Using Cogenerative Dialogues to Foster Community and Support English Language Learner Students' Learning

Communities of Participation in TESOL

Using Cogenerative Dialoguesto Foster Community and

Support English LanguageLearner Students’ Learning

BETH A. WASSELLRowan University

SONYA N. MARTINSeoul National University

KATHRYN SCANTLEBURYUniversity of Delaware

Given the collaborative nature of the TESOL profession, modelsare needed that provide opportunities for teachers and otherschool-based stakeholders to interact with students to under-stand their successes, challenges, and particular needs moreclearly. In this article, the authors advocate for the use of cogen-erative dialogues, a promising practice for learning more aboutthe teaching and learning needs of English language learners(ELLs) in a specific learning context. Cogenerative dialogues arediscussions involving students and teachers that foregroundproblems and generate strategies to improve teaching and learn-ing. The dialogues were implemented as part of a larger, mixed-methods study in two urban middle school science classroomsin the United States. The authors discuss beneficial outcomesand tensions for both ELL students and teachers. Benefitsincluded (1) creating opportunities for students to develop avoice, (2) assuming responsibilities for learning, (3) sharingresponsibilities for language acquisition and learning, and (4)developing a sense of community. They also address two otherspecific concerns: the language proficiency levels of the studentswho are involved, and the cultural practices around critiquingteaching and learning.doi: 10.1002/tesj.109

TESOL Journal 4.4, December 2013 759© 2013 TESOL International Association

Given the collaborative nature of the TESOL profession (e.g.,Honigsfeld & Dove, 2012), models that provide opportunities forteachers and other school-based stakeholders to interact directlywith students to understand their successes, challenges, and needsin the classroom and beyond are warranted. In this article, weadvocate using cogenerative dialogues, a promising practice forlearning more about the teaching and learning needs of Englishlanguage learners (ELLs) in a specific learning context.Cogenerative dialogues have been used extensively in the field ofK–12 through graduate school science education (Martin, 2006;Roth & Tobin, 2001; Siry & Lang, 2010; Stith & Roth, 2008; Tobin,2006), in teacher education (Martin, 2009; Martin & Scantlebury,2009; Scantlebury, Gallo-Fox, & Wassell, 2008), and in urbaneducation settings (Bayne, 2009; Carambo, 2009; Elmesky & Tobin,2005; Emdin, 2007), yet no study to date has focused on theirimpact on ELL students’ language or content learning. In thisarticle, we extend the use of cogenerative dialogues to the field ofTESOL and advocate its use as a promising practice. We firstoutline the methods used and then describe both the beneficialoutcomes and the tensions that emerged when using cogenerativedialogues with ELL students in science classrooms.

COGENERATIVE DIALOGUES: WHAT ARE THEY ANDHOW DO THEY WORK?Cogenerative dialogues are discussions involving students andteachers that foreground problems and generate strategies toimprove teaching and learning (LaVan & Beers, 2005). Theyprovide a space for participants to critically and collectivelycogenerate solutions to the specific challenges that are impedingteaching and learning (Roth & Tobin, 2001). The primary goals arefor teachers and students to accept responsibility, to share theirperspectives about teaching and learning, and to collectivelygenerate plans for enacting positive change in the practices ofindividuals and groups. At the conclusion of each dialogue,participants clearly state what was discussed, what was heard,and what was cogenerated. Then members take responsibility forhow they will enact their plans.

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Cogenerative dialogues require cycles of implementation; oncea plan is enacted, participants should engage in follow-upcogenerative dialogues to assess the outcomes and to cogeneratenew plans if needed. Dialogues typically occur during lunch orbefore or after school, and may include other stakeholders such asstudent teachers, parents, researchers, or administrators. Thedialogues occur regularly over time, with teachers generallymeeting with students at least once every two weeks. Teacherswith whom we have worked have chosen to meet with studentsmore frequently, depending on the availability of time, the issuesthe group seeks to address, and the number of participants.Optimally, cogenerative dialogues have three to five students, butcan also be conducted as one-on-one sessions. The smaller numberof participants increases the speaking time for students andteachers. Ideally, the dialogues include the same group ofstudents, who over time develop trust with each other and withthe teacher and become more comfortable sharing theirperspectives with the group. However, the format is flexible andmay include a whole-class setting or other arrangements.

The rules of a cogenerative dialogue include (1) speaking isvoluntary; (2) no voices are privileged, including those of adults;and (3) what is discussed stays in the group, unless the groupdecides to share conversation with others (LaVan & Beers, 2005).The rules are typically posted on a sign and reviewed at thebeginning of each cogenerative dialogue. The dialogues alsonormally include snacks, drinks, or lunch to make the atmospheremore comfortable and casual. The meetings can begin with aspecific guiding question, such as What can we do to improve ourclassroom? In the sections that follow, we provide some of theunderstandings that emerged—both positive and negative—as ameans to illustrate the potential for using cogenerative dialogueswith ELL students.

