003), shared understanding (Wertsch, 1985) and co-construction of knowledge in online environments (Hendriks & Maor, 2004). SFL enabled us to closely analyse how ideas were taken up, or not, and how co-construction of knowledge was realised linguistically, noting also the strategies of the lecturer, who expertly stepped in when discussion circled and students needed guidance towards learning outcomes. Our project provided the strategies and identified the moves in productive online discussion. The three sets of communicative strategies in the Guide (Verenikina et al., 2017) show links to Alexander’s dialogic teaching principles (2020). These strategies aim to gradually build confidence and skills in the asynchronous mode of discussion, creating a positive social space in which a sense of trust and safety is paramount for encouraging participants to contribute diverse ideas, in a purposeful movement towards joint knowledge construction. We now offer some ideas for developing the teaching and learning repertoires (or forms and functions of talk) as identified by Alexander (2020) in online environments. This chapter extends Repertoire 1 Interactive Culture (Alexander, 2020), demonstrating how this is established primarily through social relations. The communicative strategies for developing and maintaining a safe space for diverse ideas are fundamental. This includes ‘listening’ and ‘being listened to’, which is profoundly different in online interactions and must be visible i.e. as ‘reading and responding’. Interpersonal moves are also important through naming, acknowledging (the person or the idea), complimenting, supporting, agreeing/aligning with, as well as valuing and expecting diverse ideas and opinions. Learning talk and teaching talk (Repertoires 3 and 4) in online environments need explicit guidance. The skills in orchestrating the strategies and the

250  Janine Delahunty et al. moves through which they are manifest into a productive learning environment are not easy for lecturers or students to master, and such work rests upon the lecturer-designer (see Chapter 12). The communicative strategies are not prescriptive, and we have shown the important role they play in guiding interactions and in giving participants a meta-knowledge of what they are doing (i.e. extending an idea, justifying a position, proposing an alternative, etc.). The lecturer is critical to these interactions, in providing models of talk which give attention to what is valued, to unpacking concepts and to guiding students to make links between ideas and push them further in their theoretical understandings (the merge of ‘scientific’ and ‘everyday’ concepts). To conclude, our analysis revealed the fluid nature of ideas, the relations between academic concepts and students’ everyday and professional experience, and the role of carefully orchestrated language choices in creating intersubjectivity. In this way, we contribute to understanding how pedagogic dialogue can foster knowledge co-construction through the insights gained into “the sequential and contingent development of concepts over time” (Daniels, 2010, p. 123). We identified a number of practices and attendant linguistic realisations which add detail to Alexander’s construct of repertoire – of the skills, strategies and moves that drive pedagogy. This chapter has also illustrated dialogic principles as they occur in this online setting: supportive, reciprocal, collective, cumulative, purposeful and, to a lesser extent, deliberative, as the asynchronous online terrain can be risky to navigate. In so doing we offer a translation of dialogic pedagogy to assist educators to design and deliver online learning in higher education. To return to the question of how ideas evolve in online discussion, we offer an extended metaphor of the subterranean rhizome. While different types of talk may be appealing, they are not always helpful for teaching purposes. Metaphors are a useful way for making sense of pedagogy and helping us understand the skills involved: • • • • • •

Seeding and Propagating: some ideas segue into future discussions (or beyond), sometimes evolving and developing quite differently from the original Going Underground: ideas may go underground to develop, emerging only when the conditions are right Clumping: ideas can appear in a clump through collective contributions (e.g. through adding/varying/giving new information) Sprouting: some ideas can pop up in another position (e.g. alternative ideas), similar to nodes that stem from the main rhizome Lifting and Dividing: in the process of gaining knowledge, clumps of ideas are examined, unpacked and repacked Preparing and Enriching the Soil: this is paramount, through interpersonal resources which establish and foster social relations, likened to loosening the soil, fertilising and watering; without them, forums will tend to be monologic.

Collaborative knowledge building  251 Finally, good gardens rely on the knowledge and care of an expert gardener who knows when and how to intervene (or not), as our lecturer has done. This is due to her deep disciplinary knowledge, her understanding of teaching and learning and her attentive but balanced presence in the online space (Delahunty et al., 2014a).

Ethics statement This research was approved by the University of Wollongong Human Research Ethics Committee, HREC13/399.

