'Please, somebody talk': Incorporating dialogical critical thinking into EFL classes for young beginners

This writing details a four-month exploratory action research project conducted by two teacher-researchers with five, early-elementary age, Korean EFL students of mostly beginner level to explore ways of promoting dialogical critical thinking through English-language discussions. Researchers employed Kolb’s learning cycle to generate reflective notes throughout the project, then performed a conventional content analysis on these and on representative class audio transcriptions. This analysis led the researchers to the following conclusions: (1) Teachers can encourage participation by designing game-like discussions; (2) teachers can encourage participation by allowing students to engage in translanguaging when discussing; (3) teachers can facilitate students’ English use in discussions by providing language support, particularly discourse markers.; (4) teachers may promote discussion by encouraging students to interact with peers; (5) teachers can encourage students to generate critical discussion questions themselves, and connect personally with even serious topics.