HOW CAN COGENERATIVE DIALOGUES IMPACT ELLSTUDENT LEARNING?The extension of cogenerative dialogues as a promising practiceemerged from a multiyear, longitudinal, mixed-methods study

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funded by the National Science Foundation.1 The study focusedbroadly on middle school ELL students’ beliefs about science,practices in science classrooms, and science and language learning.Data were collected over a 2-year period from six science teachers(two males, four females), two ESOL teachers (both female), andapproximately 150 students in Grades 6–8 in two urban charterschools in the northeastern United States. Data sources in thebroader study included achievement data (standardized testscores, grades, developmental levels, etc.); field notes from weeklyclassroom observations; interviews with teachers, administrators,and a group of approximately fifteen students selected for casestudies; and the transcriptions from cogenerative dialogues, whichwe used in an effort to gain multifaceted understandings aboutways to support ELL students’ science and language learning. It isimportant to emphasize that the promising practice described inthis paper emerged from an ongoing, longitudinal studyexamining the impact of gender, ethnicity, and English languageproficiency on science learning (see Martin, Wassell, &Scantlebury, 2013, for more information on the broader study).However, in this article we focus on sharing promising practicesthat emerged regarding the effectiveness of utilizing cogenerativedialogues with teachers and their ELL students.

Originally cogenerative dialogues were utilized as a method forcollecting data in our study. However, over time we began tonotice that the dialogues had potential to be a powerful tool forteachers to engage students in conversations aimed at improvingteaching and learning. The dialogues privileged the students’voices. For many students, this was the first time they had beenasked their opinion about school, teaching, or learning. Ultimately,the dialogues became a space for positive change andtransformation derived from students’ perspectives.

In the sections that follow, we share four examples from ourstudy to illustrate the contexts in which cogenerative dialoguessupported students and teachers to alter classroom practices topromote improved teaching and learning. Each of the examples is

1National Science Foundation (NSF) HRD 1036637, G-SPELL Gender and Science Proficiency for EnglishLanguage Learners.

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representative of common features of cogenerative dialogues,which we have identified from our analysis of project data usingmicroanalysis of participant interactions from video recordings. Inaddition, textual data generated from video and audio recordingsof cogenerative dialogues were coded as “cogenerative dialogues”and either “student responsibility” or “student voice” usingHyperResearch© qualitative coding software. We share theseexamples to highlight positive aspects of cogenerative dialoguesand to describe some of the concerns that emerged as weimplemented them with ELL students.

Developing a VoiceFirst, cogenerative dialogues provide a shared space for ELLstudents to emphasize their needs and to devise plans forenhancing their own learning. In the first example, we introduceHector,2 a seventh-grade ELL student from Puerto Rico who,4 years earlier, had moved to the northeastern United States. ByGrade 7, Hector’s Mac II assessment scores revealed that he wasperforming at a high intermediate proficiency level in speaking,reading, and writing, and at an advanced level in listening. Weinitiated cogenerative dialogues with Hector, a few other students,and Amy, his science teacher, who had been teaching for 3 years.The cogenerative dialogues were held during lunchtime andfocused broadly on one question: “What can we all do to makescience class better?” Amy suggested that she would like toimprove science class by expanding opportunities for students tospeak during small and whole group discussions. Hector,however, explained that he would like to try, but he was fearful ofasking questions in science class because other students had madefun of his spoken English when he first came to the United Statesin the third grade. At the end of the meeting, the group cogeneratedan important strategy that would help both Amy and Hector meettheir goals: Hector would try to ask one question per class sessionwith the support of another student, Lorena, who offered to helpHector by regularly reminding him to ask questions. Videoanalysis of classroom interactions revealed that once Amy

2Pseudonyms are used to protect the identities of all students and teachers described.


understood his frustration, she subtly supported Hector in class bydoing extra, individual comprehension checks, and by asking thebilingual in-class support teacher to help Hector ask his questionsin Spanish when needed. In addition, Lorena would regularlyremind Hector to try and verbalize his questions. In a follow-upcogenerative dialogue focused on evaluating the effectiveness ofthis cogenerated strategy, Sara, another student, mentioned thatshe noticed that Hector had been asking more questions duringscience class.

