Abstract
This study reports the design, implementation, and evaluation of a 3-day intensive short-term teacher education program that was specifically designed and implemented with the aims of fostering English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher-learners’ ability to enact dialogic teaching in their teaching practices. Thirty pre-service English teachers from 13 different universities across Turkey participated in the program and their perspectives of the effectiveness of the program in reaching its objectives were investigated to examine: (1) to what extent they felt their ability to implement dialogic teaching practices had improved, and (2) which specific factors from the program they felt specifically contributed to their development. Data were collected over a 4-week period, and included pre/post-course self-evaluation scales, during-course session evaluation forms, post-course evaluation forms, and interviews. Overall, the findings suggest the importance of intensive short-term teacher education programs with similar objectives consisting of: (1) instructors who are both knowledgeable and good models of what they are teaching in the context they are preparing teachers for; (2) content that is up to date, contextually related, and organized in a way that builds up both knowledge and practical skills; and (3) methods and activities in which teacher-learners experience what they are being taught both from a student’s and teacher’s perspective. The findings of this study hold important implications for various stakeholders involved in English teacher education, and teacher education program development, thus, practical suggestions are discussed regarding how future teacher education programs with related objectives may be designed and implemented to better foster attendees’ ability to apply what they learn at the classroom level.
Keywords
I Introduction
Traditionally, teachers have been viewed as holders of knowledge whose job it is to transmit information to students, while students have been viewed as passive recipients of knowledge and consumers of the information given (Freire, 2005). However, over time, there has been a critical shift in teaching trends towards more constructivist approaches in which knowledge is now seen by many as something that is dynamically constructed through interaction (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Accordingly, within a constructivist teaching paradigm, in which learning is seen as a social activity that is done together in interaction with one another (Dewey, 1938), and drawing from the concept of dialogism, in which meaning is theorized as coming about through the participation in dialogue (Bakhtin, 1981), teaching practices have started to trend away from monologic teacher-centered approaches towards more student engaged dialogic approaches. In other words, there has been a movement away from teaching approaches in which the teacher is the main and dominant speaker, towards approaches that encourage constant dialogue between the teacher and learners and empower the sharing of students’ voices. Dialogic teaching aims to improve the quality of classroom talk by promoting a classroom atmosphere where collaboration, active listening, questioning, and learners’ thinking is emphasized (Alexander, 2018; Earley & Porritt, 2009). Thus, the use of discussions, group work, argumentation, thought-provoking questions, and reasoning is encouraged in classrooms (Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2015). Dialogic teaching is now widespread in the field of English language education and thus, it is no surprise that over the last decade there has been a noticeable increase in studies that have investigated the effects of dialogic teaching on English learners’ development. To date, findings have indicated that dialogic teaching can make a significant contribution to English language learners’ oral skill development (Skuse, 2017), writing skill development (Musa, 2019), vocabulary development, and reading comprehension development (Rodriguez, 2013). The emergence of such positive findings in recent years has led to more focus on dialogic teaching in language teacher education and development programs (Bignell, 2018; Robertson et al., 2018), and more studies being conducted globally on dialogic teaching in language teacher education programs (see, for instance, Butler & Yeum, 2016; Dunne, 2014).
Turkey, to keep abreast of these recent educational advances across the world, initiated a curriculum reform in 2004 (Akinoglu, 2008). This curriculum reform aimed to shift language teaching practices from the current dominant teacher-centered didactic model to a more student-centered constructivist model (Aksit, 2007). Based on this educational model, Turkish primary and high school English curricula were reconstructed in 2018 (Turkish Ministry of National Education, 2018). This most recent revision introduced an emphasis on dialogic teaching practices such as debates, drama, group/pair work, questioning, active listening, and problem-solving. However, despite the new curricular aims and noted contributions dialogic teaching can make to meeting those aims, the utilization of dialogic teaching practices in Turkey remains rare to date (Ates et al., 2016). One of the main reasons for this is that both pre- and in-service teachers in the country have not received the proper education to foster their ability to use the approach (Kilinc, Demiral & Kartal, 2017). Specifically, pre-and in-service English teacher education programs in Turkey have been criticized for being theory-driven, promoting old-fashioned monologic teaching approaches (Coşkun & Daloğlu, 2010), and failing to present more novel teaching approaches (such as dialogic teaching) which prioritize language learners’ communication needs (Öztürk & Aydın, 2018). Therefore, the vast majority of Turkish teachers have tended to stick to the traditional monologic methods (Esen-Aygun, 2019), which has resulted in a gap between curricular reform aims and what is going on in most classrooms around the country.
To bridge this gap, professional development programs play an important role in fostering the pedagogical competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, and abilities) (see Whitehead, 2022) needed for teachers to be able to implement dialogic teaching practices in their classrooms in the Turkish context. However, a review of the literature found no studies which have investigated the effectiveness of pre-service teacher education programs focusing on dialogic teaching as a whole and what specific factors contributed to the development of teacher-learners’ ability to implement it in practice. For this reason, inspired by the growing evidence of the effectiveness of dialogic pedagogy in language learning and teaching, we developed an intensive short teacher education program that aimed to foster Turkish pre-service English teachers’ pedagogical competencies related to dialogic teaching. In acknowledging various intensive short-term teacher education program components which are often criticized – overfocus on theory over practice (Richards, 2008), lack of variety in resources, uninterested supervisors (Keogh, 2015), lack of feedback provision (Bayrakci, 2009), irrelevant content (Mede & Isik, 2016), contextually inappropriate content (Kumaravadivelu, 2012), insufficient teacher-student interaction (Yan & He, 2015) – this program was designed with careful consideration of the instructors, content, length, and delivery methods. This study set out to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the carefully designed program in meeting its intended objectives of fostering pre-service teacher attendees’ ability to implement dialogic teaching in Turkey. As pre-service teachers are the ones who experience the teacher education program first-hand, their views are critical in understanding how different aspects of these programs are felt to impact their ability to implement what they learn in their teaching practices. Thus, data were collected from teacher-learners throughout the program, and post-program to gather their perspectives on how they felt the program contributed to their ability to implement dialogic teaching in their future classroom as well as what specific aspects of the program were perceived to contribute positively or negatively to that ability. We specifically sought answers to the following research questions:
Research question 1: What are pre-service Turkish English teachers’ perceptions of the effects of a three-day dialogic teacher education program on their ability to implement dialogic teaching?
Research question 2: What specific aspects of the program did they perceive to be the most and least useful to the development of their ability to implement dialogic teaching?
Through this study, we aim to advance the current understanding of program and instructional content, delivery methods, and interventions that can support the transition from what is learned in such programs into practice. The findings of this study have important implications for teacher education curriculum developers, and teacher educators in the field as the reported strengths and weaknesses of this program can be factored into the development and delivery of similar teacher education programs offered in Turkey and beyond. This can result in programs that are better able to meet their intended objectives of fostering teacher-learners’ ability to implement what they are learning.