References Alexander, R. J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. Baessler, Liz (2020, March 9). What is a rhizome: Learn about rhizome plant facts. Gardening know how. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.gardeningknowhow. com/ornamental/bulbs/bgen/what-is-a-rhizome.htm Daniels, H. (2010). Implicit or invisible mediation in the development of interagency work. In H. Daniels, A. Edwards, Y. Engeström, T. Gallagher, & S. Ludvigsen (Eds.), Activity theory in practice (pp. 105–125). Routledge. Daniels, H. (2001). Vygotsky and pedagogy. Routledge. Delahunty, J. (2012). ‘Who am I?’: Exploring identity in online discussion forums. International Journal of Educational Research, 53, 407–420. http://doi. org/10.1016/j.ijer.2012.05.005. Delahunty, J. (2018). Connecting to learn, learning to connect: Thinking together in asynchronous forum discussion. Linguistics and Education, 46, 12–22. https:// doi.org/10.1016/J.LINGED.2018.05.003 Delahunty, J., Jones, P., & Verenikina, I. (2014a). Movers and shapers: Teaching in online environments. Linguistics and Education, 28(4), 54–78. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1016/j.linged.2014.08.004 Delahunty, J., Verenikina, I., & Jones, P. (2014b). Socio-emotional connections: Identity, belonging and learning in online interactions. A literature review. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 23(2), 243–265. Halliday, M. A. K. (1987). Spoken and written modes of meaning. In R. Horowitz & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), Comprehending oral and written language (pp. 55–82). Academic Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1994/2004). A language development approach to education. In J. J. Webster (Ed.), Language and education. Vol 9 in the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday. (pp. 368–382). Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1986). Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Deakin University Press. Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). Routledge. Hammond, J., & Gibbons, P. (2005). Putting scaffolding to work: The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect. 20(1), 6–30. Hendriks, V., & Maor, D. (2004). Quality of students’ communicative strategies delivered through computer-mediated communications. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 15(1), 5–32.

252  Janine Delahunty et al. Hull, D. M., & Saxon, T. F. (2009). Negotiation of meaning and co-construction of knowledge: An experimental analysis of asynchronous online instruction. Computers and Education, 52(3), 624–639. Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause (2nd ed.). Continuum. Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2008). Genre relations: Mapping culture. Equinox. Mercer, N., & Howe, R. (2012). Explaining the dialogic processes of teaching and learning: The value and potential of sociocultural theory. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 1(1), 12–21. Rojas-Drummond, S., & Mercer, N. (2003). Scaffolding the development of effective collaboration and learning. International Journal of Educational Research, 39(1), 99–111. Rose, D., & Martin, J. R. (2012). Learning to write, reading to learn: Genre, knowledge and pedagogy in the Sydney School. Equinox. Verenikina, I., Jones, P. T., & Delahunty, J. (2017). The guide to fostering asynchronous online discussion in higher education. [ebook]. Retrieved from https://scholars. uow.edu.au/display/publication138647 Verenikina, I., Jones, P. T., & Delahunty, J. (2019). Building capacity to scaffold online discussion: enhancing students’ construction of knowledge and communication competencies. Office for Learning & Teaching Seed Grant. Final Report. http:// www.fold.org.au/docs/projectreport.pdf Vialle, W., Lysaght, P., & Verenikina, I. (2005). Psychology for educators. Cengage Learning Australia. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. The MIT Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Harvard University Press.

Part 6

Epilogue

16 Epilogue Robin J. Alexander

No book about dialogic pedagogy, however welcome – as this one is – can encompass more than work in progress. For not only is dialogic pedagogy a domain of educational enquiry and action whose complexity and relative novelty demand the keenest and most discerning of intellectual appetites. It also centres on an idea that by its nature absolutely forbids closure. ‘There is neither a first nor a last word’ said quintessential dialogist Mikhail Bakhtin1 about pretty well everything – history, culture, language, writing, existence … His maxim applies even more forcefully when the word thus suspended in dialogic space deals with, well, the word, and the subject of dialogue is dialogue itself. So: work in progress, no more and no less. Nor is this representation intended to deflate responses to the present book. Rather, it should encourage us to approach it in the same dialogic spirit that we commend for teachers and students. Hence, the forward nudge of ‘no less.’ The extent of the progress achieved depends of course on the quality of the work represented, and readers can be confident that this book’s collection has been duly nudged, achieves the required forward momentum and makes significant contributions to the field. For, as the editors explain in Chapters 1 and 2 of this volume, its aims are ambitious. It seeks to combine and bridge dialogic and linguistic theory; it reports empirical studies undertaken in every phase of education from pre-school through primary and secondary to higher; it foregrounds differing cultures, voices and identities; and it focuses on pedagogy but grasps that classroom talk is about much more than the mechanics of teacher-student interaction; and that the oral transactions of teachers and students are freighted with meanings, tensions and histories that are at once epistemic, social, cultural and indeed political. The book also gives a degree of prominence to some of my own work, so having read the preceding chapters, I could hardly avoid reflecting on its treatment. The framework for dialogic teaching to which every chapter in some way alludes grew out of close-grained classroom research using observation, interviews and videography allied to various modes of discourse analysis: in the UK during the 1980s2; through comparative exploration of culture and pedagogy in England, France, India, Russia and the US during the 1990s3; into developmental and evaluative work on an emerging dialogic DOI: 10.4324/9781003296744-22

