ABSTRACT
Seminar teaching is one of the most common forms of lecturer–student interaction in higher education. However, it is rare for students to receive any explanation as to what a seminar is, what the ground rules are for operating in such an arrangement and how seminars are meant to enhance teaching and learning. To address this gap, a year-long action-research study was conducted to formatively evaluate the implementation of a dialogic pedagogy in seminar-based teaching in the first year of a BA Theatre programme in a UK university. It was anticipated that use of a dialogic pedagogy would enhance student engagement, participation and learning in seminars by, for example, getting them to elaborate on and justify their contributions, pose their own questions and to evaluate the contributions of other students. Classroom observations, questionnaires, interviews, reflective journals and student assessment were used as part of the evaluation. The findings showed that use of a dialogic pedagogy in seminars allowed students to share and practise forms of academic discourse normally inhabited by the lecturer.