II Literature review
1 Dialogic teaching
Robin Alexander uses the term ‘dialogic teaching’ to describe a teaching approach that empowers student thinking and develops an understanding through the power of talk (Alexander, 2010). He posits that the classroom should offer a supportive and collaborative setting where the learners can voice their ideas freely and mutual understanding exists. The learners are expected to listen to each other so that the message can be delivered with no misunderstanding.
Lyle (2008) explains that the popular monologic teaching approach is the binary opposite of dialogic teaching. Those who take a monologic approach to teaching are often focused on the transmission of knowledge and one-way communication acts as an aid for accomplishing the teacher’s objectives. Yet, those who take a dialogic approach to teaching focus on authentic practices of interaction that reduce power gaps between the teacher and the students and allow everyone in the class to partake in classroom communication acts. Differing from monologic practices, dialogic practices – which promote ongoing dialogue between the teacher and students as well as students and students – enable democratic participation of the learners and collaborative construction of ideas.
Over the past decade, dialogic pedagogy has gained significant popularity in language teaching resulting in an increase in research into dialogic pedagogy in language teacher education at both the pre- and in-service level (see, for instance, Adler et al., 2004; Butler & Yeum, 2016; Dunne, 2014). To date, literature in this area has emphasized how the quality of talk in English classrooms can be enhanced through dialogic practices in which teachers place explicit focus on giving feedback, reciprocal listening, reflection, and questioning. However, in Turkey, there have only been a handful of studies that have looked into dialogic teaching in English teacher education. Studies at the pre-service level have examined the effectiveness of teacher education on specific aspects of dialogic teaching including teacher talk (Kuru-Gonen & Asik, 2016), teacher questioning (Bozbiyik, 2017), and collaborative inquiry (Aktekin, 2019). Nevertheless, these studies mainly rely on specific dimensions of dialogic teaching that can be focused on to help develop pre-service English teachers’ ability for dialogic teaching implementation, and do not offer a cohesive picture of how these different aspects can be fostered in language teacher education programs or courses dedicated to fostering dialogic teaching abilities.
Though there is still little literature on what factors or practices in teacher education programs positively contribute to teachers’ dialogic teaching abilities, from the few studies that have been conducted to date, observing videos of dialogic teaching in practice (Juzwik et al., 2012), analysing transcripts of dialogic classrooms (Saito, Iikubo & Shirouzu, 2019; Song et al., 2020) and promoting student-initiated dialogues (Muhonen et al., 2016) have been found to be effective in raising teachers’ knowledge and awareness of classroom interaction, and increasing self-monitoring of their teacher talk.
2 Language teacher education programs
Traditional language teacher education programs most often involve studying theoretical rationale behind pedagogical methods, approaches, procedures, and techniques with considerably less time spent on gaining practical experience with them (Johnson & Freeman, 2001). This results in a theory/practice divide that leaves teachers with the sense that they are unable to implement what they have learned (Richards, 2008). This is especially the case with pre-service teacher education programs and courses which often run on the belief that teachers can be ‘front-loaded’: equipped at the start of their career with all the knowledge they will need for their entire teaching life (Freeman, 1994). Thus, teacher educators in such programs often rely on the direct transmission of knowledge in their courses which seldom produces sustained shifts in teachers’ practices (Freeman, 2016) as pre-service teachers end up developing subject knowledge which they are unable to translate into classroom practice (Bartels, 2005; Freeman & Johnson, 1998). Additionally, others have called attention to the issue of contextual appropriateness of materials covered in language teacher education programs which also hinders participants’ ability to implement what they learn (see Holliday, 1992; Kumaravadivelu, 2012). As Kumaravadivelu (2012) discusses, when material or practices developed for one context are brought into another without adapting it to the reality of the new setting and pre-service teacher group, teachers can have great difficulty applying what they learn in practice.
In Turkey, pre-service English teacher education programs have mainly focused on theoretical knowledge and have lacked focus in practice such as observing and teaching in schools (Yazan, 2016). Therefore, most novice English teachers feel unaware of the real classroom settings and unprepared for their teaching role. They, therefore, experience challenges when they start teaching due to a lack of ability to implement what they learned in their teacher education programs into practice (Akcan, 2016; Erten, 2015), limitations in their ability to manage overcrowded classrooms (Tokoz-Goktepe & Kunt, 2021), and a lack of their English proficiency (Gungor, et al., 2019). As Freeman (2016) argues, if teacher education is to move forward, the gap between theory and practice must be addressed, and a stronger focus must be placed on fostering teachers with subject knowledge and pedagogical skills that are both practical and applicable to their classroom settings. In general language teacher education programs, which can span months to years, these issues remain largely unresolved worldwide. Addressing such problems in intensive short-teacher education programs may prove even more challenging given their short duration and intensive focus.
A considerable amount of research has been conducted which has focused on evaluating the effectiveness of short-term teacher education programs for English language teacher development, and various strengths and weaknesses of such programs have been reported in the literature. Among them, micro-teaching, class observations or video-observations, reflection, feedback activities, and knowledgeable teacher educators who provided good models of what they were teaching were found to help teachers gain knowledge and develop their ability to be able to use what they learn in the classroom level (see Cimer, Cakır & Cimer, 2010; Juzwik et al., 2012; Kiely & Askham, 2012; Nicolaidis & Mattheoudakis, 2008). On the other hand, previous research has shown that irrelevant content for the teacher trainees’ professional needs, lack of organizational coherence in the courses and overall program, lack of peer and teacher-student communication, theory-driven over practice-driven offerings, and lack of follow-up (see Garet et al., 2001; Karakas, 2012; Sokel, 2019; Uysal, 2012; Yan & He, 2015) are some of the major factors that hamper the potentials of such short-term programs in fostering pre-service English teachers’ ability to implement what they learn in their teaching practices. Therefore, the teacher education program in the current study was developed by paying special attention to the significant positive and negative factors reported in the literature in order to better foster pre-service teachers’ ability to implement dialogic pedagogy in their teaching. The specific considerations taken in the design and implementation of the dialogic teacher education program in this study are detailed in the following section.
III Methods
In the present study, a mixed methods research design following an embedded approach was employed by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data relevant to this study’s research questions (Creswell et al., 2003). We used a sequential embedded approach (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017) in which we first collected quantitative data through pre-and post-course self-evaluation scales. This was followed by a phase of qualitative data collection through evaluation forms and interviews which aimed to clarify and expand upon trends found during quantitative data analysis. This design was particularly taken to provide a detailed and nuanced account of the factors of the implemented program that pre-service teachers found to positively contribute to their perceived knowledge of dialogic teaching and ability to use it in their future classrooms. The following sections outline the teacher education program under scrutiny in this study, followed by details of the participants, data collection instruments, data collections procedures, and data analysis.
