46 Alexander betreft een van de vormen van gesprek die kunnen voorkomen in een dialogische klas. Alle soorten gesprek hebben volgens deze opvatting hun plek in het onderwijs, het is aan de docent om in te schatten welke soort op welke moment het meest geschikt is. Alexander onderscheidt vijf principes waaraan dialogisch onderwijs volgens hem moet voldoen. Dialogic teaching is volgens Alexander: 1) collective: teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a class, rather than in isolation 2) reciprocal: teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints 3) supportive: children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers; and they help each other to reach common understandings 4) cumulative: teachers and children build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry 5) purposeful: teachers plan and facilitate dialogic teaching with particular educational goals in view (Alexander, 2008, p. 28). Alhoewel er volgens Alexander dus verschillende soorten van gesprek in het dialogische onderwijs kunnen voorkomen, benadrukt hij wel dat discussie en dialoog duidelijk de voorkeur verdienen als het gaat om het leren denken: Discussion and scaffolded dialogue have by far the greatest cognitive potential. But they also, without doubt, demand most of teachers’ skill and subject knowledge. Rote, recitation and expository teaching give us security. They enable us to remain firmly in control not just of classroom events but also of the ideas with which a lesson deals. (...) They reduce the risk that the limits of our subject knowledge will be tested, still less exposed. The make it unlikely that awkward questions about evidence and opinion will interrupt the flow of information from teacher to taught. However humanely or humorously packaged, they are monologic. In contrast, dialogic teaching challenges not only children’s understanding but also our own. It demands that we have a secure conceptual map of lesson’s subject matter, and that we give children greater freedom to explore the territory which that map covers (ib., p. 31).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw