Entering the Conversation: A Novice English Teacher's Approach to Exploring Difference Using Dialogic Pedagogy

This case study examined what happened when a novice teacher worked from a critical, dialogic stance to explore difference in his secondary English classroom. The study focused on a second-year teacher, employed at a suburban middle school, who had been trained in dialogic pedagogy during his teacher preparation program. Methods included lesson planning sessions, daily observations of the participant's classroom instruction, and participant interviews. Multiple data sources, including recordings of planning sessions, interview transcripts, classroom observation field notes, and analytical memos were generated and analyzed to establish new understandings about how dialogic practice affected his and his students' classroom experiences. These understandings suggested that the participant's efforts to enact a dialogic stance both benefited and complicated his practice. Insights generated by this study offer implications for teacher educators seeking to guide teacher candidates towards the translation of pedagogical theory into successful classroom practice in field placements and early-career classrooms.