9.30am GMT - Registration, Introduction to Miro, voting on ground rules for talk
10.00am - Keynote talk: Prof Jan Hardman University of York
What do we mean by Educational Dialogue?
What are the special issues related to the multilingual classrooms?
How do we set up ground rules for talk?
10.30am Breakout 1- choose one
A Creating opportunities for dialogue
Academic Azlin Zaiti Zainal – Creating opportunities for talk through questions in dialogic discourse: English language teachers’ perceptions and practices
This presentation will discuss how questions create opportunities for talk in Malaysian ESL classrooms by exploring the practices of rural secondary school teachers. Examples will be presented to illustrate how the teachers’ scaffolding of student talk through questions supported the learning of English and how teacher responsiveness to students’ contributions created opportunities to extend talk. This presentation will also demonstrate how teachers’ use of questions facilitated students’ co-construction of knowledge and the development of higher order thinking skills. It concludes by highlighting the role of questions in promoting fluency and recommends ways to overcome the challenges faced by teachers in implementing dialogic discourse.
Trainer Graham Astley – Creating the opportunities: Oracy and Dialogue strategies in the mathematics classroom using teacher talk, questioning and technology
Examination of differentials in test performance of bilingual and monolingual learners identified the use of context to frame test questions as a potential barrier to success where the context itself was not shared or understood. Further investigation showed that this was also an issue in the classroom where teachers were attempting to put mathematics teaching into real-life contexts without considering how far the contexts were understood.
Dialogic talk was seen as one way to encourage learners to discuss and explore the contexts used, and for teachers to identify and address any misconceptions. This presentation identifies where dialogic talk can contribute to the ‘conjecturing’ and ‘convincing’ characteristics in the thinking and Working Mathematically strand of the Mathematics curriculum, and provides some illustrations of strategies that have been observed making a difference to learners’ engagement with mathematical context.
B Multi-model approaches in the multilingual classroom
Academic Alison Jane Twiner – Alphabetical literacy does not have to be a barrier to engagement and learning: Supporting children’s understanding through talk, digital technologies and dance
This presentation reports on a line of research exploring the complementary interweaving and multimodality of educational dialogue – through talk, technologies and dance – to support contextualised meaning making. Intentional attention to multimodal engagement within multilingual classrooms supports alternative ‘ways in’ to understanding, that do not rely on verbal or written literacy, but make salient the negotiation of meanings around which vocabulary and verbal communication can be contextualised, communicated and understood. The approach allows all to participate, building bridges across linguistic barriers. We report on three projects working with teachers and children in five classrooms, and five workshops with education practitioners (2009-2021).
Trainer Dawn Harris - Building a dialogue in a multilingual Global Perspectives classroom using a multimodal approach
To ensure effective dialogue in our Global Perspectives classrooms teachers need to be clear on what we want our learners to be saying and doing in a dialogic classroom. We then need to reflect on how we can equip our learners with the language required to engage in the dialogue and in the subject matter.
Focusing on the language requirements for effective dialogue within a Global Perspectives challenge, the presentation will share some multimodal strategies which teachers can draw upon to provide more inclusive access to the curriculum
C Dialogue and professional learning
Trainer Achama Mathew – Evolving and Advancing: Teacher Skill and Proficiency
Schools that have a multilingual environment, have teaching faculty who are diverse in their proficiency, ability and skill to use English to implement the curriculum. Transitioning into the new curriculum threw up challenges for the teachers both during the training sessions and later when executing the syllabus in class.The new terminology and vocabulary in the curriculum documents impacted the comprehension of the new curriculum.Teachers with lower proficiency in English and more multi-lingual in their approach needed specific support. This resulted in professional support groups being developed among teachers and also specific inputs to develop proficiency in English
Trainer Rhisnawaty Fera Ridwan – Supporting Indonesian Science Teachers in a Cambridge International Islamic School: Implementing an Integrated Approach to English Language Development through Science Inquiry
This presentation will share how national teachers, in an Indonesian school context, were supported in navigating through language challenges when implementing Cambridge Science for Primary Checkpoints, IGCSE and AS/A-Levels. The process from language awareness to actual implementation of an integrated approach to English literacy development required additional professional support beyond the training workshop. On-going individual mentoring and group dialogue was necessary to support teachers in finding their own solutions to complex challenges in their classrooms. This was to ensure that solutions were contextually relevant and overcame any resistive forces. In this presentation samples of pre-pandemic and home-based learning solutions developed through professional dialogue will also be shared.
Academic Ngee Derk, Tiong (Derk) – Storytelling as a tool for professional dialogue: evidence from a video study of Malaysian professional learning communities.
