Dialogic teaching to the high-stakes standardised test?

Abstract

Within current educational discourse, dialogic pedagogy is diametrically opposed to teaching to the test, especially the high-stakes standardised test. While dialogic pedagogy is about critical thinking, authenticity and freedom, test preparation evokes all that is narrow, instrumental and cynical in education. In this paper, we argue that such positioning of dialogic pedagogy as antithetical to testing is detrimental to attempts both to foster dialogue in classrooms and to constructively manage the high-stakes standardised tests that are compulsory in so many schools. Drawing on an extended case study of dialogic teaching in one London primary school, we argue that while standardised testing is indeed an impediment to dialogic pedagogy, it does not follow that dialogue is impossible or undesirable within the testing context. By adopting an ironic stance towards the test, teachers can fulfil test preparation mandates while maintaining dialogic ideals and practices.

Keywords:

• Dialogic pedagogy
• standardised testing
• classroom discourse
• linguistic ethnography

Notes

1. See Lefstein (2010) and Lefstein and Snell (2011a, 2014) for reviews of this multiple and diverse field, and an introduction to our own approach.

2. We use the first person plural to discuss fieldwork, though not all three authors were involved. The second and third authors conducted the original Towards Dialogue study, including facilitating the planning meetings and observing and recording the lessons.