Dialogue Journals

This essay examines the use of dialogue journals in English classrooms. It is an attempt to synthesise the knowledge contained in texts about dialogue journal writing. After a brief discussion of the literature in the area of journaling, the first section of the essay attempts to synthesise the knowledge theoretically, highlighting four ways in which journals can enrich the classroom. The second section attempts to apply this knowledge to the classroom. I have chosen three …

…essay discusses just the three applications of dialogue journals in contexts that I expect to teach in. They can be used in a wide variety of other ways, including teacher training, as reading logs, as ethnographic tools or as tools for migrant adjustment. The literature identifies four main benefits of dialogue journals: student learning management, meaningful language use, student-teacher relationships, and critical literacy. I have attempted to show how these can apply to specific contexts.