Hector: [Describing to Sara what the group had cogenerated in thelast meeting] Oh yeah, [we decided] that I was going to ask [Amy]one question every day.Amy: ʼCause [Hector] doesn’t ask questions, even if he doesn’tget it.Sara: Oh yeah, that’s why he’s changing [pointing to Hector]!Researcher: How’s that been working out for you?Hector: I’m doing okay. Like, I’m understanding things a littlebetter. (Cogenerative dialogue, 3/28/11)

In this case, the cogenerative dialogue served as a mechanismfor Amy and the other students in the class community to learnabout Hector’s challenges and to collectively decide on a way tosupport him. In addition, Hector had a voice in creating a strategythat would support his own learning. Because of the nature of thegroup, Hector felt comfortable sharing his concerns.

In a year-end interview about her experiences, Amy reflectedon the impact of having participated in cogenerative dialogueswith her ELL students:

Researcher: So any reflections that you have on the schoolyear… what you’ve learned or thought about English languagelearner students as your result of your work on the project?Amy: I paid more attention to English language learners thisyear than normally… it was interesting to hear what theythought about why they learned things and how they learnedand stuff like that. (Interview transcription, 5/25/12)

The cogenerative dialogues provided an opportunity for Hectorto find his voice within the smaller group, and to devise a strategyto engage more fully in science class. Amy’s comments indicatethat the dialogues not only enabled her to focus more carefully on

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the needs of the ELL students in her class, but they also providedanother dimension for her to reflect more deeply on her teaching.In addition, the structure of the cogenerative dialogues provided aspace for her to cogenerate positive strategies for engaging ELLstudents in a setting that did not challenge her authority as ateacher.

Assuming Responsibility for LearningSecond, cogenerative dialogues empowered students to take onadditional roles and responsibilities in connection with sciencelearning. For example, after our first cogenerative dialogue,Andr�es, a sixth grader originally from the Dominican Republic,was interested in finding out more about one of the topics wediscussed: what his class “liked and disliked about science class.”Completely on his own, Andr�es came up with the idea ofsurveying his classmates during recess about their likes anddislikes about class (Field Notes, 3/17/11). Andr�es arrived at thenext cogenerative dialogue meeting with his notebook, where hehad written down all of the responses from his classmates. Hethen proceeded to report the results, which provided additionalstudent perspectives for the group to consider. This became a taskin which Andr�es had an opportunity to utilize his speaking,reading, writing, and analytical skills in an authentic way, and in amanner that was tied to the needs of the class community. He alsowas empowered by his authority to serve as a voice for hisclassmates who were not present at the cogenerative dialogue.This example shows how cogenerative dialogues have thepotential to empower students to use inquiry and literacy practicesin real-world contexts, for real-life tasks.

Sharing Responsibility for Students’ Language Acquisition andLearningThird, by engaging in cogenerative dialogues with ELL students,teachers have been afforded new opportunities to understandhow language demands can make the social aspects of learningmore complex. For example, in another cogenerative dialogue,four seventh-grade girls who all were ethnically Chinese andwho were bilingual in Mandarin and English expressed their


frustration with being asked by the teacher to partner withnewcomer students during small group work because it requiredthem to explain activities in Mandarin. During this cogenerativedialogue, the science and ESOL teachers explained that theychose to place newcomer students with them because of the girls’ability to communicate in both English and Mandarin. All four ofthe girls acknowledged that being in mixed-language proficiencygroups helped both their native language and English languagedevelopment. In addition, one girl, Ahn, explained that being inmixed groups benefited her science learning because she “neededto explain something over and over again, [so she] learned morescience too” (Cogenerative dialogue transcription, 3/10/11).However, an important outcome of this cogenerative dialoguewas the teachers’ recognition of the need to rearrange studentgroups more frequently to alleviate the girls’ constantresponsibility of providing language supports for the newcomers.In addition, the teachers recognized that by providingopportunities for all students to participate not only in mixedlanguage groups, but also in heterogeneous science achievementgroups, other students could benefit from being able to explainscience concepts to one another multiple times and in differentways.

Developing a Sense of CommunityFinally, cogenerative dialogues have the potential to fosterrelationships between students and teachers and support thebuilding of a learning community. Yasm�ın, a sixth-grade inclusionscience teacher, noted that cogenerative dialogues

… made it possible for us to learn more about each other, whichis typically hard to do with the hustle and bustle of a typicalschool day. Students have a sense of responsibility as a [cogen-erative dialogue] team member that goes much further than ourmeetings. (Written reflection, 4/8/11)

As a second-year teacher, Yasm�ın was often inundated withthe demands of planning, teaching, and classroom management.This structure provided an opportunity for her to buildrelationships with her students and informally investigate their

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learning. The dialogues also served to show the students that shecared about their perspectives, which functioned as a means ofbuilding additional rapport.

