Contextualising dialogic teaching through educational design research: Evolving teaching principles with EFL teachers and students

February 2025 – Volume 28, Number 4

https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.28112a3

Anthony Wotring
University of Wollongong
<awotringuow.edu.au>

Abstract

The adoption of innovative pedagogy without clear guidance in adapting teaching approaches to English language teaching contexts has led to disconnects in meeting students’ and teachers’ classroom talk needs. One such innovation, the dialogic teaching approach, centres a principled conception of classroom talk to enhance pedagogical practice. Recently, English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and researchers have implemented the dialogic teaching approach to address the limited quality of classroom talk. However, emergent findings have yielded mixed results (e.g., inconsistent improvements in teacher questioning and meagre changes to student response quality). These marginal successes may result from teachers and researchers seeking to adopt the approach’s descriptive and idealised principles without adequately addressing classroom realities. This paper explores an educational design research project that sought EFL teachers’ and students’ feedback in adapting dialogic teaching principles within a South Korean university’s EFL curriculum. This project intended to yield a prescriptive design framework to enable the contextualising of dialogic teaching for EFL instruction. Grounded in a hybrid deductive and inductive analysis of this project’s empirical evidence, the present paper’s findings offer researchers and teachers an evolved understanding of dialogic teaching, its utility in EFL teaching, and how pedagogic innovation may be implemented dialogically.

Keywords: Dialogic teaching, educational design research, English language teaching

The English language teaching (ELT) field has often framed the challenge of implementing pedagogical innovation as an issue of translating theoretical principles into contextually appropriate practice. This challenge is evident in previous research investigating various aspects of teachers’ classroom practice, such as when teachers purportedly employ the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach yet persist in conducting classrooms lacking genuinely communicative tasks (Nunan, 1987). Insights gleaned from previous research are valuable in that they offer descriptions of how classrooms are conducted and reveal potential connections between theory and practice.

However, in this paper I explore this challenge from a different perspective. In addition to seeking methods for translating theoretical principles into teaching practice, research should also consider how practice can inform theory. Framing the relationship of theory and pedagogy this way necessitates a research methodology that allows for the contextualisation and evolution of theory in light of real-world practice. In my attempt to contextualise an innovative pedagogical approach, namely the dialogic teaching approach (Alexander, 2020), I have turned to the educational design research (EDR) approach to facilitate this investigation.

EDR provides a powerful approach to elicit feedback and collaboration from teachers and students about pedagogy and course design. Doing so not only supports teacher learning of innovative practices but also lays the foundation for developing theoretical learning in the form of design principles for future effective implementation. EDR offers an innovative framework for pedagogical implementation that has yet to be widely employed in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. Core to the EDR approach is an iterative process for designing and refining input principles, supported by teachers’, researchers’, and students’ feedback (McKenney & Reeves, 2019).

Input design principles serve as the basis for initially designed solutions (Herrington et al., 2009). These initial principles, however, evolve following implementation cycles of curricular designs, transforming teachers’ knowledge of how teaching can be accomplished by producing principled frameworks grounded in empirical findings. Drawing on data from one such EDR project, this paper explores the experiences of teachers and students engaged in an EFL curriculum and pedagogy design and re-design process. Teacher and student participants collaborated to align a tertiary EFL course with principles from the dialogic teaching approach to address localised pedagogical issues. Among these concerns were the poorly defined qualities of talk targeted in classroom discourse, problems of curricular design and implementation misalignments, and the persistent gap between theoretical approaches and teacher pedagogy. These problems are notably all too common among university EFL education in similar contexts (Cui & Teo, 2023; Shea, 2019; Wotring et al., 2021). The research team, comprised of EFL teachers and students, and myself as a researcher, turned to dialogic teaching’s principles to act as our input principles, set standards for classroom talk, and provide the tools to improve our talk quality (Alexander, 2020).

Dialogic Teaching: Principles and Previous Implementations

The dialogic teaching approach falls within a family of dialogic pedagogies, with the unifying aim of better understanding and utilising talk to further learning. Dialogic pedagogies can range in emphasis from using talk to increase students’ content knowledge, such as in the accountable talk framework (Michaels et al., 2008), to Freire’s dialogical method that aspires to democratise public education as a tool for liberation (Freire, 2017; Shor & Freire, 1987). The dialogic teaching approach (Alexander, 2020) offers a principled understanding of classroom dialogue, conceiving talk as a multifaceted meaning-making tool connecting speakers’ social, cognitive, and emotional dimensions (Alexander, 2020; Wotring et al., 2024). Such an understanding of dialogue offers EFL teaching the potential to modify teachers’ questioning practices, enhance the quality of classroom discourse, and “oil the wheels of dialogue to go further on” (Doukmak, 2014, p. 30). The approach’s framework is underpinned by a set of principles to identify and support talk, and thereby learning.

Alexander’s (2017) principles for dialogic teaching establish aspects of talk necessary to harness dialogue’s potential. The dialogic teaching principles support an understanding of “how patterns of talk may open up discourse space for exploration and varied opinions, and how teacher and student decision-making about content is presented and discussed” (Boyd & Markarian, 2015, p. 273). The following dialogic principles (Alexander, 2017, p. 38) characterise dialogic classroom talk and functioned as this project’s input design principles:

• Collective: teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a class;
• Supportive: children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over “wrong” answers; and they help each other to reach common understandings;
• Reciprocal: teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints;
• Cumulative: teachers and children build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry; and,
• Purposeful: teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals in view.

Heron et al. (2021), when researching dialogic teaching in higher education contexts, subdivides these principles along different aspects of learning, namely the affective (the collective, supportive, and reciprocal principles) and the cognitive (the cumulative and purposeful principles). Dialogic teaching principles, as currently constructed, describe the characteristics of talk and instruction that should occur in dialogic classrooms. However, teachers and researchers intending to apply these principles in university, EFL contexts would note the need to modify these principles. For example, tertiary students can offer a greater degree of input into their learning needs and require less “steering” than younger learners. Further, these principles, when functioning as input for curriculum design, do little to specify how teachers may translate these characteristics into practice that fosters dialogic exchanges.

When realised as classroom practice, the dialogic teaching approach has resulted in developments that are both pedagogical (i.e., enhanced learning for students) and professional (i.e., developed teacher practices). Alexander’s (2018) randomised control study demonstrated both outcomes when working across 78 British primary schools. He attributed these successes to the dual aim of teacher and student improvement, which “contrasts with approaches that pin their hopes and advocacy on teachers adopting set patterns of talk” (Alexander, 2018, p. 586). Boyd and Markarian’s (2015) study reflects this attempt to reorient both teacher and student talk. Although the teacher in this study used discourse structures that ostensibly closed avenues for discussion, the dialogue during the class’s literature discussions revealed students and teachers engaged with each other’s ideas as a community of learners. That is not to say dialogue must necessarily occur in oral exchanges, quite the contrary as learners’ utterances in online spaces can similarly be oriented to collective learning (see, e.g., Chan & Chung, 2024; Heron et al., 2021). The significance here is that classroom practice attempted to realise this principled understanding of dialogue to achieve improved student and teacher learning, which may explain why language-learning classrooms have started to turn towards this approach.

Studies investigating the implementation of the dialogic teaching approach for EFL learning have found increases in students’ reasoning and contributions, and in teachers’ dialogic questioning practices (Cui & Teo, 2023; Lee, 2016; Shea, 2019). For example, Shea (2019) conducted an action research project that sought to characterise the impacts of a Japanese university EFL teacher’s modified talk moves to elicit and extend student contributions. His findings did evidence some positive interactional patterns (e.g., some increases in sustained student participation), however, these marginal successes were outweighed by discourse moves that limited students’ contributions possibly due to his own “misguided assumptions about effective talk” (Shea, 2019, p. 797). Similarly, Cui and Teo’s (2024) investigation into a Chinese university’s English language teacher’s implementation of dialogic questioning demonstrated some increase in the quality of classroom exchanges and students’ critical thinking. Despite this teacher’s expanded questioning practices, their findings revealed “missteps, pitfalls and challenges in implementation” (Cui & Teo, 2024, p. 129). These challenges in the implementation and opening of the classroom dialogue are attributed to the teacher’s limited experience with such moves.