1 The program
A three-day teacher education program was co-designed and delivered in English by seven Turkish field experts with a research background in dialogic pedagogy in English language teaching as well as experience utilizing dialogic pedagogy in the Turkish context. The content of this dialogic teaching-focused program was based on the extant literature (Alexander, 2001, 2010; Bakhtin, 1986; Yang & Carless, 2013) and was specifically sequenced to build up knowledge and understanding of dialogic teaching as well as pre-service teachers’ dialogic teaching practices. Thus, the program started with defining dialogic and monologic teaching to provide a general understanding of the topic. First attendees were introduced to the big picture of dialogic teaching and later, the related important aspects of it were focused to ensure coherence. This was assumed to provide the program participants with a holistic view of dialogic teaching. Additionally, dialogic teaching practices, activities, and experiences were interwoven into classes to provide pre-service teachers with an opportunity to experience dialogic pedagogy from various positions.
The program was developed by considering the noted issues concerning effective teacher education programs that were previously presented (Bayrakci, 2009; Mede & Isik, 2016; Nicolaidis & Mattheoudakis, 2008; Richards, 2008; Uysal, 2012; Yan & He, 2015). First, acknowledging the theory-practice gap, this teacher education program was organized around practice-oriented content that enabled collaboration and implementation activities. This also provided opportunities for pre-service teachers to give and receive feedback as well as reflect on their learning and teaching experiences which, as previously mentioned, have both been found to make positive contributions to pre-service teachers’ ability to apply what they learn. Additionally, in consideration of the impact instructors have been noted to have on pre-service teachers, specialized local instructors with deep knowledge and experience with dialogic teaching in the Turkish context were selected to deliver the content. These instructors (three professors and four assistant professors of ELT) all have taught under/post-graduate courses and published scholarly work on the specific aspects of dialogic teaching which they were responsible to teach during the program. Furthermore, they all had reported success in implementing dialogic teaching in the Turkish educational system that these pre-service teacher-learners were preparing to enter. As the focus of the program was to develop teachers’ ability to implement dialogic teaching Turkey in, instructional methods that exemplified dialogic pedagogy in the Turkish context were employed in order to provide teacher-learners with good models of dialogic teaching. This also addressed noted issues in teacher education programs that lack peer and teacher-student communication since all classes were taught using a dialogic approach. Acknowledging contextual constraints in Turkey such as crowded classes, and low proficiency students, certain considerations were taken in the design of the program. To foster dialogic teaching in crowded English classes, the program specifically included a management-related aspect focused on grouping English learners in different ways, and with different responsibilities to promote collective talk. Considering problems related to low proficiency students in the classrooms, the program introduced various interactional techniques and strategies to obtain answers from lower proficiency students such as asking for clarification, reformulation, and repetition. To further address issues of contextual inappropriateness, model examples of dialogic teaching in the Turkish context were also provided through video observations, and transcribed dialogues in order to situate dialogic teaching in the future teaching context of the pre-service teachers (Hennessy, Mercer & Warwick, 2011; Juzwik et al., 2012; Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2015). The program was held in person from 22 to 25 October 2019, and was comprised of 24 contact hours in total. Table 1 provides an overview of the program presented under the major topics that were covered in the order they appeared (for a detailed description of the program, please see Appendix 1).
Dialogic teaching pre-service teacher education program overview.
2 Participants
The data were collected from the participants of a national project funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). The participants who were eligible to participate in the professional development project were required to meet the following guidelines set by TUBITAK:
have a grade point average (GPA) of 3.00 or above (out of 4.00);
be a pre-service teacher at an English Language Teaching department across Turkey (as a specific requirement of this national project, only Turkish universities were included).
A cohort of 30 students from a total of 13 universities in Turkey participated in the study. Written consent was obtained from all participants indicating their participation in the study was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any time if they wish.
3 Instruments
Data were collected through the following instruments: self-evaluation scales, during-course session evaluation forms, post-course evaluation forms, and semi-structured interviews. The combination of these instruments was used for data triangulation purposes and to augment the credibility of the study (see Denzin, 2017).
a Self-evaluation scale
To measure the impact of the program on teachers’ perceived ability to implement a dialogic approach, a self-evaluation scale was developed and implemented. It consisted of 24 items which were offered on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items were created around core themes in the course content and focused on the perceived knowledge about dialogic teaching pedagogy (e.g. I can list the strategies to develop critical thinking skills in English classroom) and perceived skills of dialogic implementations (e.g. I can design a dialogic learning activity with the help of a web-based tool). The items were pilot tested and re-tested with 10 Turkish English pre-service teachers not included in the main study. Accordingly, those 24 items were finalized after imprecise and confusing words were removed or rewritten (see Appendix 2).
A self-evaluation scale was used before and after the program to see whether/to what extent their self-report on the knowledge and skills for implementing the dialogic pedagogy had changed. As for the reliability of the instrument, the alpha coefficient shows high-reliability indices of 0.91 for the pre-course self-evaluation scale and 0.89 for the post-course self-evaluation with the current sample (N = 30).
b During-course session evaluation form
Following each session of the program, individual session evaluation forms were used to obtain the participants’ immediate feedback on their experiences and their views on the factors they felt positively or negatively contributed to their ability to implement dialogic teaching. This feedback included self-ratings and learning outcomes via open-ended responses. The form was cross-checked by Turkish field experts for surface validity, administered in the pilot study, and then revised accordingly to ensure data were being elicited that contributed to answering this study’s research questions (see Appendix 3). The field experts all hold a Ph.D. in English language teaching (ELT) and conduct undergraduate and postgraduate courses in ELT departments across Turkey. They have published on program development and evaluation within the field of ELT.
c Post course evaluation forms
After the whole program ended, general evaluation forms were employed to obtain the participants’ overall assessment of the program. Drawing from the major factors reported in the literature that have been found to contribute to or negate teachers’ abilities to implement what they learn in teacher education programs, the assessment specifically focused on the program instructors, program content, delivery methods, applicability, and length. The form was checked by the same field experts described above, implemented in the pilot study, and revised for minor wording issues (see Appendix 4).
d Semi-structured interviews
An additional data collection stage was added in the form of semi-structured interviews as it was found that detail was lacking in the initial survey data. Interviews were set up to collect more detail into emergent issues to provide a thick description (Geertz, 1973) of the participants’ views. Interview questions were designed to elicit participants’ views of the strengths and weaknesses of the program in increasing their knowledge and skills for implementing dialogic teaching. No necessary changes were revealed after the piloting of the semi-structured interview (see Appendix 5).
4 Data collection procedures
The data collection procedure was divided into four phases and spanned over a 4-week period as described below.
In Phase 1, the participants were given self-evaluation scales one week before the program started. They were invited to fill in the scales online; thus, they were sent a link via their e-mails. The responses were collected anonymously from all participants (N = 30). Accordingly, their previous perceptions of knowledge and/or a set of skills concerning dialogic pedagogy were received.
In Phase 2, during the administration of the program, session evaluation forms were given to the same sample immediately after each session ended to obtain their perspectives of the sessions’ strengths and weaknesses in fostering their ability to implement dialogic teaching immediately after each session ended.