256  Robin J. Alexander pedagogy with teachers in London and the north of England during the 2000s4; and on again to an independently evaluated randomised control trial (RCT) of the resulting approach with 5000 students and their teachers in three UK cities during 2014–20175. In what I hope is a properly dialogic spirit the framework has been progressively modified and refined in light of all this activity, and of its current post-RCT iteration I note in the hopefully titled “A dialogic teaching companion”6 that while that book as an artefact is necessarily finite its journey of ideas is not (work in progress again). So in 2002, the framework had four elements, each of them subdivided: justifications, principles, repertoires and indicators. Twenty years later, with the addition of definitions and the all-­ important dialogic stance, there were six elements but the initial four had also evolved. The repertoires, in particular, had been expanded in light of practice, evaluation and the research of many others as well as myself. By 2020, the initial four repertoires had become eight encompassing the culture and organisation of classroom talk (interactive culture, interactive settings), foundational patterns of exchange (learning talk, teaching talk) and the moves and acts through which such exchanges are performed by teachers and students (questioning, extending, discussing, arguing). Each repertoire was then elaborated on in some detail, with the teacher as an arbiter of how, according to pedagogical purpose, situation and context, it should be deployed. So I have an inevitable interest in the account of the dialogic teaching framework that, albeit, for the time being, is fixed in bibliographic space and time by this book. Interestingly, many of the chapters refer to only one of the framework’s six elements – the principles – or treat it as the framework’s most important feature. That was not the intention: the framework was conceived as a whole, with each of its six elements dependent upon and congruent with the others, and it is best understood, investigated and applied as such. Thus, the principles both steer the repertoires and, together with the indicators, provide yardsticks against which, in action, the dialogic authenticity of classroom exchanges may be judged; while in their turn the repertoires offer a focused and variegated prospectus of talk through which the principles of dialogic teaching can be brought to life. The justifications – talk for learning, mastery, communicating, relating, acculturation, democratic engagement, and of course, teaching and assessment – remind us of the immense potential of dialogue and lift our sights as educators beyond those testable and marketable ‘outcomes’ on which policymakers tend to fixate. And the stance provides in a nutshell a rationale for the entire venture. So, for example, rather than speculate on what, say, ‘reciprocal’ or ‘cumulative’ classroom talk – to take two of the six principles – sound like, we might peruse the repertoires and indicators, for it is with precisely this question that they deal. The principles are broad statements of intent, tests of commitment or criteria for judgement, but on their own, they remain somewhat abstract. For they were never intended to be viewed or used in isolation, and the repertoires, firmly grounded in the commitment to empowering both student and teacher agency that underpins the whole enterprise, seek to

