An analysis of teacher questioning practices in dialogic lessons

Despite growing evidence associating productive classroom dialogue with student outcomes, orchestrating dialogic interactions remains a challenging task for teachers. We argue that attention should be drawn to the quality of teacher questioning practices. Converting the dominant Initiation-Response-Feedback pattern from authoritative to dialogic is key. We follow lessons of 14 pre-primary and primary teachers in Cyprus, who participated in an innovative programme promoting dialogue. The coding of lessons from two time points suggest that, despite initial variation of questioning practices, there is a significant increase of dialogic invitations over time. Correlations between teachers’ dialogic invitations and relevant students’ responses demonstrates impact of teacher questioning practices. Theoretical and methodological contributions, as well as implications for teacher education are discussed.