Learners’ Viewpoints on the Teacher’s Role in Managing Class Discussions, a Dialogic Approach

Teacher-student relationship is one of the fundamental elements in educational settings, which greatly affects the quality of teaching and learning. Applying critical pedagogy (CP), the dichotomy of teacher- student relationship in traditional education should be resolved. According to this approach, teachers are student- teachers who are open to learn and use their authority to develop a cooperative learning community with students. The research conducted within the paradigm of critical pedagogy usually does not include the viewpoints of the learners though they are expected to develop CP- oriented practices in collaboration with teachers; this has led to an important gap on educational practices conducted within this framework. This article is a part of a case study of an English teacher as a self-identified critical pedagogue who claimed to apply an approach to CP in his preparation for IELTS course in a language learning institute in Tehran. This qualitative study explores the learners’ viewpoints on how the teacher managed class discussions which were the dominant class discourse. This is done through thematic analysis of two questionnaires handed to ۱۹ adult English learners at the beginning and the end of the three month fieldwork period, focus group discussions and the reflective diaries the learners developed throughout the course. Three main themes were distinguished namely superior role model, directive and judgmental. The result of the study highlights the necessity of more qualitative studies of the practices of CP approach especially in educational settings where students are mainly accustomed to monologic lecturing thus are unfamiliar with dialogic features of a problem posing education.