A research study which used the tools of functional linguistics to illuminate the writing requirements of the history curriculum in the context of Australian secondary schools. It shows how the resulting linguistic description was integrated into a sequence of teaching and learning activities through collaboration between linguist specialists and content/pedagogic specialists. These activities were designed to facilitate students’ writing skills whilst simultaneously developing their historical knowledge.
The authors suggest that a necessary tension exists between authoritative and dialogic approaches as dialogic exchanges are followed by authoritative interventions (to develop the canonical scientific view), and the authoritative introduction of new ideas is followed by the opportunity for dialogic application and exploration of those ideas
This paper describes a methodology for the analysis of classroom talk, called socio-cultural discourse analysis, which focuses on the use of language as a social mode of thinking – a tool for teaching-and-learning, constructing knowledge, creating joint understanding and tackling problems collaboratively. Its application involves a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and enables the study of both educational processes and learning outcomes
The purpose of this research was to explore trainer questioning strategies which aimed to scaffold development and learning in teacher training feedback sessions. Research was conducted with a group of Turkish pre-service English teacher trainees at an English-medium university in Turkey. Findings include a categorisation of different question types which seemed to prompt reflection and construction of knowledge. The data also suggest that trainees need varying levels of support through different question types to better scaffold their understanding of teaching.
The paper questions why practice seems resistant to change, despite the promotion of social constructivist approaches to learning in university. Research has suggested that at the heart of the matter are the ‘inflexible’ values and beliefs that primary postgraduate trainees bring to initial teacher training programmes and a tendency to default to observed practice.