Abstract:

Fresh off the digital classroom, one challenge for the instructor is to determine students to speak fluently, make comprehensive dialogues, preserve civic and un-discriminatory stance, accept different perspectives and develop critical thinking. As COVID19 implied tremendous time spent in physical distancing, constructive dialogue and soft skills have to be rehearsed. For ESP, dialogic teaching focuses both on the message transmitted and the specialized vocabulary being one of the most efficient approaches of the 5 classroom talk types proposed by Alexander (2004) along rote, recitation, instruction and discussion. Dialogic teaching is collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and purposeful (Alexander, 2017). ESP implies the instructor’s involvement in the subject taught besides the specific terminology introduced, which may represent a challenge. The present paper attempts to analyze ways in which dialogic teaching can be integrated within the ESP class with examples provided from the different subjects pursuing ESP: chemistry, biology via TedTalks and marketing, management via texts. The first part of the study follows the dialogic principles as stated by Robin Alexander and the second part focuses on possible solutions to approach specialized topics. While dialogic teaching facilitates the break of language barrier, question formulation, for/against opinions and argumentation, for the instructor this can pose limitations on the subject (Fisher, 2007). Part of the solutions proposed involve: look for simple information that explains the subject, break down the materials in small chunks and formulate simple introductory questions, have prompts with the new terminology and key words, build up more complex contexts and see how argument, logical thinking and connections are connected. Students’ answers should be simple and accurate to reflect the primary understanding of the subject and more complex to develop cognition and advancement in the subject. One major advantage for the ESP instructor is the fact that students have to accurately dialogue on the subject so that non-experts in the field understand the concepts. Good choice of the materials, structure of the seminar and how information is introduced to the class along the context of the country of origin, start from micro and advance towards macro environments so that students bring input into the discussion represent good strategies. Ubiquitous learning can be added for extending the context reconstructing meaning and expanding the area of learning. This teaching strategy avoids cognitive overload as it structures information that logically connects contexts. In a society under continuous development, dialogic pedagogy is open to creation of new meaning, argumentation, social interaction and critical thinking which cannot be achieved extensively by other classroom talks due to their limitations. Although it implies more involvement into the subject for the ESP instructor, choosing the adequate strategies to implement dialogic teaching in the ESP class can lead to successful advancement of the language and concepts in a foreign language.

Keywords:

Dialogic teaching, ESP, teaching strategies, critical thinking.