Editor’s note: This piece is co-authored by Joy Peyton (Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Linguistics [CAL]), who is a long-time TIRF supporter; Jana Staton (former CAL researcher and co-author with Joy Peyton of the first seminal books on dialogue journal writing for first- and second-language classrooms); Phil Quirke (Education Consultant and former Executive Dean of Education and Campus Director, who has worked in Educational Leadership positions for over 30 years and has presented internationally and published widely on education management and leadership, teacher education and development, and reflective writing); and Latricia Trites (Chair of Department of English & Philosophy at Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky, USA, who has been a teacher educator for over 25 years, focusing on reading, assessment, and reflective teaching practices through dialogue journaling.) TIRF is pleased to highlight the topic of dialogue journals, in its commitment to furthering support for professionals in our field.

Dialogue journals are ongoing written interactions between two people to exchange experiences, ideas, knowledge, or reflections. They are used most often in education as a means of sustained written interaction between students and teachers at all levels – young children, elementary through high school grades, university, and adult education programs. The interactions occur in various ways – in notebooks, letters, email exchanges, Internet-based interactions, and audio journals. They can be used to promote second-language learning, reading and writing development, content learning, and critical thinking. They are used in schools to improve the life that teachers and students share in the classroom by exchanging ideas and shared topics of interest; writing in a non-evaluative context; promoting student engagement; and allowing open, honest communication that might include questioning, complaining, complimenting, apologizing, and requesting.

Researchers have studied dialogue journals for their value in developing students’ critical thinking by providing opportunities for students to practice self-reflective awareness and to critique classroom practices, teaching assignments, and social contexts, in the language(s) that they are using and developing. One of their many values is the opportunity for teachers to provide informal counseling in a non-threatening, private context for individual students on their challenges and problems, whether these are about instructional or personal concerns.

Dialogue journals are also used between prospective and practicing teachers and teacher trainers to provide professional development opportunities and improve teaching, in pre-service teacher training programs at universities and in-service workshops and coaching for teachers. Some research on use in these contexts focuses on the types of responses and interactions that are effective for promoting teacher learning.

The use of dialogue journals in these areas, and at multiple age and language proficiency levels, is described in this Wikipedia article (Dialogue Journal – Wikipedia), which has recently been updated, with new international examples and references. TIRF colleagues will find this article helpful, because all of the uses, specific instructional strategies, and benefits above are described in detail, with many up-to-date references to research and practice. You might want to share this with your students and colleagues.

If you have more updates and references, please send them to Joy Peyton ([email protected]). In addition, TIRF has an excellent list of references to dialogue journal and research, which was consulted in the updating of this article – click here to access the Dialogue Journals reference list.