Dialogic validation: a discourse analysis for conceptual development within dialogic classroom interaction

ABSTRACT

The contemporary literature regarding dialogic classroom interaction has primarily focused on the meaning-making attributes of dialogue while acknowledging but otherwise providing less emphasis to the social dimensions of the learning community and the dialogic resources that students bring to the classroom. As a result, this paper explores the concept of dialogic validation, which an individual expresses in order to lend credibility or value to another’s ideas or sociocultural resources. To propose the outlines of dialogic validation, this paper draws on excerpts from an ethnographic study conducted in an EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom to discursively analyse how an L1 (first language) English-speaking teacher facilitates dialogue with his L1 Japanese-speaking students. Through this discourse analysis, a framework will be generated and proposed to identify elements of dialogue that validate and create a classroom space that values and encourages students’ contributions to the teaching and learning processes in dialogic interaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Dialogic interaction
• elicitation
• language learning
• discourse analysis
• responsiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roehl Sybing

Roehl Sybing is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Global Communications at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. He has been a teacher of English as a foreign language and multicultural education in Japan and the United States since 2004. He has a PhD in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the USA. His current research interests include dialogic interaction in language classroom contexts and language policy in higher education.