Limiting the success of these early attempts could be a result of their implementation methodologies. Research approaches, such as action and practitioner research, maintain a purposefully narrowed focus on improving teacher practice. The above studies utilised teacher-centred implementation strategies as the means to realise the idealised, principled dialogic talk. Largely absent from prior research are the impacts of dialogic teaching’s implementation in the opposite direction – that is, how teacher and student talk can transform descriptive dialogic teaching principles into prescriptive guidance for EFL learning. The outputs of EDR studies can facilitate teacher development and improve student learning, but they also allow insights from the classroom to transform theory (Herrington et al., 2007; Nieveen & Folmer, 2013).

Educational Design Research and Theoretical Contributions to ELT

Educational design research studies represent a “family of approaches that strive towards the dual goals of developing theoretical understanding and designing and implementing interventions in practice” (McKenney & Reeves, 2021, p. 84). Whereas interventionist methodologies aim to develop teacher practices (see Burns, 2016; Doqaruni, 2022; Vu & Burns, 2014), less attention is given to developing theoretical understandings when conceptualising innovation in ELT. Design principles are prescriptive, as opposed to descriptive, in nature (McKenney & Reeves, 2019), with the intent that the results from design research studies may inform effective future pedagogic inquiry and implementation. EDR studies are structured to generate prescriptive findings, such as the results from recent EDR implementations in ELT, differentiating this research model from other modes of inquiry.

The study by Ji and Pham (2020) illustrates many major features of the EDR approach, demonstrating how this approach is distinctive from contemporary research methods. Their project examined the applicability of the task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach in supporting EFL grammar instruction for Chinese university classes. Typical of EDR studies, their study featured iterative cycles of intervention (i.e., TBLT-informed practices), recursively refined through teacher and student feedback. Within these implementation cycles, their research followed specific phases of design construction to meet identified problems, reflection and evaluation of the implemented solutions, and a re-design prior to subsequent classroom implementations. Such an approach of practical solution generation alongside theoretical refinement is typical of EDR studies (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; McKenney & Reeves, 2019) and differs from other research approaches that may simply focus on current practices or teacher behaviour (Burns, 2016; Cui & Teo, 2023). Notably absent from the Ji and Pham (2020) study, however, is a comparison of input design principles with proposed design principles for future implementation, a key component of EDR studies (McKenney & Reeves, 2021; Nieveen & Folmer, 2013).

An example of design research yielding a principled framework for language teaching contexts can be found in Hung’s (2017) study. Her research focused on the impacts of a “flipped” EFL course for Taiwanese university students, where her originally CLT-informed course moved lecture content to a pre-class phase and shifted the focus of in-class learning to peer and content interaction. This EDR study transformed the original input “F-L-I-P” principles (Hamdan et al., 2013) and proposed refined design principles for flipping future EFL classes. For instance, Hamdan et al.’s (2013) “F” principle states: “Flipped classrooms allow for a variety of learning modes. They create flexible environments in which students choose when and where they learn” (p. 5). Along with the other FLIP principles, Hung translated the “F” principle to one that centred EFL learning, proposing an “F” principle that prompts teachers to provide “comprehensible input with flexibility, accommodating individual preferences and proficiency levels, as a means for creating acquisition-rich flipped classrooms for L2 learners” (2017, p. 188). Demonstrated in this contextualisation of principled, theoretical knowledge is the transformation from generically describing how classroom learning should be, in this case in flipped classrooms, to one that prescribes how classrooms can be designed to meet language learners’ needs.

Unfortunately, common among the few EDR studies in EFL contexts, evolved design principles are often separated from the cyclic research process and merely given as concluding or reflective statements (e.g., Egbert et al., 2015; Hung, 2017; Ozverir et al., 2017). Transforming descriptive input principles to a prescriptive design framework alongside the cyclic implementation could provide insights into the adaptation process of innovative teaching approaches. In short, this crucial difference between prescriptive design principles and existing descriptive principles in ELT may be a cause of implementation challenges and the unrealised potential of innovative pedagogy like the dialogic teaching approach.

Therefore, this paper responds to the following research question:

• How might dialogic teaching principles be contextualised for an EFL course through the EDR approach?

Methodology

This qualitative inquiry employed an EDR approach to contextualise dialogic teaching principles in an EFL context. EDR studies generate and analyse data to yield design principles, or “prescriptive theoretical understanding developed through educational design research” (McKenney & Reeves, 2019, p. 39). The overarching project’s contextualisation process centred on two complementary aspects: changes in the design and delivery of the EE2 course and changes to the understanding of dialogic teaching. The current paper’s focus is directed at situating the contextualisation of the dialogic teaching principles for EFL learning and teaching within the EDR methodology. As such, the present paper aims to situate the transformation of dialogic teaching principles in EFL contexts alongside data grounded in the collaboration of the students and teachers engaged in this EDR process.

Participants and Research Context

The research team for this seven-month project consisted of myself, as lead researcher, and EFL teachers (n=8) and students (n=6). Table 1 provides relevant participant information, such as their experience with English teaching and learning and degree backgrounds.

Table 1. Participant Information.

*Teacher Names	Years of English Instruction	Years at the Tertiary Level	Degree Attained
Annie	10+	5+	MA
Barrett	20+	10+	PhD
Caleb	10+	3	MA
Dustin	10+	5	MA
Ethan	10+	5+	MA
Grant	15+	10+	MA
Sean	10+	3	MA
Sergio	10+	3	MA
*Student Names	Years of English Learning	Major Course of Study	Semesters Remaining
DW	13	Counselling	1
Eun-Jeong	12	Undeclared Major	4
Matthew	10	Architecture	2
Na-Yeong	12	Education	2
Yeok-Geun	13	Engineering	1
Beom-Seok	10	Physical Education	4

Note: All participant names used in this paper are pseudonymous.

The context for the current research project was a South Korean university’s EFL course. EFL teachers at this national university were recruited to identify and address existing problems in a conversation EFL course, Essential English 2 (hereafter, “EE2”). The teachers noted curriculum design issues (e.g., a dearth of institutional standards or targeted academic outcomes) and raised questions regarding classroom talk quality. As evidenced in similar Asian EFL contexts, the absence of a principled understanding of student development is a persistent concern for English language teachers in higher education (e.g., Choi & Lee, 2008; Shea, 2019) and was identified as the central pedagogical problem to target.

Participating teachers were notified of the project’s aims and were given opportunities to inform the EE2 (re)design, implement the curriculum, or both. Teachers who consented to implement the designed curriculum allowed me to work directly with their students. Student participants were then similarly recruited to inform, design, and reflect on the EE2 course. Ethics approval was applied for and granted by the South Korean university’s ethics board (application number 2019-0021) and my Australian university’s ethics board (application number 2019/029).

Procedure

An EDR approach was implemented to contextualise the input design principles of dialogic teaching in an EFL context. The five principles of dialogic teaching – collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative, and purposeful – served as input design principles (Alexander, 2017) to describe talk standards. Absent from our input design principles is the deliberative principle, which at the time of the study had not been incorporated into Alexander’s (2020) framework. The deliberative principle requires that “participants discuss and seek to resolve different points of view, present and evaluate arguments, and work towards reasoned positions and outcomes” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131). Although this principle was not available as a design principle, the above descriptive principle is incorporated in this paper’s findings to present a comprehensive transformation of dialogic teaching principles.

The research team followed McKenney and Reeve’s (2019) three-phased EDR structure to inform curriculum design and design principle refinement: 1) analysis and exploration, 2) design and construction, and 3) evaluation and reflection. While each phase has distinct purposes detailed below, the core phases are iterative meaning each phase can be revisited and conducted again in light of new findings from subsequent phases and iterations (McKenney & Reeves, 2021; Sato & Loewen, 2022). It should be noted that the teachers and I worked from a shared understanding of the broader conceptualisation of “curriculum.” We understood the curriculum to encompass all the various components of language teaching, including syllabus planning, assessment and activity design, evaluation, needs analysis, and teaching methodology (see Richards, 1984 for more on this view of curriculum). The research phases wherein the data were collected are presented as occurring in the distinct curriculum iterations in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Conceptualisation of Research Phases and Curriculum Design

Analysis and exploration. The research team sought to elicit current understandings from teachers regarding the existing classroom and curricular problems in EE2 in the analysis and exploration phase. During the initial analysis and exploration phase, I conducted teacher group and one-on-one interviews to connect relevant research literature with the teachers’ experiences, pedagogical concerns, and EFL course aims. Following the iterative implementations of the EE2 course, student focus groups were conducted to explore their previous English instruction as well as to contrast with their experiences in EE2. Analysis and exploration phases in the second and third iterations sought to understand contextual differences (e.g., classroom dynamics, semester-specific focus shifts, teaching demands). Findings from this phase informed the initial and successive EE2 curriculum designs.

