“I Am Sorry. I Did Not Understand You”: The Learning of Dialogue by Prospective Teachers

Abstract

This text concerns the process of prospective teachers learning to engage in dialogue with their students in mathematics classes to promote learning. A teaching practice course on mathematics was designed to promote a meeting between the prospective teachers and the concept of dialogue. Investigation, reflection and planning activities were developed to provide such a meeting. The chapter focuses on the dialogue practice of one prospective teacher in the teaching course. Based on these practices of dialogue and theoretical inspirations about dialogue and about interaction, I propose an interpretation for dialogue, whose underlying political stance assumes that the talk is shared by those involved in it. I emphasize the move of going to where the other is in order to understand what she/he says, and also propose some actions that could contribute to the process of learning to be engaged in dialogue.