WHAT ARE SOME POTENTIAL CONCERNS FOR USINGCOGENERATIVE DIALOGUE WITH ELL STUDENTS?Although cogenerative dialogues have the potential to serve as apromising practice that can support teachers to make positivechanges in their classrooms, we are cognizant of some potentialconcerns in their use with ELL students. In particular, twoquestions emerged for us along the way. First, to what extent dostudents’ cultural norms and practices dissuade them fromengaging in conversations that may be viewed as a critique of theteaching and learning that occurs in a classroom? To provide morecontext for this question, our analysis of cogenerative dialogueswith some of our immigrant student participants, especially recentimmigrants from Asian countries, suggests that these studentsmay participate differently than immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries or their native-English-speaking peers. TheAsian students with whom we worked were particularly hesitantto provide suggestions for improving the class, especially whenthe critique focused on teacher actions. Previous studies involvingcogenerative dialogues with native-English-speaking studentsindicated that very few students hesitated to verbalize ideas thatcould be perceived as disrespectful to an authority figure. Therewere multiple examples in our study in which students struggledto assert their personal suggestions for modifying classroompractices. For example, a Chinese immigrant student, Yew,expressed concern about whether students should be making anydecisions in the classroom. He noted: “I am afraid I might make amistake if I am expected to choose my own group” (Cogenerativedialogue transcription, 4/5/2011). When asked by his teacher if hewanted to work with his own friends, he again expressed that hefelt his teacher would make a better decision than he would. Incontrast, a Puerto Rican student in the same cogenerative dialogue(whose home language was English) expressed a strong desire towork within her own peer group.


Our second question addresses the impact of languageproficiency on students’ ability to participate in these dialoguesin ways that adhere to the central notion that cogenerativedialogues are about speaking to others and about being heard.Compared to previous cogenerative dialogue studies, the ELLstudents in our study had diverse levels of English speakingproficiency. They rarely engaged in overlapping turns at talk,used fewer gestures, often avoided eye contact, and did notdirectly question their teachers. Research is needed to determineif these differences are a result of linguistic factors, culturalfactors, or both. Regardless, teachers need to consider students’English language proficiency levels and provide extensivesupport for students who choose to participate. Some suggestionsinclude engaging interpreters to support the dialogues (includingbilingual peers, teachers, families, or friends) and providingsupplemental materials (e.g., photos, written words, text) thatenable students to “weigh in” on conversations by expressingtheir thoughts in a variety of ways. We also encourage teachersto consider speaking and listening proficiency levels whengrouping students for these dialogues.

Future study will explore how first language (L1) supportthrough interpreters affects discourse among novice andintermediate level ELL students in homogeneous andheterogeneous language level groupings. In our work, weencouraged teachers to engage students in myriad groupings andsuch conversations produced different perspectives and insights.However, we also encouraged the teachers to consider social aspectsassociated with placing students in groups with students ofdifferent races, genders, science achievement levels, and Englishlanguage proficiency levels. In addition, while our cogenerativedialogues took place in the context of middle school science teachingand learning, we assert there is value for teachers of any subject areaor grade level to engage their students in discourse aimed atexpanding opportunities for student content and language learning.

In conclusion, cogenerative dialogues provided the structurefor a community of practice to emerge that empowered studentsand highlighted their voices in decision-making processes. Theyalso supported teachers in learning about the needs of their

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students and helped build community and teacher–studentrelationships that had the potential to yield positive outcomes forscience and language learning. Although there are severalconsiderations to make when implementing this model with ELLstudents, cogenerative dialogues have the potential to provideteachers and researchers with nuanced, individualizedunderstandings that could ultimately support both language andcontent learning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis material is based upon work supported by the NationalScience Foundation under Grant No. HRD 1036637, G-SPELLGender and Science Proficiency for English Language Learners, andupon work supported by the Seoul National University ResearchSettlement Fund for New Faculty. The authors wish to expresstheir gratitude to all of the teachers and students who participatedin the cogenerative dialogues described in this article.

THE AUTHORSBeth A. Wassell is an associate professor of teacher education andcoordinator of the English as a second language (ESL) and foreignlanguage teacher certification programs at Rowan University inGlassboro, NJ. Her research examines the experiences andpractices of ELL students in urban school contexts, with a focus onimplications for teacher education.

Sonya N. Martin is an assistant professor of science education atSeoul National University in Korea. Previously, she was a tenuredprofessor at Drexel University, where she examined theintersections of gender, ethnicity, and language in school sciencewith a focus on identifying practices that promote languagelearning through science inquiry.

Kathryn Scantlebury is a professor in the Department ofChemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, anddirector of secondary education in the university’s College of Artsand Sciences. Her research interests focus on gender issues inurban education, preservice teacher education, and teachers’professional development.


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Using Cogenerative Dialogues to Foster Community and Support English Language Learner Students' Learning