The Dialogic

http://education.jhu.edu/newhorizons/strategies/topics/literacy/articles/developing-21st-century-teaching/index.html

These key issues are discussed in the following sections:

1. What is dialogue and why is it important?
2. Why is dialogue so infrequent and difficult?
3. Face-to-face and computer-mediated dialogue
4. The pedagogy, technology, and performance shift
5. Alexander's dialogic teaching: benefits and challenges
6. Four dimensions of 21st century teaching and learning
7. A five-stage process for leading and managing change

Proposition of my Independent Study

I propose and independent study into the sociocultural characteristics of my English language learning students.  While I have limited experience in research, I have over 20 years teaching English language learning, and not during that time have I been asked to participate in research, and for me, that lack of involvement is one of the major reasons why so many language learning models have failed.  Not only has my experiences as a teacher been ignored, but more importantly, my students have been ignored.  Theoreticians  and researches have spent a majority of their time reading, and creating models based on structured research studies that have very little to do with the real world.  

It's time that teachers and students sit at the table, engage in the process of research, and allow us to be participants.  

Purpose

To improve language and Academic learning through a Dialogical classroom
To design activities that encourage Dialogical learning in the classroom

Quote from - Dynamic Assessment

Vygotsky’s research into the development of cognitive functions revealed that this process is not a matter of innate abilities growing into a mature state but that it is the emergence of new ways of thinking, acting, and being that result from an individual’s engagement in activities where he or she is supported by cultural artifacts and by interactions with others. In this way, the social environment is not merely the stage on which development plays out, it is in fact the driving force of development.

Purpose/Objective/Question

To design classroom activities that will encourage student participation in an English speaking community.
Describe students' participation in an English speaking community .
Do my students participate in an English speaking community?

Negotiating Identities

The embedding of the BICS/CALP distinction within a broader framework of academic development in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts that specifies the role of societal power relations in framing teacher-student interactions and determining the social organization of schooling (Cummins, 1986, 2001).

Teacher-student interactions are seen as a process of negotiating identities, reflecting to varying degrees coercive or collaborative relations of power in the wider society. This socialization process within the school determines the extent to which students will engage academically and gain access to the academic registers of schooling.

Using an Identity Approach to language learning

Cummins and Vygotsky

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=75107708

IE assessment

For the Intensive English:

• Assessment
• Make students accountable for their attendance while the course is taking place; end is too late.
• Give students some kind of credit, but not EAPI credit.  (2 credits is plenty)
• Assess students speaking at beginning our course.
• Each instructor will be responsible for assessing their students:
• Possible assessments;
• Attendance
• Participation
• Formative and Summative assessments 
• Portfolio
• Final summative exam if needed. 

Analyzing the Initiation of Transformative Learning on BUUIC students using a Dialogical Approach

Analyzing the Initiation of Transformative Learning on BUUIC students using a Dialogical Approach.

Talking to my students

I want to identify and evaluate the kinds of teaching strategies which encourage and maintain dialogues with students.

Talk with my students and ask them about dialogue.  

Language learning thoughts

Theory or practice; internal or external; making change... creating lifelong learners accepts classroom learning as a piece in a broken process.  2LA occurs from participating in a circular process that takes place between an individual's internal thoughts and the external settings where the target language is used.  Although the focus is on authentic sociocultural settings, in an EFL context those settings may seldom exist, and students must seek opportunities to use the L2.  Who is willing to seek those opportunities?

In an academic setting students are required to engage the L2 socially and academically, but in order to participate academically students must already have social language skills, but few do.

Distinctions

While culture is vital, much of 2LA depends on interaction between individuals.  As theorists ponder in the clouds of conceptual ideals, teachers dredge in daily dealings.  Vygotsky is concerned with communal activities, but Long's Interaction Hypothesis is more in line with American thought from Emerson through Dewy.

To Kill a Mockingbird

This week students will open their own blog, and blog about their thoughts, ideas about the movie... don't read about it on the internet, just write something that YOU think...ok

Reflection

I think...

What?
Today I ....

so what?
This is important

now what?
I will...

Research thoughts, titles

Analyzing The Sociocultural learning theory in an EFL University context
Analyzing Social Media as an English Language Learning tool in an EFL University context
Interview native and non-native speakers social learning
Analyzing Student Beliefs
Using a Sociocultural Framework to Analyze Student learning at an EFL University

Sharing

Students can choose to share, not share, share with some people not others; the choice is yours.

Student interviews

Can open ended interviews with language learners and peer native speakers give us reliable and valuable information about ineraction?

Can this information be used to create meaningful interaction?