Dialogic or Authoritative Talk: Which one is more Comprehensible?

Abstract

The present study sought to explore whether a text supported primarily with dialogic talk is more comprehensible than a text supported with an authoritative one. A phenomenological case study approach was utilized in gathering and analyzing the data. The students’ lived experiences with dialogic and authoritative talks were our focus of concern. A total of 14 college students participated in the study. Individual interviews were conducted, recorded, and transcribed. The transcriptions were later analyzed inductively to discover patterns in the data. The results indicated that dialogic talk was found comprehensible by all participating students without any exception. The authoritative talk, on the other hand, was found incomprehensible. According to the students, the dialogic talk is easy to understand because it is written in a step-by-step fashion, comprises daily life words or recognizable with ease, is about a hands-on activity, and is student inclusive. They, further, indicated that the authoritative talk was incomprehensible because it involves technical terms, is superficially written, does not involve experimentation, and does not encourage students to take part.