In Phase 3, one week after the program, the participants were given the same self-evaluation scales (N = 30) which were intended to examine if there was any difference in the participants’ perceptions of knowledge/skills to implement the dialogic approach. Participants were also given a post-course evaluation form (N = 30) which elicited their views on which aspects of the program most and least contributed to their ability to implement dialogic teaching regarding the instructors, program content, delivery methods, applicability, and length.
In Phase 4, an open invitation was sent to all participants to collect further detail into emergent trends in the data collected in stages 1 to 3. The interviews were held with a subgroup of 7 volunteers from the original sample group. These 7 volunteers were selected based on their grade level and universities where they studied to ensure the representativeness of the sampling. For ethical reasons, pseudonyms are used when referencing interview data to protect the identity of the participants.
5 Data analysis
First, the Wilcoxon-Signed Rank Test was run to investigate the differences in the participants’ perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching before and after the teacher education program. Second, the interview data were examined through thematic analysis (Thomas, 2006) to explore further thoughts of participants concerning the implemented program. All recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and cross-analysed for accuracy by the two researchers. Each transcript then went through open, axial, and selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) conducted independently by the two researchers.
The researchers coding sets were then compared and analysed in order to organize the data into final categories. Inter-rater reliability was high with 0.88 agreement between coders (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In order to further enhance the credibility of the analysis, member checking was undertaken to verify our understanding of the interview data. Accordingly, all interview transcripts were mailed to the participants to provide feedback on their oral data (Birt et al., 2016). They were provided with the interview extracts and data analyses made by the researchers and were asked to confirm that their thoughts were reflected in the analyses.
Qualitative data gathered from the individual session and general evaluation forms were analysed through content analysis. This began with each of the researchers doing an in-depth reading of the open-ended responses given to the questions. Then, inductive coding procedures were followed independently by each researcher in which themes developed as the coding progressed (Stemler, 2001). The two researchers’ coding sets were then compared and cross-analysed in order to establish the final emergent themes. The agreement between the 2 coders’ themes was estimated as 0.84 for general evaluation, and 0.90 for session evaluation forms, which indicates high inter-rater reliability (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
IV Findings
The following sections present the findings organized around the research questions addressed in the study. Hence, they are presented under the following headings: (1) Pre-service teacher-learners’ perceived change in the ability to implement dialogic teaching, and (2) Pre-service teacher-learners’ perceived most/least useful aspects of the program in fostering their ability to implement dialogic teaching.
1 Pre-service teacher-learners’ perceived change in the ability to implement dialogic teaching
To investigate the perceived change in the participants’ ability to implement dialogic teaching from pre-course to post-course, self-evaluation scale data were examined. First, preliminary checks were run to find out whether there was any violation of normality. As the data did not meet the assumption of normality for parametric tests (Kim & Park, 2019), the Wilcoxon signed-rank test for paired sample analysis was run. The results showed that the post-course self-evaluation scores (M = 4.43) were higher than the pre-course self-evaluation scores (M = 3.27), p < 0.001, r = 0.97 in terms of the perceived knowledge gain. In parallel, the results also indicated that the post-course self-evaluation scores (M = 4.57) were higher than the pre-course self-evaluation scores (M = 3.04), p < 0.001, r = 0.97 in terms of the perceived dialogic teaching skill improvement. Based on the effect sizes, it can be concluded that the dialogic teaching teacher education program had a large effect size on teachers’ reported ability to implement dialogic teaching in their future practices (Cohen, 1992).
In addition to the quantitative findings above, participants also widely reported an improvement in their skills related to dialogic teaching during the post-course interviews. For example, Semih explained how the topic was unfamiliar to him in the beginning but through the program, he was able to develop knowledge and pedagogical skills that he felt would make it possible for him to implement dialogic teaching practices in his future classroom.
At the beginning, it was a subtle topic for me. But now, I know what materials to choose for dialogic teaching and I believe I can promote a dialogic English classroom. Our instructors used a variety of materials to familiarize us with the topic. I liked videos because they helped me visualize and concretize the dialogic implementations. Also, hands-on practices such as preparing and demonstrating activities in teams helped me a lot to develop my ability because I learned from my peers and I learned by doing. (Semih)
Along similar lines, Elif discussed how through the program she was able to obtain knowledge that helped her to clarify the difference between dialogue and conversation. Furthermore, she discussed how through participating as a student in her teacher educator’s dialogic teaching demonstration she was able to experience firsthand what it is like from the students’ perspective as well as how a teacher can implement such practices in the classroom. The demonstration by her teacher educator also provided a concrete model which she felt she could mimic in her classroom thus contributing to her dialogic teaching skills.
Definitely, the program helped me develop my dialogic skills. For example, before this program, I thought dialogue and conversation were the same but I see they are different now. I learn asking questions does not always make dialogic teaching. The instructor gave us brain puzzles and we worked in teams to solve the challenges. I see how we could think ‘out of the box’ when cues were given and pay attention to different aspects of the problems by co-reasoning. This was a real dialogue, not a simple conversation. So, I will think of using such puzzles in my classes to engage my students in meaningful talk through questioning. (Elif)
To conclude, the interview findings corroborated with the pre/post-course self-evaluation scores. Participants reported both an increase in dialogic teaching knowledge and dialogic teaching skill due to the program they participated in. The overall results, therefore, showed an increase in the participants’ perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching from the start to the end of the program.
2 Pre-service teacher-learners’ perceived most/least useful aspects of the program in fostering their ability to implement dialogic teaching
To address research question 2, during-course session evaluation forms, post-course evaluation forms, and interviews were used. First, major themes derived from the participants’ perceptions of the program components were investigated to find out whether/how instructors, content, delivery methods, program length, and applicability impacted their perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching practice. This was followed by extracting sub-themes from the responses given during-course session evaluation forms and interviews to investigate the specific factors they felt positively or negatively contributed to their ability to implement dialogic teaching.
a Instructors
The analysis of post-course evaluation forms showed that all participants (N = 30) agreed that the instructors played a major role in their skill development throughout the program because they were knowledgeable in dialogic teaching and practices, explained the content clearly, and gave contextually relevant examples to the Turkish context. Coupled with the interview data and session evaluation forms, the analysis explicitly focused on what aspects or qualities of the instructors teachers felt contributed to their ability to implement dialogic teaching. The following two sub-themes emerged: (1) the instructors’ expertise in dialogic teaching, and (2) the instructors’ strong interaction abilities.
Concerning the instructors’ expertise, three pre-service teachers stated: The instructors were knowledgeable and effective. They knew the topic, they presented very well and they gave examples from their related experiences. (Salih) During the courses, I had so many questions in my mind because dialogic teaching is new to me. When I asked the questions, they provided clear and informative responses. They were knowledgeable. (Elif)
Four interviewees also mentioned that the instructors were excellent models of dialogic teaching when delivering their classes in this program. This notion is captured in the following interview excerpts from Seda and Ceren.