Design and construction. The design and construction phase built upon the findings from the analysis and exploration phase and sought to realise proposed curricular and pedagogical solutions. Teachers and I collaborated in first designing and then re-designing the EE2 course. Produced in this phase were curriculum artefacts (e.g., lesson plans, classroom activities, summative assessment instructions, and rubrics). In subsequent iterations of the EE2 course, the redesign of the course curriculum and teacher practices were refined through teachers’ reflections and students’ input. Cooperation by the teachers and students in this phase in revising the EE2 course was meant to meet these students’ stated language learning needs (West, 1994). The revised curriculum, student experiences, and teachers’ developing understanding and practices cultivated in this phase were the focus of refinement through the evaluation and reflection phase.

Evaluation and reflection. When evaluating and reflecting on the designed curriculum’s impacts, the teachers and students discussed how the EE2 activities were implemented in the classroom and aligned with the underpinning dialogic teaching principles. Often noted in the research literature, identifying and reflecting on effective teaching practices can prove particularly challenging, primarily when questions like “what works for whom” are raised (see Cowen, 2019; Ellis, 1997). The research team reflected on such questions as a means to prompt analysis and reflection on our EE2 course design and underpin our evolving understanding of what dialogic teaching means for EFL contexts.

I mediated feedback from the students’ reflections and evaluations on EE2 delivery, communicating this anonymised and synthesised input to the participating teachers for reflection. Teachers collaboratively integrated their own classroom experiences with student feedback, which then acted as input for future EE2 design. Therefore, these reflections by both teachers and students were more towards the “critical” end of the reflection continuum, as these reflections were meant to spur change in the course design and develop future teaching and learning practices (Farrell & Avejic, 2021; Fraser, 2021).

Data Collection and Analysis

Data for this project were collected over seven months and two semesters, from 10 June 2019 to 10 January 2020, resulting in three complete iterations of the EE2 course. Data sources for the current paper are the EE2 curricular documents and participant audio recordings, including those from student focus groups (n=6), teacher recordings (n=17), and in-class recordings of student small group talk (n=3). I transcribed audio recordings verbatim, confirmed through member-checking and review by two other academics attached to the research project (Creswell, 2014). The audio data collected in this project, including the phase in which data were collected, participants in the recording, recording duration, and the aim of each meeting are presented in the Appendix. To achieve the aims of the present paper (i.e., investigating the transformation of theoretical principles by reflecting on the EDR process), the data analysis featured in this paper is less on specific classroom practices, the “what”s, or the implementation of the dialogic curriculum, and the “how”s, as these practices can be understood as localised responses to contextual and individual learning needs. Rather, the analysis in the present paper sought to facilitate a broader understanding of how dialogic teaching principles could fit within ELT contexts.

A hybrid approach to thematically analyse data deductively and inductively was utilised (Swain, 2018; Xu & Zammit, 2020). The value of this hybrid approach is that it supported a rigorous analysis of empirical data generated during the EDR project, a wealth of data that can often be difficult to analyse and present (Kopcha et al., 2015). Data analysis for this paper was guided by the dialogic concept of the utterance, which can be a single word, a novel, or a responsive silence so long as it is characterised by “a change of speaking subjects, that is, a change of speakers” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 71, emphasis in original). Focusing on participant utterances facilitated an analysis of how knowledge was co-constructed through dialogic exchanges. Such an understanding meant that the unit of analysis for the audio recordings was speaker changes, analogous to the “turn-of-talk” analysis conducted in other investigations of dialogic teaching (e.g., Boyd & Markarian, 2011; Wotring et al., 2024). For the document analysis, utterances were identified in the numbered steps and bullet-point directions for students in the formative and summative tasks. This conceptualisation of utterance as the unit of analysis reflects the dialogic teaching approach’s lens of dialogue as being larger than merely the spoken word, and instead conceiving utterance as a semiotic process of meaning exchange (Alexander, 2020; Bakhtin, 1986; Reznitskaya, 2012).

For the deductive coding, I used a priori codes drawn from Reznitskaya’s (2012) dialogic inquiry tool. Although originally developed as an observational tool for classroom use, this analytic scheme examines the dialogic quality of utterances. Table 2 details the dimensions of utterances analysed in the collected data and provides definitions for monologic or dialogic utterances.

Table 2. Coding Scheme for Deductive Analysis.

Dimension	Monologic (m)	Dialogic (d)
Authority (A)	One speaker has exclusive control over the discussion content and process. Turn-taking and discussion topic processes are determined by a single voice.	Speakers share responsibility and control over the discussion substance. Turns and processes are openly managed.
Questions (Q)	Questions target explicit recall of “correct” information or are used to signal disagreement with another’s ideas or contributions.	Questions are open and authentic, challenging others’ viewpoints and analyses in a probing, not silencing, manner.
Feedback (F)	Feedback is short, formulaic, and does not invite further discussion or opportunities to advance inquiry.	Feedback is directly connected with previous utterances and inspires further exploration and reasoning.
Meta-level reflection: (R)	Reflections are disconnected from content and ideas or do not allow for connections between past experiences and future learning.	Reflections offer opportunities for connections between ideas and experiences.
Explanation (E)	Utterances do not offer opportunities for explanation or diverse opinions.	Explanations that allow for the sharing of opinions, reasons, and examples, with utterances that are elaborated to demonstrate thinking.
Collaboration (C)	Utterances are short, disjointed, and do not build upon the previous ideas or contributions.	Utterances that allow speakers to collaboratively engage with others’ contributions, with responses “chained together” in addressing collective inquiry goals.

The purpose of the deductive analysis was to inform the inductive thematic analysis and demonstrate the overarching quality of the utterances. This initial “bottom-up” coding of the data enabled me to identify the aspects of participant talk, which were needed in investigating how teachers and students engaged with one another and the curriculum dialogically. In reporting the deductive coding for the current paper, utterances were analysed through the six inquiry dimensions: authority (A), questions (Q), feedback (F), meta-level reflection (R), explanation (E), and collaboration (C). These dimensions were then qualified as having either a monologic (m) or dialogic (d) character.

The utility of this deductive coding framework is in grounding the evolved dialogic teaching principles in the participants’ development with and through dialogue. For example, during the second in-class recording during the Iteration 1 cycle, Eun-Jeong employed dialogic questioning to elicit and confirm feedback regarding an upcoming formative presentation, asking her small group, “Which one is better? I [state] my some point, like, [my group] is all cons, or we all have pros? Or, we just introduce some cons and pros? What’s the more better? (Qd)”. This coding illustrates Eun-Jeong’s probing her own understanding of an improved presentation structure (i.e., to focus on only the negative of a topic or to introduce some positive as well) and exploring her small group’s viewpoints. By coding each utterance through this analytic scheme, findings presented in the inductive thematic analysis are supported by the close, deductive analysis of the changes in the participants’ utterances.

The inductive thematic analysis characterised the project’s implementation process, which yield prescriptive design principles (Hung, 2017; McKenney & Reeves, 2019). As lead researcher, I followed the thematic analysis process by immersing myself in the deductively coded data. These findings were then grouped to produce a “top-down” analysis and to synthesise themes (Swain, 2018). The emergent themes were arrived at once no further inductive codes could be arrived at, reflecting my orientation to inductive thematic saturation as an “ongoing, cumulative judgment that [an analyst] makes” (Saunders et al., 2018, p. 1901). The purpose of these themes was to understand better the process of implementing the dialogic teaching approach in an EFL curriculum, whereas previous research has simply focused on the impacts of such an approach on teachers’ practice and students’ learning (e.g., Cui & Teo, 2024; Lee, 2016; Shea, 2019; Wotring et al., 2024). The current paper presents the results of deductive and inductive data analysis through a framework of evolved dialogic teaching principles in EFL contexts.

