#53: When Dialogic and Thinking Moves Intersect: An Exploratory Study of Thinking-Routine-Guided Discussions in an EFL Classroom

This study reports on an English movie discussion course, where Visible Thinking routines were used to guide students’ analysis of films. Thinking routines were aligned with specific thinking moves to scaffold thinking. As a qualitative exploratory study, it investigates how these routines mediated student interaction and contributed to a thinking culture. Data included two focal groups’ discussions and student reflections, analyzed through dialogic and thinking move coding and thematic analysis. Findings show that routines improved dialogic interaction and strengthened the move of considering viewpoints, but deeper analysis occurred only when moves such as expressing and reasoning co-occurred with explaining/interpreting and supporting with evidence. Thematic analysis identified four elements of a thinking culture: teacher guidance, peer support, structured tasks, and confidence in expression. These findings provide fine-grained evidence of how dialogic and thinking moves intersect and how a thinking culture can benefit learning in EFL classrooms.