This introductory course is an attempt to respond in an innovative way to the challenge of updating teaching methodologies in the university environment through Dialogic Literary Circle (DLC) the main advantage of which is to facilitate learning by helping students to better understand and fix contents, keeping attention, and helping to break the routine, improve the climate in the classroom and facilitate evaluation of higher order skills.

The DLC derives from the critical communicative methodology, and the seminal contributions of Lev Vygotski. It tries to modify both the quality, the quantity, and the actors involved in the interactions in the classroom, giving more weight to the interaction of the student with each other and with the teacher. The critical communicative methodology tries to promote greater involvement and motivation, improve the development of competences, and achieve a better and more lasting acquisition of knowledge by the students.

The introductory course is organised as follows:

T1 - Introduction to the critical communicative methodology and the theoretical bases of Dialogic Literary Circles.

T2 - Planning Dialogic Literary Circles as an active learning methodology in my syllabus (appropriate topics, assigning readings, scheduling, classroom vs. observation room, pupils vs. open doors, small groups vs. all classroom).

T3 - Implementing Dialogic Literary Circles (how to conduct a session, helpful tips and tings to avoid).

T4 - Evaluating Dialogic Literary Circles (reading dossiers, the use of questionnaires both for selfevaluation and session evaluation, written evaluation, recording of sessions informed consent and data protection issues).

T5 - Participation in a Dialogic Literary Circle.

Skills to acquire

The ultimate goal of this course is to give a chance for evidence-based reflection about teaching methodologies in the university environment with a focus on critical communicative methodology. For this, at the end of the course the student should be able to:

I. Understand and get familiar with the critical communicative methodology and theoretical bases of Dialogic Literary Circles.

II. Plan how to improve their own teaching quality through the renewal of their teaching methodologies.

III. Elaborate a road map that should include planning, implementing and evaluating Dialogic Literary Circles.

IV.Participate in a Dialogic Literary Circle.

Evaluation

To pass the course the student is required to:

i. Actively participate in classroom debates.

ii. Hand in a schematic planning of a possible implementation of the DLC methodology in one of their usual syllabus.

iii. Read and participate in a DLC.