Findings and Discussion

The findings for this paper are situated within each core stage of the EDR project, resulting in an exploration of the evolution process of descriptive dialogic teaching principles. The reader will note that the discussion of the project’s iterative cycles (see Figure 1) is presented narratively in the following section. Acknowledging that a meticulous detailing of the curriculum developments across the research project is beyond the scope of this paper, as well as impracticable (Kopcha et al., 2015), the following discussion encompasses only the findings that directly address the present paper’s aims. That is, the findings presented unpack how EFL teachers’ and students’ participation in the EDR process can transform descriptive dialogic teaching principles into a prescriptive framework for language teaching.

Informed Exploration: Establishing Cumulative Goals

The informed exploration phase focused on the teachers’ previous experiences in English language contexts, common issues in delivering effective tertiary EFL instruction, and identifying the connections between teachers’ proposed solutions and the research literature. Common among the teachers’ backgrounds was the experience of moving from private, primary school English education (i.e., cram schools or “hagwon”; Liu, 2020) to university EFL education, which Annie, Ethan, Sean, and Dustin all had moved through. Teaching in these various institutions impacted the teachers’ approaches to EFL instruction and shaped their pedagogy to meet the contexts’ requirements. Sean reflected on the relationships between his teaching practice, institution requirements, and curriculum development motivators when recalling:

I think the requirements set upon me, by my schools were often kind of an external motivator for changing my approach to teaching English. And, every place that I’ve ever taught has had either a curriculum that was thrown together with whatever we had nearby, in the case of my first hagwon, or was created by a team of people in a very far away city, as in the case of my second hagwon. Or collaboratively developed by educators, like here at this university. So, I would say that my approach to teaching English has changed based on where I’m working. (Rd)

Most of the teachers’ reflections similarly focused on embedding learning from their teaching experiences within the design of the EE2 curriculum. Collaboratively designing EE2 represented a relatively new push at this university to have a similar, albeit not uniform, curriculum design and delivery approach. Annie remarked on the previous, significant disconnect between the different teachers’ course assessments, design, and delivery, saying:

But, I feel like, sometimes with our program, we’re just throwing these words, and we’re not really taught how to do it [assessment and curriculum delivery]. … We need [to know] the importance of assessment and the importance of rubrics and feedback. But no one has ever; we had no workshops on it. And I don’t think most of us really understand it.” (Em)

Annie’s explanation appears dialogic by invoking others’ experiences with program design and delivery, yet she does not draw upon any of these perspectives to understand a way forward. Such a monologic approach in explaining prior experiences may highlight past challenges but does not lend much insight into how the EE2 curriculum could be enhanced.

The influence of previous varied teaching experiences led to dissimilar understandings regarding the purpose and aims of the EE2 course. Sean spoke desire to “us[e] English for its own sake” and could not recall specific English forms that had been previously drilled (Ad). Ethan wanted students to assume more authority in their learning and expect a different experience in EE2, one that differed from the lecturer-oriented “Korean style” educational approach where students were “hand-held” through instruction (Ad). This intent to grant students greater ownership of their language learning contrasts with Caleb’s proffered focus for the designed curriculum.

Caleb resisted focusing on a wide range of talk skills, specifically skills that may not be utilised in casual conversations outside of the classroom. He stated that directing the curriculum towards “elements that we wouldn’t particularly focus on, even when we were outside having a conversation with a friend having a beer (Em)” would miss the mark for EE2. Absent in this perspective is an understanding that students may need, and want, structured and purposeful support through productive dialogue for both academic and conversational purposes (Wotring et al., 2024). During the informed exploration phase, conflicts of opinion such as those above may have resulted from teachers using commonly understood aims, like supporting “authentic” language use (Taylor, 1994), without a critical examination of what we were trying to achieve in our EE2 curriculum and a core focus students’ learning.

The breakthrough in this phase came when the central purpose of the EE2 course was identified in the concept of “considering perspectives.” Grant understood this to be a process of dialogue negotiated between the students, “So, my process, in my mind, it’s like I get them to describe something. Explain it. And then, I’ll add in the notion of, ‘Okay, now how is that similar or different than that other person?’ (Ed)” By focusing teacher pedagogy on this concept of thinking through various perspectives (e.g., the student’s or peers’), Grant could demonstrate his developing understanding of how such talk might be structured. Further, he envisioned the types of dialogues students would need collaborative engage with when discussing the reasons behind these perspectives. The benefit of stating this central purpose for the EE2 design is that it acted as a means to bring together the teachers’ challenges and experiences revealed during this phase.

Tethering together the types of talk needed to consider perspectives allowed us to focus on the essential talk skills students would need to accomplish this aim. The skills assessed in the EE2 course would be those directly connected to a student’s ability to use talk to consider, describe, and explore the reasons for different perspectives. This operationalisation of talk skills could then be collaboratively defined and refined through the teacher and student implementing the program.

Findings from this phase suggest ways to transform the cumulative and purposeful principles in dialogic teaching (Table 3). Teachers’ collaboratively sharing and reflecting upon their teaching practices and backgrounds influenced the design and subsequent delivery of the EE2 course. During these initial meetings, most teachers cumulatively sought connections between their understandings and identified a purposeful centre for the EE2 design. This informed exploration ensured that the future iterations of the course’s design were grounded in this shared understanding of learning goals.

Table 3. Evolving the Cumulative and Purposeful Principles with Findings from the Informed Exploration Phase.

Dialogic Teaching Principles	Original, Descriptive Principle	For Implementation in EFL Teaching
Cumulative	Teachers and children build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and inquiry.	Dialogic EFL instruction should target specific language skills that build upon others’ contributions, and those skills should be connected to teachers’ understanding and students’ needs while supporting coherent lines of inquiry and thinking.
Purposeful	Teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals in view.	Dialogic EFL instruction should seek connections between teachers’ various approaches, tether these aims to specific learning goals, and allow for individual variations while maintaining a shared language learning goal.

Iteration 1: Talking Reciprocally on and about EE2 Design

The first iteration of the EE2 curriculum explored how explicit talk skills could be implemented and refined through student feedback. The research team identified requisite talk skills by focusing on the interactions around considering perspectives and in line with the limited institutional requirements, namely mandated midterm and final summative assessments (i.e., a small-group discussion and a whole-class presentation, respectively).

We designed opportunities for teachers and students to connect and share their learning, interests and backgrounds throughout the EE2 redesign process. For the teachers, these opportunities included space to discuss curriculum implementation challenges and innovation. These planned discussions afforded teachers the needed space to reflect critically and collaboratively on their pedagogical developments. Excerpt 1 demonstrates this kind of sharing between Sean and Grant enabled by the EDR process wherein the teachers reflected on the changes in their approaches to EE2 delivery.

Excerpt 1 – Iteration 1, Analysis and Exploration Phase
Speaker	Utterance	Deductive Coding
Sean:	I was just going to say that teaching Essential English 2 for the first time this semester and also teaching [Essential English 1] along with it has kind of changed the way I teach EE2 a little bit. Because I’m really trying to clearly set out the expectations for what the students need to know by the end of the semester. Like, you need to know these different kinds of questions. You need to be able to do this because you are going to be doing this in Essential English 2 later.	Rd
Grant:	Now it’s wide open. [In Essential English 1] I [didn’t] have to be there for the conversation. We had a nice little interaction. I moved on to the other group. This semester, I’m always trying to leave a group with something…	Em
Author:	To continue the conversation.	Cd
Grant:	Yeah. Rather than wrapping up the conversation like, “Oh, good job. We’re done with this conversation.” And sometimes, I can’t. But that’s my goal this semester.	Fd

In this excerpt, Sean and Grant contrast past teaching practices with the shifted focus for EE2 classroom interactions. Grant provided feedback on both Sean’s explanation and his reflection on communicating the course’s expectations. Rather than “wrapping up the conversation,” classroom talk should be directed towards opening up the dialogue, something Grant had not previously done. Sean, who was concurrently teaching EE2 and the Essential English 1 course, employed a dialogic reflective move to extend this understanding across the two curricula, thereby meeting broader cumulative teaching aims. Grant creates links with Sean’s reflection by explaining how he now models productive talk. Instead of phatically saying “Good job” to close a small group talk, his new aim establishing during the EE2 design process is to “leave a [student] group with something” to discuss. Not only does this reflect a deeper understanding of dialogue as an unending chain of utterances (Alexander, 2020; Bakhtin, 1986), but also seen here are his attempts to be dialogic in the face of classroom realities (i.e., “And sometimes, I can’t. But that’s my goal this semester”).

