AT BEFORDRE ELEVERNES FÆLLES DIALOG - Opgavebank

Abstract
Promoting common dialogue between pupils.
- An action research project in an 8th grade class
Master Thesis by Tomas Breinholdt Madariaga.
This thesis deals with Danish teachers’ reasons for and ways of promoting common dialogue
between pupils in the 8th grade in the Danish lower secondary school. In this context collective class
conversations on prose fiction are brought into focus. The thesis consists of a theoretical part and a
pragmatic action research project with an emphasis on the latter.
The first part of this thesis is a study of theoretical concepts regarding dialogic teaching. First of all
it describes how the dialogic researchers Martin Nystrand and Olga Dysthe have put forward a
series of techniques to encourage common dialogue among pupils. Three of their most central
techniques are authentic questions, uptake, and high evaluation which aim at promoting pupils’ own
oral statements. In Dysthe’s and Nystrand’s view dialogic teaching is predominantly a matter of
encouraging the pupils to participate in the construction of knowledge. The argument Nystrand and
Dysthe put forward in favor of promoting common dialogue is that pupils can learn to express their
view in many ways through oral interaction with each other. Also Nystrand has added dialogic
spells, student questions, and open discussion as concepts which can support the teacher’s
promotion of- and reflections on - dialogic teaching. Dysthe has added Jean Lave’s & Etienne
Wenger’s situated learning theory in order to stress that learning and dialogue among pupils is a
matter of joining communities of practice.
In addition to Nystrand’s and Dysthe’s research, this thesis examines Robin Alexander’s
characterization of dialogic teaching as well as Rupert Wegerif’s argument for promoting common
dialogue among pupils. Furthermore, the thesis emphasizes Louise Rosenblatt’s theory about the
efferent stance and the aesthetic stance since these describe how the target of readings affects the
subsequent collective class conservation. Finally, central and theoretical viewpoints on dialogic
teaching are discussed. This discussion draws attention to the fact that according to Dysthe teacher
monologues are to a certain extent part of every teaching practice in Danish schools. The discussion