Empowering learners through
dialogue journals
Too often, learners come to school only to
be confronted with information and knowl
-
edge that appears devoid of context. They
struggle to absorb facts and details that have
no apparent relevance to their lives. Generally,
knowledge is created through the connection
between what is already known and new
information that is being presented. Dialogue
journals help to bridge that gap, as they are a
place where learners draw on their personal
funds of knowledge and make connections
between what they know and what they are
learning in class (Uduma 2011).
Dialogue journals are a way of bringing
students’ outside lives into the classroom,
providing meaningful and rich material with
which to work and consequently acting as a
natural motivator. In a study implementing
dialogue journals with Hispanic adults in
an ESL community literacy program, Lar
-
rotta (2008) sought to find a way to link the
classroom with students’ lives outside as their
language competency developed. Through the
authentic communication of dialogue jour
-
nals, she and her students learned more about
each other’s lives than would have been pos
-
sible in a regular classroom. By experimenting
in writing about themselves in their journals,
the students moved towards literacy and the
ability to use English successfully outside the
classroom as well as in it. Forming these con
-
nections between life outside and inside class
is especially important for adults who need
to learn to have agency in all aspects of their
daily lives as they adjust to a new culture and
language.
Through exploration and reflection, learn
-
ers construct identity and develop a sense
of ownership of their lives. Journals give the
space for learners to make meaning, represent
and negotiate their identities, show agency,
and examine relationships (Miller 2007; Kim
2005). Dialogue journals can help students
become aware of their learning process and
as a result learn better (Carroll and Mcha
-
wala 2001; Trites 2001). Journals can also be
a place for learners to write about their prob
-
lems and in the process find solutions. Youngand Crow (1992) advocate posting problemsolving
steps on the walls of the classroom
to keep these goals in their students’ minds.
These steps include identifying the problem,
listing possible solutions and forecasting their
consequences, selecting the best solution,
making action plans, and coming up with
alternative solutions. In participatory learning
classrooms, this learner empowerment can be
a goal of journal writing (Orem 2001).