Caleb offered a different take on the focus for the designed EE2 course. In Iteration 1 (design and construction phase), Caleb raised concerns about the cognitive demands of requiring students to “dig deeper” into their peers’ discussion:

The other thing that we have to also consider, too, is the balancing act between “authentic conversation” versus how often did we, as 20 year-olds, 21 year-olds, really pay attention to, like, “[Am I] asking a deepening question, now?” And “now, I’m asking a question that’s kind of on the surface?” Do you know what I mean? … We take out the authenticity of the conversation. (Rd)

Caleb’s issue here concerns the focus of course interactions and aims, exemplified in this excerpt as a problem of “authentic conversation” in the classroom. The comparison between the talk skills needed for discussions outside of the classroom and the quality of talk for particular academic outcomes. Indeed, this is a point worth considering in course design. Caleb focused on equipping students with the skills to have conversations beyond the four walls of the classroom, which he qualifies as “authentic.” His focus conspicuously did not address the other teachers’ concerns of purposeful scaffolding of talk skills or greater autonomy in the students’ learning. In other words, his concentration on “authenticity” came at the cost of collaborating with others when designing learning experiences.

Seeking to tailor our curriculum design to students’ needs, the research team first explored the students’ attitudes and use of English. In excerpt 2, a student focus group discussed the difficulties of using an L2 to discuss complex topics.

Excerpt 2 – Iteration 1, Analysis and Exploration Phase
Speaker	Utterance	Deductive Coding
DW:	Actually, I am the smart guy, if I use Korean [group laughs]. In English, English word, I am almost, almost like the child. So, like my major [Public Counselling], I usually watch the word [that are commonly used in counselling]. But, I don’t know what can I. But, the English word or [my major]. … For example, I say at cafe, “He is the governor. And we are the [shimin cham-yeo 시민참여],” like that. But I don’t know the [shimin cham-yeo 시민 참여] in English. It is the “citizen…	Rd
Group:	“participation.”	Cd
DW:	“Citizen participation.” But I think about that. I am smarter than English word. I think that is the difficult situation for me.	Fd

While this excerpt highlights the communicative difficulty in recalling English vocabulary, there are positives in how these students addressed such problems. Firstly, DW dialogically reflected on his desire to connect his lived experiences (e.g., using English at a café) with the EE2 classroom. Secondly, the student participants in this focus group supported DW when his English resources faltered. Although he relied on his L1 to communicate his meaning, the other students supported him by collaborating to provide DW with the missing translation for “participation.” Key to this excerpt, and fundamental in the planned use of talk in the EE2 classroom, is this understanding that speakers should be actively engaged in inquiry and reciprocally utilise their talk to deepen the ongoing dialogue.

Whereas the above findings from Iteration 1 convey our orientations to talk, designing classroom activities in line with these orientations revealed the challenges in planning for reciprocal talk. Na-Yeong, in one of the early focus group meetings, noted difficulties in how a lesson was organised:

I think our classes are very short. And we have to talk about the topics with other students. We have to write [reflection] handouts that teachers give us. I’m a little slow. So, I have no time to speak and write the handouts. (Iteration 1, design and construction phase; Ad).

Na-Yeong highlights her specific challenge in navigating English language speaking and writing demands, and the imbalanced prioritisation of these two skills. By noting the time constraint challenge, “I have no time to speak and write the handouts,” Na-Yeong needed greater control in the classroom discussions and curricular processes. As seen in Figure 2, the handout’s questions prompted students to examine their own classroom practice (e.g., “What did you learn about the questions you practised? How do they help conversations?” Qm), which led to a monologic focus on their own challenges. Na Yeong’s and the research team’s feedback brought attention to the disconnect between these reflective prompts and classroom dialogue.

Figure 2. Reflective Prompts for Students from Iteration 1

Iteration 1 revealed how teachers and students could approach dialogue together. Findings from this cycle relate to the reciprocal nature in which teachers and students engaged one another through dialogue. Their talk linked language learning needs and experiences with how EE2 had been designed and delivered. Positively, students and teachers aspired to change their classroom talk (e.g., DW’s inclusion of personal experiences and Grant’s desire to model more supportive classroom dialogues). However, there were also challenges in the pacing of the lessons and the depth of talk that speakers were striving to realise, as noted by Na-Yeong’s comments on EE2 design. Subsequent iterations investigated how to utilise talk to deepen our collective inquiry. Table 4 demonstrates how our orientation to reciprocal talk resulted in an evolved principle for dialogic teaching in EFL contexts.

Table 4. Evolving the Reciprocal Principle with Findings from Iteration 1.

Dialogic Teaching Principle	Original, Descriptive Principle	For Implementation in EFL Teaching
Reciprocal	Teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas, and consider alternative viewpoints.	Dialogic EFL instruction should nurture participants’ listening, sharing, and asking skills, the skills necessary to build upon and explore other viewpoints in reciprocal exchanges.

Iteration 2: Deliberating about Our Talk to Enable Collective Understanding

The second iteration of the EE2 curriculum built upon the early successes of the initial design, refining and supporting the types of talk targeted through the curriculum. During Iteration 2, an issue arose around critically reflective talk during the course’s formative activities. The research team wanted to provide students with the space and guidance to consider their classroom practice and reflect on ways to improve their talk skills. However, as Na-Yeong noted in Iteration 1, the reflection’s purpose had been misunderstood as an individual writing task that detracted from class discussion time.

During the design and construction phase of Iteration 2, the research team deliberated on designs that would foster meaningful reflective dialogue.  The research team noted that the reflective activity needed a change in language to look less like a self-evaluation and more like a discussion or interview about what had happened. This change in perception helped the teachers and students “change the way they were thinking” about this discussion (Sean, Rd). This understanding that reflective tasks guide talk and thinking to lead to improved EFL skills was a core aim of this cycle. The changes to class tasks (see Figure 3) allowed students to engage in reflective dialogue and experience the benefits of their input into course re-design.

Figure 3. Reflective Prompts for Students from Iteration 2

Attending to the language of class tasks affected the realisation of classroom talk. By purposefully prompting talk through reflective questions, the EE2 curriculum supported speakers’ use of talk for specific purposes. Such shifts in focus were not isolated to student development, as Grant also modified his interactions with his students.

I’m always mindful of how I leave my group. And, like, what am I leaving the kids with, in terms of their thoughts? What question or concepts am I asking them to finish? How do we wrap up their ideas? Like for example, when I realised this notion of how I left something hanging, the kid that I was talking to about life experiences – overcame a fear of dogs. So [the student] didn’t have to take the long way to school. So I went, “Oh! So you overcame a fear? Great!” It wasn’t until I was in my office later that I realised, “No. I should have left them with a question of, ‘How has that changed your life [later on]?’” Because now they’re up at a different [cognitive] level. “Confidence. I don’t have to waste time walking to school.” Or whatever, right? (Iteration 2, analysis and exploration phase; Rd)

Here, Grant echoes Shea’s (2019) sentiment that dialogic teaching is “not a matter of established method, but more an issue of commitment, of trying to teach dialogically, which takes place over time and with reflection (p. 800, emphasis in original). In Grant’s experience, trying came about through reflecting on questions he “should have left them with” (Rd), an evolution in understanding he shared with fellow teachers.

