This final article in this special issue on dialogic space discusses some of the themes raised and points towards the future. It begins with a brief recollection of how the idea of dialogic space as a guide to teaching began in the 1990s in research on classroom talk. The articles in this issue show some of the ways in which the use of dialogic…

This article discusses classroom conditions that support the co-creation of dialogic space--where our different ideas and perspectives are in conversation with others such that we might take in what other people are saying and be open to it affecting our thinking. Drawing on ethnographic case study data, we provide context to illustrate ways this…

A shift from teaching to learn to learning to think is necessary to promote critical thinkers. Since teachers tend to replicate the educational models they have experienced as students, new references are needed. In order to address these concerns, we present an interdisciplinary intervention in initial teacher education and analyse its impact on…

The letter of recommendation (LOR) is a stylized form of direct sponsorship, a rhetorical appeal that confers favor on a person or object in keeping with the writer's - or sponsor's - character, authority, and expertise. In response to Swales's call to "unveil" the rhetorical features of occluded genres, this research employs a move-step…

In the late 1990s, linguist Deborah Tannen argued that America had become an "argument culture" characterized by an adversarial frame of mind when approaching the world and the people in it. Recent events appear to have added apocalyptic fears (not entirely unfounded) to our adversarial approach. How can we talk to each other in such a…

Although prior studies have suggested the benefits of a collaborative approach to providing peer feedback in EFL writing, little is known about how students engage in collaborative peer feedback (CPF) activities. This paper reports on a case study involving five Chinese EFL students who collaboratively provided feedback on five argumentative…

This study aimed to analyze common syntactic errors found in the argumentative essays of third-year English major students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Van Lang University, Vietnam. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to obtain data in this study. The quantitative approach involved counting and calculating the frequency,…

In this single-case research design study, we investigated the effects of student-directed writing goals with adolescent writers who were developing their writing proficiency. Two students with a learning disability and two multilingual writers engaged in a pre-baseline condition to learn the functional elements of a persuasive essay. Once they…

This article discusses a partnership with two different civic education organizations to study three different student-centered discussion designs. In one study, the authors worked with the Close Up Foundation. Close Up is a non-profit that annually brings 20,000 high school and middle school students from all 50 states and U.S. territories to…

While researchers have stressed the importance of engaging students in activities that enhance their reasoning practices, few have scrutinised the factors that impact the reasoning involved in such activities. We explored the role of attitudes in student-group interactions concerning a climate change-related socio-scientific issue and how those…

Many employers state that they expect college graduates to have "soft" or domain-general skills like critical thinking, and universities claim to teach these skills. To prove colleges are delivering on their promise--and to demonstrate that employers are picking the best personnel fairly--colleges, students, and employers need a valid…

This full paper considers how collaborative discourse can reveal ways upper-class engineering students mechanically reason about engineering concepts. Argumentation and negotiation during collaborative, multimodal discourse using speech and gestures helps establish common ground between learners and fosters reflection on their conceptual…

This study focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education teachers' perspectives on integrating indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) into a multidisciplinary STEM framework to promote sustainability. The aim is to understand how integrating the values, ethics and worldviews of the global community can contribute to a…

This meta-analysis evaluated how well learners' conceptual understanding, environmental attitudes, and pro-environmental behavior were improved by the Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI)-based approach based on the literature (2017-2021). The research analyzed various studies on the efficacy of SSI-based techniques, such as argumentation, case-oriented…

Learners are expected to discuss and debate, using scientific evidence, the Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) that often overlap with personal experiences and ethical dilemmas. This study investigated the reasoning of 24 Grade 8 Lebanese students when arguing about a scientific scenario as opposed to an SSI. It also examined how students make…