Epilogue  257 expand the range of practical possibilities and capacities that participants gain through a really thorough immersion in spoken language. It is for others to consider whether the tendency I have identified in the preceding pages yields gains as well as losses. In any case, it is only part of the story, and each chapter reports on an original project or programme of research, each draws on a considerably broader range of ideas and evidence than those I’ve mentioned, and each in its particular way adds to the sum of our current knowledge about dialogic pedagogy’s characteristics and benefits. Several of the chapters also probe important professional and policy questions such as the relationship between oracy and literacy, classroom talk in the contexts of sociocultural disadvantage and marginalisation, pre-service and in-service teacher education, and comparative opportunities for dialogic teaching and learning in physical and online settings. If the book is indeed a work in progress we might ask where future research might head. There are many possibilities. Leaving aside the question of what happens to my own work, here are some of them. First and self-evidently, we need to continue to refine the ways that we turn talk into text in order to code and analyse it, addressing the inherent conundrum that representing talk for reading rather than listening is always a kind of misrepresentation. Every discourse analysis technique yet devised has its limitations. One that, historically, many have shared is a tendency to code the talk of the teacher with greater precision than that of the student, despite the fact that it is the quality of the students’ talk – and hence the power of their thinking and reasoning – that we are most eager to see transformed. Second, if dialogue is as effective a pedagogical tool as we claim, then all students have a right to experience it, so we might give particular attention to those who are disadvantaged, marginalised or have learning difficulties (including difficulties with speech and language themselves); that is, to the central yet problematic place in all our endeavours of the student’s voice. Third, we might note that too many studies of classroom talk, and too many exercises in its coding and analysis, treat talk in isolation from the wider pedagogy that shapes it, and the epistemic, social and cultural contexts that give it meaning. As this book’s editors say in the first chapter, talk is never ‘just talk’ and its educational purposes are at once cognitive and social. So description and analysis of talk need to be generously embedded, not treated merely as a technical operation. Fourth, we need to move beyond a vague belief that dialogic pedagogy is a good thing to the firmest possible evidence about its impact. Not only is this a responsible concomitant of advocacy: it is also a necessary tool in our attempt to persuade sceptical policymakers (and, it must be admitted, some educators), that the quality of classroom talk really does matter and isn’t just another educational fad. My own approach was successfully subjected to a large-scale randomised control trial for the UK’s Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) using standardised test scores in English, mathematics and science as its outcome measures,7 but apart from legitimate questions about the applications of RCT methodology to the complex dynamics of

258  Robin J. Alexander classrooms, test scores are certainly not the only outcome of talk-rich teaching that educators should be interested in. So we should simultaneously clarify dialogue’s purposes and develop appropriate ways of assessing their achievement. Fifth, although I advocate a holistic approach to the conceiving, framing and shaping of classroom talk, it’s increasingly clear that some of its attributes exert a special leverage. Elsewhere, I have scoured recent research for pointers and have documented generic features of successful dialogic pedagogy such as co-construction, metacognition, skill transfer, student agency and classroom culture, together with specific factors embedded in how particular exchanges and moves are handled.8 Two large-scale UK projects – the EEF trial of my dialogic teaching approach referred to above and an ESRC project by Howe and others9 – combine with the important US work on talk moves by Michaels and O’Connor10, with Nystrand’s imperative of talk that is so framed that it impels the student to think rather than repeat or report11 and, from New Zealand and Australia, with Hattie’s distillation from his 800 meta-analyses of ‘what happens next’ in teaching12 or what discourse analysts call the third turn: that is, what teachers and fellow-students do with what students say. In classic IRE/F the third turn delivers a teacher judgement which, as often than not, parks or even halts the student’s thinking. In dialogic teaching, in the sharpest possible contrast, the third turn is the springboard to talking, thinking and learning that dig ever deeper and move inexorably forward. As one who over the past two decades has no doubt bored his readers and listeners with repeated Bakhtinian quotations, I take comfort from the way research now confirms that what is probably my favourite – ‘If an answer does not give rise to a new question from itself, it falls out of the dialogue’13 – turns out to have formidable empirical as well as philosophical purchase. My final suggestion, therefore, is that we should probe and build upon such findings in order to diagnose with ever greater precision what it is about genuinely rigorous dialogic pedagogy – and genuinely collective, supportive, reciprocal, deliberative, cumulative and purposeful dialogic teaching – that makes the greatest difference to students as communicators, thinkers, learners, social beings and citizens. Then, whether we are teachers, school leaders, researchers or teacher educators, we should act accordingly.

Notes 1 Bakhtin, M.M. (1986) Speech genres and other late essays. Austin, TX, University of Texas, 170. 2 Alexander, R.J. (1995) Versions of primary education. London, Routledge, 103– 269. 3 Alexander, R.J. (2001) Culture and pedagogy. Oxford, Blackwell/Wiley, especially 391– 528. 4 The development projects in London, North Yorkshire and Bolton are summarised and referenced in Alexander, R.J. (2020) A dialogic teaching companion. London, Routledge, 4– 7.