This presentation concerns teachers’ use of storytelling in their professional conversations—an often-overlooked practice—its potential usefulness for professional learning, as well as its limitations and caveats. Drawing from the empirical data collected by the author (a video study of English-language teacher communities in two Malaysian secondary schools) as well as research elsewhere, I invite attendees to reflect on the different possibilities of how professional discussions (both formal and informal) can be conducted and enhanced in their own contexts, with the help of real examples. Implications for practice and research are discussed.
11.15 Break
11.30 Breakout 2 – choose one
D. Supporting higher order thinking through oracy
Trainer Dr Nichola Clarke – Design of teacher training to support learners’ use of higher order thinking in mathematics curricula
I consider some strategies I use when designing and delivering training for teachers working on new secondary mathematics curricula. Students’ higher order thinking develops through dialogue, yet there are still many maths classrooms in which mathematical discussion is limited. I work with maths teachers to develop the understanding and practice of how dialogue and elements of higher order thinking can be integrated into maths lessons. I discuss some of the difficulties that have emerged in training, how I’ve attempted to address them, and how my work relates to the challenges experienced by teachers working in multilingual classrooms.
Academic Abie Hui Ki Chan – Creativity through oracy: A mixed methods study of creativity in L2 talk
This presentation reports on a classroom-based oracy intervention study developed for English language learners in Hong Kong. Oracy education has been found to enhance students’ academic performance, support confidence, and underpin cognitive development. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of research on how oracy education can be applied in second language contexts. This presentation will reflect on an intervention programme designed to promote Year 8 students’ creativity and English speaking skills. The presenter will provide reflections concerning the use of oracy in promoting higher-order thinking skills, the cultural considerations in Asian contexts, and the language barriers encountered by less proficient learners.
E. Trans-languaging talk in the EAL classroom
Trainer Erin Garnhum – Towards Enabling Dialogue in Multilingual Classrooms Through the Use of an Intentional Translanguaging Framework – A Case Study
This presentation reports on a translanguaging framework developed for a multi-lingual senior school in China to enable students to use their preferred language for learning in a scaffolded and intentional way. Translanguaging pedagogies leverage students’ other languages in the classroom as resources for learning, and student-to-student interaction patterns may occur in their students’ preferred languages; but teachers’ access to and ability to participate in these dialogues is hindered if they do not share these languages. This will describe an intentional translanguaging framework consisting of five language modes developed for this context which empowers students, while still allowing teachers to use dialogic teaching.
Academic Caroline Joy Beasley – Assessing the quality of Dialogic Teaching and Learning in the EAL Classroom.
This presentation reports on a nationwide school improvement programme in the teaching and learning of Literacy and Numeracy in Brunei. It focuses on the quality of Dialogic Teaching and Learning using an assessment tool called the TPA+, which assesses teachers in four aspects of Dialogic Teaching and Learning. Used by senior leaders and coaches in classroom observations, the TPA+ comprises four questions with corresponding levelled descriptors. The questions used in Brunei are questions which can be applied to any classroom context and raise awareness of the importance of promoting classroom talk for student engagement, the development of thinking skills and improved learning outcomes.
F. Supporting target language use
Academic Patricia Brooks – Using an online platform to support productive dialogue and foster student agency in a linguistically diverse secondary science classroom
The presentation presents the findings of the pilot study for a design-based research project on how an online platform based on the principles of Knowledge Building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2010) can support student agency in a linguistically diverse secondary science classroom in the UK. The application of Knowledge Building principles and dialogic education theory to translanguaging pedagogy (Cummins, 2021) has potential to create an equitable learning environment in linguistically diverse classrooms, where all students have a sense of agency and can enact it (Clarke et al., 2016).
Trainer Cristiane Costa Lima – Enabling Global Perspectives teachers to adapt Challenges for language is key to effective training
Teachers new to Global Perspectives often feel overwhelmed by how different this subject is compared to other core Cambridge International subjects - the fact that it is focused on skills (and not content) and expects learners to discuss a wide range of global issues - while operating in an English as a Second Language context where learners have varying levels of English. This presentation will outline some examples from my practice as a Global Perspectives teacher and as a GP trainer to highlight the importance of adapting Challenges (equivalent to the Scheme of Work) for language, so that learners can develop the GP skills to the full extent and that teachers feel assured that they are setting learners up for success.
Trainer Zijian Xia (Donnie) – Strategies in Provoke Dialogue and Conversation in Mathematics and Science Classroom - Focus on ESL Students.
This presentation will include practical strategies which work for myself in the classroom so that I can encourage the students to use dialogues and conversation in English to help students to fully understand the concept. The strategies include the leading questions and breaking down of the questions. One key for the ESL learners is to allow them to speak in their own language which they are more comfortable to talk and to ask them to translate the concepts/questions in their own or daily used language.
12.15 Break
12.30
Plenary/reflection session
1.00
Close