Dialogic Teaching: Transformative Impacts on EFL Learners’ Spoken Discourse at Gondar College of Teacher Education

Abstract

 This study explores how Dialogic Teaching (DT) changed the way students spoke in an Ethiopian EFL classroom. Dialogic teaching has worked well in many countries, encouraging students to speak up and think more critically. But in Ethiopia, it is still not widely used, mainly because of strict curricula and teaching practices where the teacher does most of the talking. The research focused on 20 second-year students studying Linear English at Gondar College of Teacher Education. It followed their classroom talk before and after a DT-based lesson series, using an Interrupted Time-Series Design. The analysis combined numbers and a close look at what the students actually said, using Sociocultural Discourse Analysis (SCDA). After the DT lessons, students discourse transformed from brief, repetitive utterances to more complex, exploratory talk characterized by open-ended questioning and extended contributions. This suggests that DT can make classroom talk more meaningful. The study recommends better teacher training and more research into how DT might work in different places.