Epilogue  259 5 Alexander, R.J. (2018) Developing dialogue: Genesis, process, trial. Research Papers in Education, 33(5), 561– 598. For the independent EEF evaluation report see Jay, T., Taylor, R., Moore, N., Burnett, C., Merchant, G., Thomas, P., Willis, B., & Stevens, A. (2017) Dialogic teaching: Evaluation report and executive summary. London, Education Endowment Foundation with Sheffield Hallam University. 6 A dialogic teaching companion (op. cit). 7 See note 5. 8 A dialogic teaching companion, Chapter 6, ‘Ingredient x’, 106– 123. 9 Howe, C., Hennessy, S., Mercer, N., Vrikki, M., & Wheatley, L. (2019) Teacherstudent dialogue during classroom teaching: Does it really impact on student outcomes? Journal of the Learning Sciences, DOI: 10.1080/10508406.2019. 1573730. 10 Michaels, S. & O’Connor, C. (2015) Conceptualizing talk moves as tools: Professional development approaches for academically productive discussions. In L.B. Resnick, C.S.C. Asterhan, & S.N. Clarke (Ed.), Socializing intelligence through academic talk and dialogue. Washington, DC, AERA, 347– 361. 11 Nystrand, M., with Gamoran, A., Kachur, R., & Prendergast, C. (1997). Opening Dialogue: Understanding the dynamics of language and learning in the English classroom. New York, Teachers College Press. 12 Hattie, J.A.C. (2009) Visible learning: A synthesis of 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London, Routledge, 238– 241. 13 Bakhtin, M.M. op cit. 168.

Appendix Transcription conventions

While transcription conventions and level of detail adopted by authors in this book will vary according to their theoretical approach, there are some ­common conventions as outlined here. T S underline --.. … UPPERCASE [annotation] ?word () bold

Teacher Student Overlapping turns (two speakers talking at once) Short pause Longer pause (length in brackets if relevant) Text omitted Written text Comment from transcriber Transcriber unsure about a particular word Words in brackets are difficult to hear Word/s are emphasised by speaker

Index

Pages in italics refer to figures, and pages in bold refer to tables. abstract relationships 40, 47, 110–11, 118, 173–4 accountable talk 222 affect 71, 110, 114, 175 agency 124, 133–4, 142, 149, 168, 194; learner agency 75, 78, 126–9, 189–91, 258; teacher agency 79–80, 189–91, 201–3, 256 aggregation 179, 181, 183 Alexander’s principles see collective principle, cumulative principle, deliberative principle, purposeful principle, reciprocal principle, supportive principle Alexander’s repertoires see repertoires appraisal 23, 175, 177; see also affect (a)synchronous discourse/learning 104, 235–9, 249–50 attitude/s 23, 26, 175, 176, 236 Australian curriculum 54, 113, 192 Bernstein, B. 110–11 challenge 21, 72, 78, 84, 207 Christie, F. 22, 23, 110 cohesion see reference collective principle 24, 77, 79–81, 84–5, 114, 178; in actions 73 community and family studies (CAFS) 171–3, 178, 181, 183–5 condensation of meaning 172–3, 177, 181, 183 contact 71 contextual dependency 173–4, 177–8, 183 continuing professional development (CPD) 146, 149–50, 160, 167, 205–6, 210

Critical Discourse Analysis 24, 28, 152 critical incident technique 141, 149 cumulative principle 72, 82, 84–5, 101, 114, 118–19 cumulative talk 24, 142, 152 declarative 20, 77, 81 deliberative principle 70, 114, 178, 222 Derewianka, B. 22–3 dialogic stance 206–8, 214, 220–1, 231, 244, 248; Alexander on 256 dialogic tensions/incongruences 221, 223, 228 dynamic move 21, 72 embodiment 26, 92–3, 99, 101–2, 195 ethnography 127, 208 exchange 27, 56, 58, 63, 65, 72 exchange structure 19, 21–2, 71–2, 78, 84, 94; see also challenge; justification; primary actor; primary knower; synoptic move; dynamic move exploratory talk 47, 63, 222 exposition 61, 112, 217 expository talk 63 field 82, 84, 85, 195, 197, 199 gaze 94–5, 98, 99, 100–1, 104 genre 18–9, 22–3, 56, 70, 184, 236–7; see also exposition; instruction gesture 37, 42, 44, 92, 98–9, 104; see also pointing Halliday, M. A. K. 19, 21–2, 24, 146, 195, 237–8 Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. 72, 235

