Moving from recitation to open-format literature discussion in Chinese classrooms

Dialogic approaches benefitted teachers' beliefs and their practices in reading instructions.

“dialogic approaches benefitted teachers' beliefs and their practices in reading instructions (e.g., Cheng et al. 2015;Sun, Zhang, and Li 2020;Wei, Murphy, and Wu 2020).”

Despite the IRE/IRF format being efficient for students to learn factual knowledge and basic skills, it restricts students' opportunities to engage in elaborating, adding complexity, and going beyond the given.

“Despite the IRE/IRF format of discussion being efficient for students to learn factual knowledge and basic skills (Cheng et al. 2015), it restricts students' opportunities to get involved in processes of 'elaborating, adding complexity, and going beyond the given' (Magirius, Steinmetz, and Scherf 2023, 2).”

Peer-led, open-format discussion approaches were successful in raising Chinese students' reading comprehension skills.

“peer-led, open-format discussion approaches were successful in raising Chinese students' reading comprehension skills”

Chinese reading instruction relies heavily on official textbooks to ensure the Curriculum Guide is followed.

“Chinese reading instruction relies heavily on official textbooks to ensure the Curriculum Guide is followed (Cheng et al. 2015;Zhang, Wijekumar, and Han 2021).”

Most prescribed texts in Chinese primary textbooks are not dialogic, leaving students with fewer opportunities to provide multiple interpretations of text content.

“Most prescribed texts in Chinese primary textbooks are not dialogic, leaving students with fewer opportunities to provide multiple interpretations of text content (Cheng et al. 2015).”

An interesting topic is important in fostering Chinese children's comprehension and influencing students' discussion.

“Prior studies have identified the importance of an interesting topic in fostering Chinese children's comprehension and influencing students' discussion (e.g., Cheng et al. 2015).”

Under the IRE/IRF talk format, the teacher takes primary responsibility for initiating questions and evaluating students' responses against known-answer questions in regular reading lessons.

“Under the IRE/IRF talk format, the teacher take primary responsibility for initiating questions and evaluating students' responses against known-answer questions in regular reading lessons (Cheng et al. 2015;Sun, Zhang, and Li 2020).”