Teachers’ Professional Development and Pedagogical Shift towards Dialogic Teaching in Malaysian Lower Secondary ESL Classrooms

Abstract

This study reports on teachers’ pedagogical changes upon attending a professional development programme. In supporting learners of a second language (L2), dialogic teaching was emphasised as an intervention programme in Malaysian lower secondary ESL classrooms. Dialogic teaching is a pedagogical approach that focuses on the importance of classroom talk in constructing knowledge collectively (Alexander, 2018). This study explored the perceptions of four rural L2 teachers who were participants in a professional development on dialogic teaching and investigated their classroom practices using the approach. The study was qualitative in nature which comprised four individual semi-structured interviews and nine classroom observations for the data collection. The case study method was employed to boost the reliability of the interview findings in which three of the teachers’ classes were observed, video-taped, transcribed, and analysed to identify the dialogic features prevalent in the teachers’ discourse pattern. The findings of this study indicated that the teachers perceived dialogic teaching as a meaningful interactive discourse structure that facilitated L2 learning and, to an extent, demonstrated a pedagogical shift that took advantage of the dialogic teaching principles and talk repertoire introduced during the professional development. Dialogic teaching strategies such as whole class and small group discussions increased the participation and engagement of students which led to better student outcomes. The teachers had acquired the skills of questioning to facilitate talk amongst the students. Nevertheless, the teachers were challenged with issues of students’ proficiency that obstructed their effective intervention process. The findings have key pedagogical implications in terms of teacher discourse patterns and for further investigation on the enactment of dialogic teaching in facilitating second language.