262 Index handover 113–14, 193, 207, 214, 216 Hasan, R. 40 ideational metafunction 23, 181, 222–3, 226–7, 229–30, 232; in multimodal analysis 25 imaginative talk 61 imperative 20, 39, 77 inclusivity 73–80, 84, 85, 111–12, 195 instruction 61, 112, 217 interactive trouble 19, 26–7, 112 interpersonal Mass 177 interpersonal metafunction 20, 23, 25, 71, 236–8, 249–50; in multimodal analysis 25 interpersonal Presence 174, 177–9 interrogative 20, 39–40, 49, 77–8 interruption 26, 72, 235 IRF model: Initiation, Response, Feedback 45, 71–2, 96–8, 222, 226, 228 joint construction 85, 184 justification 72, 84, 207 Lefstein, A. 28, 221, 223–4, 225, 230 legitimation code theory (LCT) 23, 172 lesson (Sinclair & Coulthard) 19 makerspaces 124–6, 132–3, 135 Martin, J. R. 21–3, 71, 80, 111, 174, 195 Mass 172–3, 177, 179, 181, 183 metafunctions 71, 183; see also ideational metafunction; interpersonal metafunction; textual metafunction metalinguistic talk 142–3, 146–152 modality 77, 79, 85, 177–8 mode 27, 101, 104, 172, 199, 249; and practice architectures 94 monologic discourse 109, 148, 172–3, 177, 235, 250 Montessori 35–6, 38–43, 45–6 mood 20, 71–2, 77, 81, 84; see also declarative; interrogative; imperative move 27, 56, 65 movement 26, 92, 94, 98–9, 102–4; in a Montessori classroom 36–7, 42, 44, 48 Multimodal Discourse Analysis 4, 24–5 multimodality 24–5, 27, 92, 94, 99–101, 104 Myhill, D. 24, 41

negotiability 178, 183 online discourse/discussion 24, 235–8, 240, 249–50 overlap 26, 102, 202 pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) 187, 197 pedagogic register analysis 54, 61, 65 periodicity 179, 183 person 116, 173–4, 178 pointing 82, 95, 98, 101, 104; in a Montessori classroom 38–9, 44, 46, 48 politeness marker/s 77–8, 85 position 92, 94, 98, 103–4, 132–3, 135 practice architectures 92–5, 98, 103–4 preformulation 112, 116 Presence 172–3, 177, 183 primary actor 58, 84 primary knower 21, 58, 63, 76, 84 pronouns 73–4, 77–8, 80, 85 proximity 100, 104 purposeful principle 70, 114, 222 reciprocal principle 70–2, 75, 84–5, 101–2, 114, 222 recitation 37–8, 45, 84, 112–13, 120, 222; in Sustained Shared Thinking 61, 63, 65 reference 23, 72, 75, 85, 179 register 22–4, 61, 65, 70–1, 194–5, 237; curriculum registers 56–7; pedagogic registers 56–7, 110, 114, 116, 118–21; see also field; mode; tenor relational meaning 38, 44, 48 repair 26, 116 repertoires 127–8, 189–91, 194–5, 206–7, 256; definition 6, 236; ‘extending’ Repertoires 213; ‘questioning’ Repertoires 213; in Sustained Shared Thinking 56, 58, 61; Repertoires 1 & 2 195, 249; Repertoires 3 & 4 249; Repertoires 5 & 6 207 Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. & Jefferson, G. 26, 92 scaffolding interaction cycle 80, 82 science, technology, engineering, (arts) and mathematics (STE(A)M) 124, 126 semiotic systems 24–6, 28

Index  263 Sinclair, J. & Coulthard, M. 19, 21–2, 72, 222; see also exchange; lesson; move; transaction; turn solidarity 79, 93, 98 Speech Function 19, 20, 23–4, 71–2, 84 status 71 stimulated recall interview (SRI) 223–5, 227, 228, 230 Street Smarts 155–6, 157, 159–61, 167–8 supportive principle 80–2, 116, 119–20, 175, 178, 202 sustained shared thinking (SST) 9, 53–4, 56–8, 59, 60 synoptic move 21 system (network) 20, 175 talk, types of see accountable talk, exploratory talk, expository talk, imaginative talk talk moves 98, 207–8, 212–14, 216–17, 258 technicality 172–3, 181–2, 183 tenor 71–2, 74–5, 78, 84–5, 199, 236–7; see also status; contact; affect

terms of address 71–2, 74 terms of endearment 77, 80–1 textual metafunction 18, 23, 25, 173 three-­period lesson 35–6, 38, 40–1, 45, 48–9 transaction (Sinclair & Coulthard) 19 transactional moves 63 turn (Sinclair & Coulthard) 56 uptake (questions) 83, 101, 121, 163–4, 167, 213 vocabulary 18, 61, 82–5, 111, 190, 198; in the Australian curriculum 55; in Montessori classrooms 39–41, 49; in Sustained Shared Thinking 63 Vygotsky, L. S. 36, 39, 113, 237–8, 245, 248–9 waves: big wave 192, 193, 195, 197, 199–200; small wave 193, 194, 196, 201 Zoom 189, 192, 195, 198–9, 201–2