This talk argues that professional learning is a dialogic process in which new understandings and intersubjectivity are mediated by language. Adopting applied CA, I examine video-based collaborative dialogic reflections between a trainee and a trainer to see how learning is facilitated and achieved, and new understanding is scaffolded and mediated.
This talk offers a social view of learning and professional development, taking the position that learning is a dialogic process in which meanings are mediated by language. For pre-service teachers, being able to reflect on their thinking and development during training is crucial and a video-based collaborative dialogic reflection (Li, 2017) provides such a plat form for the trainee to ‘see’ their practice and to engage in deliberate thinking and for the teacher trainer to scaffold and facilitate learning. Drawing on sociocultural perspective learning, this presentation considers the ways in which the trainee and trainer make sense of their professional worlds, develop new understandings and improve their professional practice. This talk will focus particularly on the use of video-based reflection, arguing that finer grained, ‘up-close’ understandings of learning or ‘growth point’ can be best achieved through the use of collaborative dialogues, which allows new understandings to emerge, current practices to be questioned and alternatives to be explored. Here, I will be presenting a dialogue between a trainee teacher and a trainer in reflecting on the teaching practice by examining the very act of ‘talking through’ the experience, such as a segment of teaching, the choice of activities and tools, which may ultimately result in changes to practice. The extracts of the video-based recording were transcribed and analysed following the principles and theoretical underpinnings of conversation analysis (CA). Using this approach, I am exploring the ways in which the both parties achieve intersubjectivity to promote ‘deep’ rather than ‘surface’ understandings of pedagogy and professional practice.