Similarly, the student’s role in classroom talk shifted in this cycle. During Iteration 2 (evaluation and reflection phase), Matthew saw value in his input into the EE2 re-design process when compared with previous English class experiences:

I guess things really, the thing which really distinguishes, at least like in this class, I feel like the students are the major, the majority who, who is the class. And teacher is one who explains how we can work on [our English skills]. But in high school and middle school, it [was] just like the solo play of the teacher. Yeah, like for me, I feel like [high school English was] just like solo play. So I appreciate we can participate. We could be the one who was really, is really important in here. (Matthew, Rd)

Matthew noted that his participation in EE2 differed from earlier English education, particularly regarding his role in the classroom talk. In EE2, the focus of the class is not on the teacher, their lectures through “solo play” (Rd). Instead, the students and their collaboration were “really important” in the class. The focus in EE2 had shifted classroom talk towards collaborative interactions that support the exploration of others’ ideas, as evidenced in Excerpt 4. In this excerpt, Eun-Jeong and Matthew shared their upcoming final assessment structure with a small group, including myself and DW.

Excerpt 4 – In-Class Recording 2, Iteration 2
Speaker	Utterance	Deductive Coding
Eun-Jeong:	Hey, professor, I little bit worry about some[thing]. We just introduce some continents’ tradition, or some big events, prom or, what is that? Carnival. Like that. But, that’s a little bit point out of our conclusion.	Fd
Author:	And your conclusion was that globalisation is happening and happening fast, and –	Rd
Matthew:	Yeah. And happening fast. In this globalised world, like, to understand other perspectives and other’s thinking –	Ed
Author:	Other people, yeah.	Fm
Matthew:	The other people. First, we better, like, [focus on] learning and understanding the other cultures and background and history first. Yeah.	Ad
Eun-Jeong:	Yeah, we just focus on the advantage or dis[advantages] of globalisation. [Mathew] say some disadvantage. So, if we include that opinion, we’ll fix all of our outline. Because, we introduce our own, some countries’ tradition a lot. That is a big part of our PPT.	Rd

In this exchange, Eun-Jeong recognised a weakness in their own presentation, namely that Matthew’s and Eun-Jeong’s current structure “just introduce some continents’ tradition, or some big events” (Fd) but did not incorporate diverse perspectives. I reflected on this problem, which was initially intended to centre globalisation. Matthew carried the suggestion forward, connecting other cultures’ backgrounds through to the changes “in this globalised world” (Ed).

Students in the above excerpt manage most of the talk, deliberating how to arrange their presentation to better meet the task requirements. Further, Eun-Jeong initiated and then finalised a fundamental restructuring of her group’s presentation by integrating feedback. What may have supported this process of proposing ideas, eliciting feedback, and incorporating collective input through talk was the activity handout, used as a companion or guide for this discussion (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Excerpt from Handout Supporting Group Feedback.

This handout may have aided the students in recognising what was absent in the presentation’s information, enabling the questioning and dialogue evidenced in Excerpt 4. This in-the-moment uptake from in-class collaborative discussions directly contrasts with other, delayed L2 feedback, where “feedback on assessment tasks can often occur towards the end of modules or units where there are fewer opportunities for students to enact the advice” (Heron et al., 2023, p. 174). Excerpt 4 and Figure 4 reflect intentionally planned collaboration in the classroom and reveal how the students managed these exchanges.

Nevertheless, the depth of talk, deliberation of ideas, and complex conversation topics were not achieved without complications. Matthew noted during Iteration 2 (evaluation and reflection phase), “During the discussion, as our discussion goes like deeper and deeper. I just wanna talk about the more the complicated problem” (Rd). This desire to discuss more complicated problems and topics was intended in the EE2 design. However, students also noted difficulties when pushed to talk about topics beyond the prosaic types of talk. Matthew continued, “But, it’s really hard to describe it. Like, the governmental things or the social problems” (Fd).

Reflecting on the progress made in Iteration 2, the EE2 teachers and students could employ varied talk types to explore others’ thoughts and their developments. The EDR process ensured that these insights into classroom talk were collectively shared, like those from Grant and Matthew. Table 5 demonstrates the evolution of the deliberative and collective principle in light of the findings from the second iteration.

Table 5. Evolving the Deliberative and Collective Principles with Findings, Iteration 2

Dialogic Teaching Principles	Original, Descriptive Principle	For Implementation in EFL Teaching
Deliberative	Participants discuss and seek to resolve different points of view, they present and evaluate arguments and they work towards reasoned positions and outcomes.	Dialogic EFL instruction should explicitly plan for and support talk skills that enable cooperative deliberation of ideas and perspectives, and this instruction must equip students with the skills to elicit and explore reasoned arguments and perspectives.
Collective	Teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a class.	Dialogic EFL instruction should seek connections between teachers’ various approaches, tether these aims to specific learning goals, and allow for individual variations while maintaining a shared language learning goal.

Iteration 3: Supporting Learning Towards Shared Course Outcomes

The final iteration of the EE2 curriculum increased the project’s spread through new perspectives from an additional teacher and new students, sharpening our understanding of how to support student learning and curriculum delivery. The design modifications in this iteration refined teachers’ understanding of questions and explored the achievement of students’ language learning goals. In Excerpt 5, the EE2 teachers discussed their approaches to the final summative assessment – a presentation with a question-and-answer component. Notable in this exchange is the teachers’ concern regarding students’ question quality and the reasons needed to promote higher-quality questions

Excerpt 5 – Iteration 3, Evaluation and Reflection Phase
Speaker:	Utterance	Deductive Coding
Grant:	But when they started asking those questions like, well, that’s a bad question. That’s just a throwaway question. “Do you have any more examples?” You know, that’s not really fair. They did a presentation; [the audience members] should have [said], “You gave an example. Now, do you think that example is…”	Qd
Sergio:	Well, they should really, really ought to know at this point how to ask a question. Considering EE1 and the midterm.	Ed
Grant:	Right. So, I’m thinking that we could actually, in their groups, go, you know, “Good question.” “Okay question.” And –	Fd
Sergio:	I’ll do that today. Because I don’t, I think that’s equitable. I don’t want to just give people like, “How’s the weather?”	Rd
Grant:	Yeah, right. Yeah. But, I think it’s [the audience’s question quality] actually a gradable component.	Em
Sergio:	Right. It’s difficult to grade hobbies. Because the subjectivity involved in good questions, you know. But I think the examples like, a nonsense question, and then like just “Say more stuff” kind of question. You know, they got to listen to the presentation. And then they have to have something that’s going to dig deeper into that perspective.	Cd

Upon hearing students’ questions following peer presentations, Grant considers how to model better questions (e.g., “Now do you think that example is…,”) to raise the quality of discussion. Similarly, Sergio notes the need for better questions, as more trivial topics like the weather do not allow students to “dig deeper into that perspective” (Cd). The teachers in this excerpt are collaboratively reflecting on ways to support student learning and talk, which will then support student talk in meeting the summative assessment and course goals. While the quality of talk has been a topic of research and pedagogical focus for decades in education, the exact definition of what precisely is meant by “higher quality” has often been only vaguely defined as increased student opportunities or actual turns spoken (e.g., Delaney, 2012; Long & Porter, 1985; Xie, 2011). Excerpt 5 demonstrates the teachers reflecting on and, most importantly, supporting a shared understanding of talk quality through their dialogue refined throughout the EDR research project.

The focus group students also reflected on their experiences in the EDR process and EE2 as a means to support language learning. Beom-Seok, when reflecting on his growth because of his involvement in the EDR project, exemplifies the value of incorporating student voices into the curriculum (re)design process:

I feel like talking English is grows up more than before… I enjoy this interviews. This gives me a chance to think about my exercise curriculums lectures, or how I can teach or construct some class. Then, how can I provide something towards some [my future students’] behaviours. I mean, I can feel more comfortable and less, less scared. So, it was very helpful, and I want to study more. (Iteration 3, Evaluation and Reflection phase; Rd)

Significant in Beom-Seok’s reflection is the potential a supportive and collaborative curriculum design holds for EFL students. Not only did Beom-Seok feel he personally benefited from and enjoyed taking part in the EDR process but he also intends to foster similarly supportive experiences for his own, future students in considering how he “can teach or construct some class” (Rd). Supporting students’ involvement in the curriculum design process and engagement with their peers transformed their learning experiences and shaped the teachers’ approach to promoting those exchanges. From Iteration 3, the supportive principle has been evolved to demonstrate how EFL teachers can advance language learning environments (see Table 6).

Table 6. Evolving the Supportive Principle with Findings from Iteration 3.

