From pedagogical dialogue to dialogical pedagogy

In this paper, I present and analyse two examples of classroom discourse between a teacher and a small group of students in English primary schools. Both transcripts are extracts from discussions which took place during guided reading sessions (part of the prescribed structure of the 'literacy hour' which English primary schools are required to teach). Drawing on concepts from the work of the Bakhtin Circle, I argue that one of the sequences exemplifies 'pedagogical dialogue', in which someone who knows and possesses the truth instructs someone who is ignorant of it and in error. I interpret the second sequence as an instance of 'internally persuasive discouse', in which students are encouraged to retell the story in their own words, rather than reciting it by heart. I conclude that because talk about literary texts is a non-algorithmic form of knowledge, a dialogical pedagogy is better suited to enhancing pupils' independent powers of comprehension than are approaches which emphasise recitation.