Instead of conducting the lessons in lecture format, the instructors often used conversations through which they encouraged us to think how we can implement what we learned. For example, through their relevant questions, we explored how we can turn monologic feedback into dialogic one. (Seda) They created a non-judgmental atmosphere where they always valued our questions about course content, acknowledged our ideas and emphasized our contribution to the courses. (Ceren)
The participants’ positive comments about the instructors illustrate that the instructors made an important contribution to their dialogic teaching development. Of key importance though was the fact that these instructors were reported as being knowledgeable in both the content and context they were teaching and stimulated an interest in the program by being good models of dialogic teachers themselves. They emphasized interaction among the participants by providing a non-judgmental atmosphere and encouraging questioning.
b Program content
According to the post-course evaluation forms, most of the participants (n = 28) thought the program content was well-ordered and relevant to their field of specialization. This view was echoed when the participants were asked in the interviews if the program content helped them to improve their ability to implement dialogic teaching in their practices. Relating to aspects of the program content that were felt to positively contribute to the teacher-learners’ dialogic teaching abilities, the 2 following sub-themes emerged: (1) progressive organization of the content, and (2) interactive content.
First, four participants expressed that the organization of the program content scaffolded their learning as the content progressed from simple to complex, building up their dialogic teaching knowledge and skills in steps. Salih and Ceren, for instance, responded: Course content was organized in a way that allowed me to first grasp the meaning of the dialogic teaching and then compare it with monologic teaching and find out ways of implementing it in my teaching. (Salih) The program was well-aligned. The first day started with distinguishing monologic and dialogic teaching. We all know monologic teaching but this comparison taught me so much because it is the opposite side of dialogic teaching. (Ceren)
Other participants (n = 3) acknowledged the importance of interactive aspects of the program which allowed them opportunities to engage in dialogic interactions. Elif and Melek stated in the interviews: The program content includes components that build on interaction such as group work, dialogic feedback, turn-taking, reformulation and so on. All of them introduce interactive language use. Therefore, I now understood that interaction is not only asking questions whose answers are prespecified but there are such key occasions that could lead to an effective interaction among learners. (Elif) The program content taught me how to create genuine dialogues with the English students. Instead of engaging students in rehearsed activities and drills, I learned how to ask interpretive and referential questions that are more thought-provoking and authentic. (Melek)
Overall, pre-service teacher-learners felt that the progressive organization of course content connected and extended information as it went on, which facilitated their understanding of dialogic teaching. Also, they expressed the value in the program content including interactive opportunities whereby they could get practice engaging in dialogic interaction which helped them both build their knowledge and practical skills related to dialogic teaching.
c Content delivery
In the analysis of the data collected from the general evaluation forms, the majority of the pre-service teachers (n = 20) acknowledged that the content delivery methods were impactful, and they identified several aspects that contributed to their dialogic teaching skill development. Accordingly, the sub-themes that arose based on the during-course session evaluation forms, post-course evaluation forms, and interviews were: (1) observing dialogic teaching in practice, (2) implementation experiences, and (3) collaboration. Findings related to these content delivery subthemes that emerged are presented in turn below.
d Observing dialogic teaching in practice
Twenty out of 30 participants in the general evaluation forms reported that observing models and examples of dialogic teaching through video clips and transcribed dialogues were useful as they helped them understand what dialogic interaction actually looked like in practice and also raised their awareness of the importance of monitoring interactional patterns such as pauses, turn-takings, and wait-time. Also, they indicated that such examples and observations of dialogic teaching in action helped them to clarify what dialogic teaching entails which they felt positively contributed to their own ability to engage in dialogic interaction. This finding was also supported by the interview data as shown in the following excerpts: I’m deeply impressed by the short clips of real classroom experiences because we have seen the realities from classrooms and then come up with the solutions to fix the dialogic problems, such as initiating talk or giving appropriate responses to students. I think this aspect is neglected mostly in classrooms; education is not only learning English but good communication according to the students’ needs. (Ali) I can now distinguish what makes an interaction dialogic or monologic. Specifically, I can say that transcriptions helped me to see how dialogic interaction can be facilitated in the classroom step by step because I learned where to pause, how much to wait before students answer my questions and how turn-taking must be done. This taught me not to engage the whole class time with just teacher talk. (Seda)
Overall, the pre-service teachers indicated that they benefitted from exposure to good models of dialogic teaching as it helped them see how dialogic interaction can particularly be implemented and facilitated in practice.
e Implementation experiences
Evaluation forms showed that 20 participants referred to the value of experiencing the practical implementation of dialogic teaching in various forms including micro-teaching, peer observation, and giving/receiving feedback. They reported that those experiences positively contributed to their skill development as they had the chance to observe and evaluate each other’s performance and put into practice what they learned, thereby sharing and gaining experiences. Interviews provided further information about the participants’ perceptions of useful sessions in terms of the content delivery methods. Accordingly, three sessions (Dialogic questioning, Dialogic teaching in online environments, and Group formation in English classes) were found to be particularly useful by the participants. The common distinctive feature that was reported by the participants was the inclusion of more practical implementations in those sessions, as also illustrated in the following interview excerpts: . . . the practice part of this session [Dialogic teaching in online environments] was the most useful for me. We learned and used some programs . . . We presented our activities in the class and the instructor and the participants observed our presentations and gave feedback . . . Online learning can happen more in the future, so we need to manage discussions online . . . This practice enabled me to think about my online dialogic practise in depth. Later, I observed others’ performance and this gave me new ideas, sources, and strategies to be used for especially managing turn-taking online. (Ali) In this session [Group formation in English classes], after learning grouping strategies, we, as a team, prepared a group activity for a speaking lesson considering those strategies. Other class members pretended that they were students in our speaking lesson. We tried to make them groups and give them responsibilities to push the students for further talk such as predicting, explaining, questioning . . . I think it was a very beneficial practice because I experienced it. After that, I and other team members got feedback from the instructor and other participants so that we could see our strong and weak points while giving the responsibilities to group members to encourage talk for every group member. (Seda)
Experiencing practical activities where they could put what they learned into practice was mentioned by the majority of participants as playing a key role in fostering their ability to implement dialogic teaching in their teaching practices. Pre-service teachers also made references to the value of observation and feedback opportunities where they could reflect on dialogic teaching performances and learn from each other. Thus, although many implementation experiences were provided during the short program, several teachers expressed that more practice and micro-teaching lessons should have been incorporated into the program. For example, two interviewees stated: The content was informative but I would like to see more practice. There is a variety of activities but I expected more micro-teaching practices. With micro-teaching, I and my friends can observe my performance so I can think critically about my skills of managing classroom interaction such as student-student interaction. (Ceren) It would be better if we spent more time by practicing micro-teaching. Dialogic teaching is new to me, so micro-teaching practice can help me develop my dialogic skills more and improve problem-solving skills especially when my students stay silent. (Seda)
To conclude, although the majority of teacher-learners’ in this study appreciated the practical implementations conducted in the program, some reported that even more opportunities to practice implementing various aspects of dialogic teaching through applied activities and micro-teaching should be provided in the program.
