Translingual students' dialogic influence on teacher centric pedagogies

Abstract

Current research regarding dialogic teaching practices is directed towards improving teachers’ pedagogical practices, student performance, and teacher training programs as a form of professional development (Lyle, 2008; Haneda, 2017; and Caughlan et al., 2013). Acknowledging the influence that students possess in a teacher’s repertoire of teaching practices appears to be an implicit factor in teacher research of pedagogical dialogism. The role and influence of students as agents of change in classroom ecologies has not been as frequently represented as that of teachers’ guidance, and students’ contributions in classrooms has been still been addressed as supplementary to teachers’ reflections in teacher research (Canagarajah 2015). The paper addresses theseconcerns from a study with English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing teaching assistants in a Master’s level ESL teacher training program at a Midwestern US land grant university. The data set is triangulated by including pre and post lesson interviews with the teaching assistants using a stimulated-recall method, group interviews with the translingual students from their classes, video and audio recorded classroom observations, and syllabi and other relevant course documents. This qualitative research approach draws from Alexander’s (2008) analysis of dialogic pedagogies, Britzman’s (2003) critique of teacher training, and Canagarajah’s (2015) integrative approach of translingual students’ identities in academic writing.