Dialogic Teaching Principles	Original, Descriptive Principle	For Implementation in EFL Teaching
Supportive	Children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over “wrong” answers; and they help each other to reach common understandings.	Dialogic EFL instruction should plan for opportunities for teachers and students to express their ideas and experiences freely, aiming to refine shared understandings and transform exchanges through dialogue.

Conclusion

This paper presented the transformation of input, descriptive principles of dialogic teaching through the findings resulting from an EDR process. The overarching result of these findings is a framework for prescribing dialogic teaching instruction in EFL contexts. Table 7 brings these findings together, contrasting the descriptive nature of the original input principles with the prescriptive framework.

Table 7. Evolving Input Principles for a Design Framework for Dialogic EFL Teaching.

Principle	Input Principles (Alexander, 2017, p. 38)	Design Framework for EFL Dialogic Teaching
Collective	Teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a class.	Dialogic EFL instruction should seek connections between teachers’ various approaches, tether these aims to specific learning goals, and allow for individual variations while maintaining a shared language learning goal.
Reciprocal	Teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas, and consider alternative viewpoints.	Dialogic EFL instruction should nurture participants’ listening, sharing, and asking skills, the skills necessary to build upon and explore other viewpoints in reciprocal exchanges.
Supportive	Children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over “wrong” answers; and they help each other to reach common understandings.	Dialogic EFL instruction should plan for opportunities for teachers and students to express their ideas and experiences freely, aiming to refine shared understandings and transform exchanges through dialogue.
Cumulative	Teachers and children build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and inquiry.	Dialogic EFL instruction should target specific language skills that build upon others’ contributions, and those skills should be connected to teachers’ understanding and students’ needs while supporting coherent lines of inquiry and thinking.
Purposeful	Teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals in view.	Dialogic EFL instruction should seek connections between teachers’ various approaches, tether these aims to specific learning goals, and allow for individual variations while maintaining a shared language learning goal.
*Deliberative	Participants discuss and seek to resolve different points of view, they present and evaluate arguments and they work towards reasoned positions and outcomes” (Alexander, 2020, p. 131).	Dialogic EFL instruction should explicitly plan for and support talk skills that enable cooperative deliberation of ideas and perspectives, and this instruction must equip students with the skills to elicit and explore reasoned arguments and perspectives.

*Note: Although the deliberative principle was not available as an input principle at the commencement of the present study, it is included here to reflect a coherent and current understanding of the principled framework.

EDR studies recognise that classroom research can be “messy” (Brown, 1992; McKenney & Reeves, 2021), where adjusting one aspect of course design (e.g., teacher questioning practices) can have ramifications across the complex teaching and learning system. Often, when a research team has difficulties translating the dialogic teaching approach into teacher practice (see, e.g., Sedova et al., 2014), the problem may lie with an incomplete understanding among the participants – not with the approach itself. If a teacher-researcher faces challenges in implementing dialogic moves in classroom discourse, it might be worth investigating how students’ voices were valued when changing the teaching approach, or if student feedback on the new approach was considered at all (c.f. Shea, 2019). When attempting to refine teacher questioning practices through dialogic teaching, spaces for collaborative reflection outside of the classroom may need to be integrated into the research design. When developments occur in the teacher’s approach, these changes should not be simply kept isolated to the solitary “teacher’s office” but shared among peer teachers and researchers, as Grant did. Evident in the present paper is the potential for curriculum and pedagogical transformation when student, teacher, and researcher collaboration is recognised as central to the research process.

Findings from this paper serve as a response to Heron et al.’s (2021) remark that “there is little awareness of dialogic teaching in the higher education context, and even less in a second language learning context” (p. 3). If investigations into dialogic teaching are meant to serve as a “work in progress, an unfinished journey of exploration into the riches and possibilities of classroom talk” (Alexander, 2020, p. 4), it is my hope that the presented design principles function as guideposts along the way for future EFL teachers, researchers, and students.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my participating teachers and students in this project. Without their efforts and willingness to engage in dialogue with me, this project would not have been possible. I would also like to extend my thanks to my PhD supervisors, Professor Honglin Chen and Dr Mark Fraser. Your unfailing guidance, expertise, and care are a testimony to the crucial nature of supportive mentors.

About the Author

Anthony Wotring is an educational teacher and researcher, exploring the connections between dialogue and learning. He has focused on dialogue through his research efforts, ranging from initial teacher training in critical reflective writing to continuing teachers’ professional development via asynchronous platforms. His forthcoming research looks into disciplinary literacy practices and how they can be enhanced through explicit teaching. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8601-1661

To Cite this Article

Wotring, A. (2025). Contextualising dialogic teaching through educational design research: Evolving teaching principles with EFL teachers and students. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 28(4). https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.28112a3

References

Alexander, R. J. (2017). Towards dialogic teaching: Rethinking classroom talk (5^th ed.). Dialogos.

Alexander, R. J. (2020). A dialogic teaching companion. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351040143

Anderson, T., & Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-based research: A decade of progress in education research? Educational Researcher, 41(1), 16-25. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X11428813

Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. The University of Texas Press.

Boyd, M. P., & Markarian, W. C. (2011). Dialogic teaching: Talk in service of a dialogic stance. Language and Education, 25(6), 515-534. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2011.597861

Boyd, M. P., & Markarian, W. C. (2015). Dialogic teaching and dialogic stance: Moving beyond interactional form. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(3) 272-296.

Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(2), 141-178. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24398703

Burns, A. (2016). TESOL Quarterly research guidelines: Practitioner research. TESOL Quarterly, 50, 56–59. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.288

Chan, Z., & Chung, V. (2024). Interthinking in asynchronous online talk: A study of Hong Kong English as a second language learners. Language Teaching Research, 13621688241273802. https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688241273802

Choi, Y. H., & Lee, H. W. (2008). Current trends and issues in English language education in Asia. Journal of Asia TEFL, 5(2) 1-34.

Cowen, N. (2019). For whom does “what works” work? The political economy of evidence-based education. Educational Research and Evaluation, 25(1-2), 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2019.1617991

Creswell J. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). Sage.

Cui, R., & Teo, P. (2023). Dialogic Instruction in a Chinese EFL Classroom: A Practitioner Perspective. TESOL Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.3215

Delaney, T. (2012). Quality and quantity of oral participation and English proficiency gains. Language Teaching Research, 16(4), 467-482. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168812455586

Doqaruni, V. R. (2022). The effect of educational background on Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs about action research. Journal of Asia TEFL, 19(1), 354-363. http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2022.19.1.28.354

Doukmak, R. (2014). Are you sure you don’t have any questions? Dialogic teaching as a way to promote students’ questions. ELTED, 16, 27-33. http://www.elted.net/uploads/7/3/1/6/7316005/v16_4reem.pdf

Egbert, J., Herman, D., & Lee, H. (2015). Flipped instruction in English language teacher education: A design-based study in a complex, open-ended learning environment. TESL-EJ, 19(2). http://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej74/a5.pdf

Ellis, R. (1997). The empirical evaluation of language teaching materials. ELT Journal, 51(1), 36-42. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/51.1.36

Farrell, T. S. C., & Avejic, V. (2021). “It Is Easy to Fall into a Monotonous Routine”: Reflections of an EFL Teacher in Central America. TESL-EJ, 25(1). https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej97/a18.pdf

Fraser, M. (2021). Through you I see me: S-STEPping into a teacher educator’s identity through critical reflection. In R. Yuan & I. Lee (Eds.), Becoming and being a TESOL teacher educator: Research and practice (pp. 207-226). Routledge.

Freire, P. (2017). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin.