f Collaboration
Another prominent sub-theme to emerge concerning content delivery was collaboration. Fifteen participants in the post-course evaluation forms highlighted the contribution of collaborative activities to their dialogic skill development. They reported that group work throughout the program allowed them the opportunity to receive alternative viewpoints from their classmates and debate ideas with them. For instance, Melek noted that she enjoyed group work that focused on dialogic questioning sessions and learned ‘how to negotiate and make a common decision together during the process’. Similarly, three participants mentioned in the interviews that they were assigned different group roles in the group formation session such as questioner, presenter, and summarizer, and reported that they understood they needed each other to complete the task given by the instructor. Thus, they acknowledged mutual support in encouraging participation. Ali said, for instance: Before this course, I did not think that group works would be effective for making students talk because generally, some students work whereas the others rest in a group. But I took participation in group work where we were given different roles in the program. Now, I understand that I need other people’s perspectives or ideas to come to a consensus with shared talk and negotiation. (Ali)
As a result of participating in this program, most of the pre-service English teachers stated that mutual support and collaboration can promote the development of their dialogic practices. They perceived that co-construction of an idea, or a decision can improve the quality of talk as everyone’s participation is recognized.
g Length of the program
A vast majority (n = 27) of the participants reported in the evaluation forms that the length of the program was appropriate to foster the knowledge and skills needed to feel comfortable implementing dialogic teaching in practice. However, three participants expressed that they felt the program length should be extended due to it being too intensive and not providing enough time for dialogic teaching practice. Interview data (n = 3) also supported this finding as shown in the following statements: Program was very intensive and we needed much more time . . . for example, micro-lessons were effective with lots of applications, if the duration was a bit longer, we could have asked for more micro-lessons. (Seda) That was too intensive with eight hours a day. There should be breaks between days. I got mentally tired towards the end. (Melek).
To conclude, the program was found to be intensive and demanding by some participants which did not allow them time to practice and reflect on what they were learning. This negatively impacted their perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching practices overall. They remarked that the program would benefit from being lengthened in order to allow for more practice of the subject matter being covered which would better foster their ability to implement dialogic teaching practices in the future.
h Applicability of the program for future practices
The participants were also asked in the post-course evaluation forms whether they could apply what they had learned in their future teaching. The majority (n = 24) reported that what they had learned in the program would be applicable in their future classes. Only a minor group of them (n = 6) anticipated that they might have difficulty in implementing the dialogic teaching approach in the real classroom settings in the Turkish context referencing contextual constraints such as large class size, language learners’ lack of English proficiency, and their low motivation to learn English as making it difficult for them. Seda and Semih both expressed the potential difficulties they felt they may face when implementing dialogic teaching in their classroom.
I am not sure whether I will be able to apply what I learned throughout this program because I do not know whether my prospective students will be enough competent to be taught in a dialogic way. (Seda) I think this pedagogy is relevant for less crowded classes. In a crowded class, it will be hard to deal with it. It may be hard to make everyone talk and contribute equally to classroom interaction. (Semih)
Although the main objective of this program was to foster teachers’ ability to implement dialogic teaching in the prospective classrooms, this finding implies that outside of the program various contextual obstacles exist that negatively affect teachers’ perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching in practice.
V Discussion and implications
The results of the statistical analysis of pre-and post-course data showed that the dialogic teaching teacher education program in the present study was perceived to be effective in relation to its aims of increasing Turkish pre-service teachers’ ability to implement dialogic pedagogical practices in their future classrooms. This was also a trend in the interview data where participants reported benefitting from the program and envisioned their future use of dialogic pedagogy. They often commented that the instructors were knowledgeable in content and context, and exemplified dialogic teaching by encouraging student talk through questioning and providing a non-judgmental classroom atmosphere. These findings align with Cimer et al. (2010) and Whitehead (2022), who argue that an effective teacher education program should have instructors that are knowledgeable in the fields so that they could provide effective ways of learning for teacher trainees. Specifically, the instructors in a teacher education program are expected to tailor the offered content in accordance with the learners’ needs (Karakas, 2012). In this sense, the findings obtained from this study show the importance of instructors who are knowledgeable in, experienced with, and expert practitioners of the content they are teaching. Of additional importance is that the instructors are experienced experts in the local teaching context that they are preparing pre-service English teachers for (see Whitehead, 2022). As the implementation of dialogic teaching practices is rare in Turkey (Ates et al., 2016), this finding highlights the importance of teacher educators in such programs being experienced in dialogic teaching in the Turkish context and being able to present how dialogic teaching can be practically implemented in teacher-learners’ local settings.
Another key finding of this study is that the majority of the participants felt that the organization of the course content positively impacted their perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching in their future classrooms. First, they thought the content was organized in a progressive way which helped them to sequentially build up their knowledge and pedagogical abilities related to dialogic teaching. This finding aligns with Sokel (2019) and Garet et al. (2001) who discuss the importance of instructional coherence – the connection among the offered courses in a program where one thing builds upon one another – in effective professional development courses. Additionally, the inclusion of interactive opportunities in the courses allowed teacher-learners to gain hands-on experience and practice with dialogic interaction with their classmates. Thus, it is key that future programs aiming to foster teacher-learners’ ability to implement dialogic teaching pay careful consideration to the organization of course content and ensure that the program is organized in a way that builds and expands upon previous knowledge and skills that teacher-learners are developing, in an iterative manner. Additionally, ample opportunity should be provided in all courses for teachers to interact with one another and engage in dialogic communication. In other words, course content should include activities that require teacher-learners to work together and engage in dialogic communications.
The findings also showed that the majority of participants perceived the content delivery methods to positively contribute to their knowledge and ability to implement dialogic teaching in the future. The inclusion of demonstrations via videos and transcribed dialogues was found specifically important to develop their dialogic teaching skills. In line with the findings of previous studies, video-based implementations (Juzwik et al., 2012) and transcribed dialogues (Saito et al., 2019; Song et al., 2020) have been found to be effective in increasing the visibility of the classroom interaction and helping teachers see and analyse the utterances in detail thereby considering wait-time, pause, and gaps. Additionally, the results indicated that the teachers particularly felt that experiences such as micro-teaching, observations, and feedback activities were important components in learning how to plan and implement a dialogic activity. They thought these activities were essential in developing dialogic skills as they promoted active participation and enabled receiving/providing feedback on each other’s practice. Through feedback, they could receive valuable input from variety of perspectives which provided possible ways in which they could improve their student-teacher interaction in their prospective classes. In other words, they were given opportunities to experience dialogic teaching in many different ways throughout the program.
