Class Discourse Analysis with a Dialogic Approach Focusing on Teachers’ Role in Managing Classroom Interactions

Pedagogical goals and language use are inseparable thus classroom activities and interaction patterns areinextricably linked. Better understanding of classroom interaction is central to effective teaching, and classdiscourse analysis should be regarded as an essential method to analyse both teaching and learning processes inclass. Distancing from lecturing and mere transference of information, dialogue is considered as the main conceptand the principal educational means. Dialogic interaction, however, is beyond the interactional forms and shouldmeet other criteria to be considered as truly dialogic and be effective. This article is an attempt to discuss classdiscourse analysis from dialogic approach based on Lefstein and Snell’s (2014) six approaches to dialogue, with anemphasis on teachers’ role as the managers of class interactions, who need to be fully aware of different aspects ofdialogue to be able to apply it efficiently in their educational settings.

Keywords:

class discourse analysis , dialogue , dialogic interaction , teachers’ role