Hamdan, N., McKnight, P., McKnight, K., & Artfstrom, K. (2013). The flipped learning model: A white paper based on the literature review. Flipped Learning Network, 1-17. https://flippedlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/WhitePaper_FlippedLearning.pdf

Heron, M., Dippold, D., & Husain, A. (2021). How dialogic is the online space? A focus on English speaking skills. TESL-EJ, 25(3). https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej99/a13.pdf

Heron, M., Medland, E., Winstone, N., & Pitt, E. (2023). Developing the relational in teacher feedback literacy: Exploring feedback talk. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 48(2), 172-185. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1932735

Herrington, J., McKenney, S., Reeves, T., & Oliver, R. (2007). Design-based research and doctoral students: Guidelines for preparing a dissertation proposal. In C. Montgomerie & J. Seale (Eds.), Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2007–World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (pp. 4089-4097). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Herrington, A. Herrington, J., & Mantei, J. (2009). Design principles for mobile learning. In J. Herrington, A. Herrington, J. Mantei, I. Olney & B. Ferry (Eds.), New technologies, new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education (pp. 129-138). University of Wollongong. https://ro.uow.edu.au/edupapers/88/

Hung, H. T. (2017). Design-based research: Re-design of an English language course using a flipped classroom approach. TESOL Quarterly, 51(1), 180-192. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44986983

Ji, Y., & Pham, T. (2020). Implementing task-based language teaching (TBLT) to teach grammar in English classes in China: Using design-based research to explore challenges and strategies. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 14(2), 164-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2018.1545021

Jones, P., & Chen, H. (2016). The role of dialogic pedagogy in teaching grammar. Research Papers in Education, 31(1), 45-69. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2016.1106695

Kopcha, T. J., Schmidt, M. M., & McKenney, S. (2015). Special issue on educational design research (EDR) in post-secondary learning environments. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 31(5), i-ix. http://dx.doi.org/10.14742/ajet.2903

Lee, R. (2016). Implementing dialogic teaching in a Singapore English language classroom. RELC Journal, 47(3), 279-293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688216631171

Long, M. H., & Porter, P. A. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19(2), 207-228. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586827

Liu, D. T. (2020). The effects of socioeconomic status and cram schooling on L2 writing: Evidence from Taiwanese EFL learners. TESL-EJ, 24(1). https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej93/a6.pdf

McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2019). Conducting educational design research (2nd ed.). Routledge.

McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2021). Educational design research: Portraying, conducting, and enhancing productive scholarship. Medical Education, 55(1), 82-92. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.14280

Michaels, S., O’Connor, C., & Resnick, L. B. (2008). Deliberative discourse idealized and realized: Accountable talk in the classroom and in civic life. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 27, 283-297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-007-9071-1

Nieveen, N., & Folmer, E. (2013). Formative evaluation in educational design research. In T. Plomp & N. Nieveen (Eds.), Educational design research (pp. 152–169). SLO.

Ozverir, I., Osam, U. V., & Herrington, J. (2017). Investigating the effects of authentic activities on foreign language learning: A design-based research approach. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 20(4), 261-274. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26229222

Reznitskaya, A. (2012). Dialogic teaching: Rethinking language use during literature discussions. The Reading Teacher, 65(7), 446-456. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01066

Richards, J. C. (1984). Language curriculum development. RELC Journal, 15(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1177/003368828401500101

Sato, M., & Loewen, S. (2022). The research–practice dialogue in second language learning and teaching: Past, present, and future. The Modern Language Journal, 106(3), 509-527.

Saunders, B., Sim, J., Kingstone, T., Baker, S., Waterfield, J., Bartlam, B., Burroughs, S., & Jinks, C. (2018). Saturation in qualitative research: exploring its conceptualization and operationalization. Quality & Quantity, 52, 1893-1907. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0574-8

Sedova, K., Salamounova, Z., & Svaricek, R. (2014). Troubles with dialogic teaching. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 3(4), 274-285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2014.04.001

Shea, D. P. (2019). Trying to teach dialogically: The good, the bad, and the misguided. Language Teaching Research, 23(6), 787-804. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168818768982

Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1987). What is the “dialogical method” of teaching? Journal of Education, 169(3), 11-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/002205748716900303

Swain, J. (2018). A hybrid approach to thematic analysis in qualitative research: Using a practical example. Sage Publications.

Taylor, D. (1994). Inauthentic authenticity or authentic inauthenticity. TESL-EJ, 1(2). https://tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume1/ej02/ej02a1/?wscr

Teo, P. (2017). Bridging policy and practice: A study of EFL teacher talk in China. TESL-EJ, 21(3). https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej83/a1.pdf

Vu, N. T., & Burns, A. (2014). English as a medium of instruction: Challenges for Vietnamese tertiary lecturers. Journal of AsiaTEFL, 11(3), 1-31.

West, R. (1994). Needs analysis in language teaching. Language Teaching, 27(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444800007527

Wotring, A., Chen, H., & Fraser, M. (2021). Exploring Curriculum Alignment through Syllabus Document Analysis: From National Language Policy to Local ELT Practice. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 9(2), 57-72.

Wotring, A., Chen, H., & Fraser, M. (2024). They Are Talking, But Is It Productive? Exploring EFL Students’ Small Group Talk. TESOL Quarterly, 58(1), 251-279. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.3227

Xie, X. (2011). Turn allocation patterns and learning opportunities. ELT Journal, 65(3), 240-250. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccq064

Xu, W., & Zammit, K. (2020). Applying thematic analysis to education: A hybrid approach to interpreting data in practitioner research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19, 1609406920918810. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920918810

Yang, Z., & Wang, S. (2022). Dialogic teaching in secondary classrooms in China: Features, commonalities, and distinctiveness. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 34, 100619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2022.100619

Appendix

Audio Data Collection Information.

Research phase	Data type	Participants	Date collected	Audio length	Research aims
Informed Exploration	Teacher Discussions	Annie, Ethan, Sean	10 June 2019	51:13	Teacher background experiences
		Caleb, Sean	6 July 2019	75:29	Exploration of approaches to language teaching
		Sean	30 July 2019	62:15	Relevant research literature discussion
		Caleb	2 Aug. 2019	47:45	Relevant literature discussion
		Barrett, Caleb, Sean	28 Aug. 2019	32:30	Discussion on aims of EE2 design
		Grant	5 Sept. 2019	17:15	Attempt to connect dialogic teaching to EE2 design
Iteration 1 Cycle	Teacher Discussions	Caleb, Dustin, Sean	30 Aug. 2019	51:49	EE2 design construction
		Grant, Sean	25 Sept. 2019	35:15	Reflection on formative task implementation
		Grant, Sean	8 Oct. 2019	52:53	Midterm assessment calibration
		Grant, Sean	16 Oct. 2019	49:44	Midterm assessment reflection
	Student Focus Groups	DW, Eun-Jeong, Matthew, Na-Yeong	30 Sep 2019	57:05	Discussion on student experiences in prior English courses
		DW, Eun-Jeong, Matthew, Na-Yeong	4 Nov. 2019	47:33	Student reflection on midterm summative task and EE2 design
	Student In-Class Recording	DW, Eun-Jeong, Matthew	30 Sep. 2019	35:02	Baseline of student English talk abilities
		DW, Eun-Jeong, Matthew	15 Nov. 2019	15:41	Examining increases in student questioning practices
Iteration 2	Teacher Discussions	Grant	20 Oct. 2019	82:04	EE2 formative activities’ aim
		Grant, Sean	23 Oct. 2019	53:03	Reflecting on task development
		Grant, Sean	12 Nov. 2019	46:32	Evaluating the impact of EE2 on teaching and learning
	Student Focus Groups	DW, Eun-Jeong, Matthew, Na-Yeong	16 Dec. 2019	56:09	Reflecting on experiences in EE2 and preparations for final summative task
		Yeok-Geun, Beom-Seok	27 Dec. 2019	32:32	Connecting previous English courses with re-designed EE2
	Student In-Class Recording	DW, Eun-Jeong, Matthew	10 Dec. 2019	33:27	Final in-class recording for student talk development
Iteration 3	Teacher Discussions	Sean, Sergio	18 Dec. 2019	85:59	Introducing re-designed EE2 course
		Sean, Sergio	30 Dec. 2019	25:23	Combining in-class tasks
		Sean, Sergio	3 Jan. 2020	28:03	Evaluating impacts on teaching
		Grant, Sean, Sergio	14 Jan. 2020	52:24	Final reflection on the EDR process and EE2 design
	Student Focus Groups	Yeok-Geun, Beom-Seok	3 Jan. 2020	24:42	Evaluating changes made to task design
		Yeok-Geun, Beom-Seok	10 Jan. 2020	31:41	Reflecting on impacts of EE2 and student English speaking abilities

[back to article]

Copyright of articles rests with the authors. Please cite TESL-EJ appropriately. Editor’s Note: The HTML version contains no page numbers. Please use the PDF version of this article for citations.