Another remarkable finding is that the teachers specifically gave reference to group work in the program as an essential contributor to their dialogic skill development as they reported learning how to make negotiations and decisions together. This emphasizes the importance of ‘multiplicity of voices’ which is the core dimension of dialogic pedagogy (Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2015). Thus, the teachers first had the chance to understand the importance of classroom interaction through taking part in the dialogic collaboration. Previous studies (Earley & Porritt, 2009; Garet et al., 2001) have also shown that the professional development programs that include collaboration are more successful in yielding effective learning outcomes because the collaborating groups may become more focused and strive for a shared goal. Also, the participants recognized the value of assigning different roles to all members in a group in stimulating student talk. A shift towards dialogic teaching is feasible if particular strategies to support teacher and student-initiated dialogues are provided in the teacher education process (Muhonen et al., 2016).
Although participants noted several aspects of the program as positively contributing to their perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching in their future practices, some participants commented that the program was too short and intensive, and they had challenges with the pace of the delivery. Related to the short duration of the program, some of the participants indicated that they were not provided with enough micro-teaching opportunities to develop their dialogic teaching skills in practice. Such findings are echoed in previous studies (Chen, Flowerdew & Anthony, 2019; Helm, Zeleke & Guth, 2013) which have found that programs of short length may not be adequate for the participants to fully grasp the content being covered and develop their ability to implement what they learn into their classroom. Thus, it is important for programs to provide ample time for teacher-learners to learn, think about, get practice with, and get feedback on dialogic teaching practices. This may be challenging to do in a short program like the one presented in this study, however, that being said, more micro-teaching opportunities should be offered in different ways even in short programs.
An additional problem that was noted by some of the participants was the feeling that what they learned in the program cannot be applied in their prospective teaching settings. Specifically, they thought they would experience difficulties in implementing dialogic teaching in actual classes due to contextual issues such as crowded classes, low proficiency of students, or under-resourced schools. As argued by Erten (2015), pre-service English teachers in Turkey may have difficulties in establishing the link between the theoretical knowledge they were taught in teacher education programs and their real teaching settings. Given that the transition from teacher-centered classrooms to dialogic pedagogy entails a significant change in teachers’ beliefs and the role of teacher talk in the classroom (Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2015), and requires overcoming various contextual obstacles, it is quite possible for teachers to reject these new practices altogether. This is illustrated in the fact that dialogic teaching is still not a widespread practice in Turkey although it has been promoted for many years in the context. Related to the findings in this study, even though contextual constraints to dialogic teaching were presented throughout the program along with discussions of how such constraints can be overcome to make dialogic teaching possible in the Turkish context, some participants stated that the actual implementation of dialogic teaching in their future classroom would be extremely difficult. Thus, for some, the contextual difficulties faced when trying to implement dialogic teaching in the Turkish context could not be overcome by sheer discussion. It seems that for teachers to overcome contextual challenges they need to observe successful dialogic teaching under such constraints and discuss how such constraints were mitigated by the teacher and students. They also need repeated teaching experience under such constraints to develop their own way to implement dialogic teaching in their classroom. It is possible that in future teacher education programs such constraints are acted out during microteaching performances or other dialogic teaching activities to allow teachers to come face-to-face with challenges and work with their peers and teacher educators to come up with practical ways to overcome them.
Drawing from the overall findings of this study and the fact that pre-service teachers may not have much (if any) experience teaching English, a possible sequence they would benefit from in such programs would be to experience dialogic teaching (or specific targeted aspects of it) as learners through teacher educator modeling. Teacher educators could at this point model dialogic practices that they know work in the Turkish context and discuss with teachers how to overcome some of the prominent local contextual constraints and challenges they may face when attempting to implement dialogic teaching in the future. Once gaining experience from the learners’ perspective, teacher-learners could then learn the background theory and practices behind dialogic teaching. This is when they can be presented with the detailed history and background of dialogic teaching and why it is being promoted. Next, teacher-learners could observe dialogic teaching and lesson transcripts, and analyse the practices with classmates with the teacher educator’s guidance and support. This is to engage teacher-learners in critical thinking of possibly good and bad dialogic teaching practices as well as anticipatory reflection (see Farrell, 2006, 2013) of how they could implement such practices themselves. This may also help to raise teacher-learners’ metacognitive awareness of their dialogic teaching pedagogy in which they may be better able to monitor their dialogic teaching thoughts and behaviors in real-time leading to a higher quality of practices (see Hiver et al., 2021; Hiver & Whitehead, 2018). At this point, teachers could then attempt applying dialogic teaching through micro-teaching activities, receive feedback on their practices, and repeat this micro-teaching sequence as necessary to build up their dialogic teaching skills. This suggested sequence is illustrated in Figure 1.
Suggested pre-service teacher education content sequencing.
An additional possibility is to extend the length of the program by including follow-up programs that can reiterate what was covered in previous programs and build and extend upon them. Specifically, during follow-up programs, further dialogic teaching practice can be added, and feedback should be provided to ease the transfer of dialogic teaching into teacher-learners’ classroom settings.
VI Conclusions
The present study investigated the impact of a dialogic teaching-focused intensive short-term education program on Turkish pre-service English teachers’ perceived ability to implement dialogic teaching in their future practices. By building on the empirical evidence, this study contributes to the field of research in regard to teacher education by presenting aspects of this program that were felt to positively and negatively influence pre-service teachers’ ability to implement what they learn into practice: the primary goal of most teacher education programs.
Although dialogic pedagogy has been the focus of several English teacher education programs (Bignell, 2018; Dunne, 2014; Robertson et al., 2018), this program was the first to be studied in Turkey which focused exclusively on dialogic teaching and introducing pre-service English teachers to the various aspects related to the topic. This study specifically examined the impact of this program from the pre-service teachers’ perspectives to gain insights from their experiences in the program in order to further understand what aspects of such programs contribute to/ or hinder teacher-learners’ ability to apply what they learn. Aligning with its intended design and aims, various aspects of the program were reported by pre-service teachers to contribute positively to their ability to implement dialogic teaching. Accordingly, they mostly acknowledged the instructors, the program content, and the delivery methods of the program. However, some teachers felt that they may have difficulty in transferring and applying what they learned to actual teaching settings due to a range of contextual constraints. Although discussions of the challenges and difficulties teachers may face when trying to implement dialogic teaching in practice were provided throughout the program and possible solutions were provided, it was insufficient in helping some teachers feel that they could overcome existing contextual obstacles. Thus, in addition to discussions, it is crucial for teacher educators to provide concrete examples and models of possible ways to overcome contextual constraints in teacher-learners’ local teaching context. Furthermore, it may be beneficial for program administrators to follow up after the completion of the program to check up on teacher-learners’ ability to apply what they learned in the classroom and troubleshot problems or hurdles they are facing. This may be done by conducting a follow-up session a few months after completion of the initial program and/ or school visits by teacher educators who can observe teachers’ dialogic teaching lessons (or mock lessons) and support them in overcoming their difficulties implementing what was learned in the teacher education program.
