Shaping the Agenda of Classroom Discourse

Drawing mainly on the theoretical ideas of Bakhtin on the dialogic nature of language, a number of authors have stressed the educative potential of teacher–student interaction which enables students to play an active part in shaping the agenda of classroom discourse. Examples include: dialogic instruction, characterised by the teacher’s uptake of student ideas, authentic questions and the opportunity for students to modify the topic (Nystrand, 1997); dialogic enquiry, which stresses the potential of collaborative group work and peer assistance to promote mutually responsive learning in the zone of proximal development (Wells, 1999); dialogical pedagogy, in which students are invited to retell stories in their own words, using paraphrase, speculation and counter-fictional utterances (Skidmore, 2000); and dialogic teaching, which is collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and purposeful (Alexander, 2004). These proposals share a common concern with the ritualistic nature of the predominant patterns of teacher–student interaction exposed by empirical observation studies, and an emphasis on the importance of maximising active student participation in classroom talk as a means of enhancing intersubjective understanding. In this chapter I will critically review the existing proposals in this field, exploring a number of questions which remain to be resolved, with a view to identifying lines of enquiry which future research could profitably pursue.

Dialogic Instruction

In Opening Dialogue, Nystrand (1997) draws on the Bakhtinian contrast between monologic and dialogic discourse, together with Gutierrez’s concept of instructional scripts (Gutierrez, 1994), to develop the notion of dialogic instruction. In monologic recitation, classroom talk is closely controlled by the teacher, with the aim of transmitting knowledge which students are required to remember. Dialogically organised instruction, on the other hand, is based on a different kind of relationship between teacher and students, in which students are asked to think, not simply to remember.