Interculturality and dialogic pedagogy in ELT: an investigation of Algerian secondary school English textbooks and their use in the classroom

Abstract

This study sought to explore the concepts of interculturality and dialogic pedagogy as constructed in classroom discourse and language textbooks in Algerian secondary school settings. It has adopted an ethnographically-inspired interpretive research paradigm to investigate the representational repertoire of three English textbooks used by all secondary schools in Algeria and to examine 9 voice-recorded classroom sessions with a focus on interculturality. Accordingly, the main sources of data were the voice-recorded naturally-occurring classroom interactions, participant observation, and field notes, interviews with three teachers, and focus group discussions with the learners.
This thesis aimed to explain the role of pedagogy and representation in facilitating or preventing the promotion of intercultural learning in the classroom. The findings show that the textbooks display a multiplicity of cultural references which, by looking deeper, lack complexity because of the dominance of simplistic and essentialist representational discourses. This study has provided a situated and contextualised interpretation of some of the factors impeding the promotion of intercultural learning in English classrooms. Firstly, it has demonstrated that the national orientation of the curriculum prioritises the development of national identity and pride which reinforces an understanding of the cultural and the intercultural as tightly linked to nations as homes for monolithic cultures, which in turn is translated into essentialist, outdated and unappealing language textbooks. Secondly, it has demonstrated the prevalence of the instructional, teacher-centred pedagogy which thrives to develop primarily the learners’ linguistic competence. As opposed to an instructional pedagogy, a dialogic pedagogy is learner-centred and creates symbolic spaces where learners can draw from their multiple identities and small cultures in order to co-construct knowledge that is critical, fluid, and complex. However, although the classrooms in this setting have shown a potential for the emergence of a dialogic learning environment, the instructional discourse was predominant.
I argue that representation matters significantly, particularly if it includes complex and multiple frames of reference, in addition to appropriate tasks which explicitly address intercultural competences and awareness. Furthermore, I argue that the role of the teacher is central in the construction of a dialogic pedagogy which will subsequently contribute to the promotion of interculturality and intercultural learning in the language classroom.

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