Another reported issue about the program that some participants reported was there was insufficient time to implement an adequate amount of micro-teaching practice in a three-day program and therefore, the length should be extended. Thus, in short-term programs, it is crucial for teacher-learners to be given ample opportunity to get practice applying what they are learning. This may be done through mini micro-teaching sessions done in small groups rather than a whole class to allow for more teachers to be engaged in the micro-teaching at one time. If short-term programs are unable to provide learners with plenty of micro-teaching opportunities due to contextual constraints or curricular obligations, it is recommended that similar programs are longer in duration to allow time for learners to gain more hands-on experience applying dialogic teaching in various ways. If this is not possible, then we suggest for less content to be covered to allow for a focus on the quality of understanding and the ability to use what is learned over the amount of content covered. We further suggest that, if there is a lot of content to be covered, a series of additional educational sessions, workshops, and micro-teaching opportunities can be developed and conducted sequentially allowing for follow-up and expansion of content covered in the teacher education programs.
Although this study provides insights into the impact of this program on pre-service teachers’ ability to implement dialogic teaching and has important implications for teacher education course developers as well as teacher educators, we must acknowledge its limitations. First, this study was based on participants’ perceptions of the program impact; further investigation is needed to evaluate the long-term behavioral impact of the program by examining the participants’ classroom behaviors in actual teaching settings. Additional data collection strategies such as observations, teacher logs, or portfolios can provide further insights into the extent to which the content that was focused on in such programs manifests itself in these teachers’ real-world practices. In addition, future studies may also adopt a longitudinal approach to find out whether and how the program will have an impact on their teaching practices over time.
Footnotes
Appendix 1. Detailed dialogic teaching education program overview
| Hours | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Dialogic teaching or monologic teaching? | This is the first session of the program. Therefore, the principles of dialogic teaching drawn by Alexander (2018), such as collectiveness, reciprocity, supportive environment, cumulative talk, and purposeful talk were first introduced. Secondly, monologic utterances (monologues such as presentations; and dialogic utterances (argumentations) were demonstrated to the participants to help them recognize dialogic language by giving examples from real classroom transcripts. |
| 2 | Classroom interaction | The exploratory dialogue was first introduced theoretically through lecturing. Then, short clips from the real language classrooms were shown to the participants to illustrate exploratory dialogues. For further analysis of them, the participants worked on transcribing the dialogues with the assistance of the instructor. Thereby, they identified the exploratory markers with the dialogue conventions such as wait-time, extended turns, and pausing. Then, role-playing was implemented in teams to model the exploratory talk between EFL teachers and students. They practiced it by giving the students thinking time, talking time, and turn-taking. The instructor then provided feedback on their performance after the teams completed role-playing. |
| 2 | Reciprocal listening skills in dialogic teaching | Dialogic listening strategies were introduced in the first place. These strategies included active listening, asking for clarification, recognizing verbal and nonverbal messages, paraphrasing, stating facts and opinions, reflecting back, and exploring speaker’s emotions and purposes, use of metaphors and summarizing. Secondly, to practice these strategies, the class was divided into groups. Each group was given a different situation (e.g. You are a job applicant and you are in an interview. You do not understand the question directed by the interviewer. You will ask for clarification.) In this way, different strategies were practiced by asking and answering questions in groups. |
| 2 | Critical thinking and dialogic teaching | The participants were firstly provided with scholarly knowledge of the Socratic method that is used for argumentative dialogues through asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking. They were given written texts (e.g. brain puzzles and short stories) and they were asked Socratic questions that elicited their interpretation and evaluation of the texts in groups. Example Socratic questions based on texts include: ‘Do you agree that all students learn in the same way?’, ‘What are their favorite band and why?’, ‘What would it be like if we did not have words?’ In so doing, question-answer sessions were held and the participants prepared answers and challenged other responses by asking questions. Examples: ‘What do you mean by saying that?’ ‘Is that what you mean?’ ‘Can you give an example that supports your idea?’ |
| 4 | Dialogic questioning | The participants learned dialogic questioning types such as factual, interpretive, and value denotive questions through presentations and transcripts of classroom dialogues. Then, the participants listened to a radio recording to identify which above-mentioned questioning types were used in the recording. Following this, the participants also watched a video of a debate, and based on this video they were asked to write different types of questions in groups. The instructor then provided feedback for the generated questions. |
| 2 | Dialogic feedback | Firstly, the main distinction between dialogic and monologic feedback was made by paying attention to cognitive, social-affective and structural dimensions of the feedback (Yang & Carless, 2013) After this theoretical information, feedback samples of a few sentences taken from EFL classes were demonstrated. With the help of the scale (Reznitskaya, 2012), the participants were asked to evaluate these samples whether the samples were dialogic or monologic in teams. Upon this practice, the instructor provided some teacher utterances of feedback in written form, and asked the teams to make them dialogic. The teams worked on the utterances to make it more informative (e.g. telling why the pupil responses are sufficient/insufficient or building on other pupils’ responses and asking for justification). Then, the instructor gave comprehensive feedback for these dialogically organized utterances that were generated by the teams. |
| 4 | Group formation in English classes | First, the participants received input about grouping stages (i.e. forming, storming, norming) and types (i.e. buzz groups, think-pair-share) that can be used in EFL classes. Then, this session was built on the co-construction of group activities in teams by considering the grouping strategies such as specifying the number of group members, members’ roles, timeline, and incentives that are used to create collective talk. In collective talk, everyone in the group has a responsibility and right to voice his/her idea without being offended. These group activities were co-planned by teams; then, the instructor observed these presented activities and provided feedback to the teams about whether/to what extent the grouping encouraged the participation of all group members. |
| 4 | Dialogic teaching in online environments | Since learning and teaching are no more limited to the walls of the classrooms, this session focused to show how dialogically arranged technological practices could improve interaction through online delivery. Therefore, the instructor first demonstrated several digital Web-based tools (e.g. Voice Thread, Voki, Blogs) and gave the technical details about them. To enhance experiential understanding of the pedagogical affordances of these tools, mini-lessons were organized where the participants co-plan and co-construct the interactional language activities in teams. For example, the English teachers were asked to prepare an interactional reading activity where discussions were held by using one of the aforementioned tools. After each team demonstrated activities, other groups observed and commented on each other’s activities by providing feedback. While they provided feedback, they were required to consider the dialogic teaching principles set by Alexander (2018). |
Appendix 2
Appendix 3. During-course session evaluation form
| Session name: Instructor: (1) Please rate this session (1: poor, 2: fair, 3: average, 4: good, 5: average) and specify your reason. (2) To what extent has the session met your expectations? (3) What new ideas/concepts/applications did you learn in this session? (if any) |
Appendix 4. Post-course evaluation form
| (1) What do you think of the program in terms of: program content: materials and teaching methods: length of the program: instructors: (2) Do you think that the offered courses would be applicable when you become a teacher? Why/why not? (3) What suggestions do you have to improve the program? (4) Please select your overall rating for the program in fostering your ability to implement dialogic teaching in your future classroom. □ Excellent □ Good □ Fair □ Poor |
Appendix 5
Acknowledgements
We offer our special thanks to the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for its assistance and support since the data for this study were collected during a national project funded under Grant number 1129B371900901, which is entitled ‘The use of dialogic teaching in English language teaching for pre-service teachers’.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
