From everyday language to disciplinary discourse: Culturally and linguistically sustaining dialogic instruction with multilingual learners

Research indicates that dialogic teaching promotes students content understanding, learning engagement, and democratic participation in classroom discussion. However, dialogic teaching is often misconstrued as a challenge for multilingual learners because there is a tendency to view them as lacking English language proficiency for sustained interaction and discussion. In this article, the authors introduce one instructional approach aimed at designing and implementing dialogic teaching specifically for multilingual learners, termed From Everyday Language to Disciplinary Discourse. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies, this asset-based approach capitalizes on multilingual learners' everyday language practices, lived experiences, and funds of knowledge to support their active participation in classroom discussion and develop their disciplinary literacy. The authors begin by providing an overview of dialogic teaching and its potential for multilingual learners. They then discuss the conceptual foundations of this instructional approach to dialogic teaching with multilingual learners. Building off the conceptual discussions, they illustrate this approach with instructional examples from one U.S. high school multilingual science classroom and by analyzing the teacher's dialogic design, dialogic strategy, and dialogic stance. They conclude the article with a call for culturally and linguistically sustaining dialogic instruction with multilingual learners.