Reweaving the ‘self’ through a dialogic approach to ESP pedagogy in Iran

English for academic/specific purposes (EAP/ESP) courses are developed to prepare students for competent and confident access to global educational resources in English and to practise the specific English literacies of their own fields of study (Paltridge & Starfield, 2013). This access however, mainly embraces the technical and instrumental level of language learning and underestimates the critical aspects of English study related to the individual’s identity, agency and voice as learners position themselves in a complex language of ‘power’. This paper questions the potential of ESP courses to transform learners beyond the instrumental level, and to capture this at the level of self and identity as they engage in dialogues with local and global communities of professionals. This aim is examined through the specific context of medical English pedagogy in Iran which is problematised as a dominantly instrumental and monologic curriculum. To address this problem, a pedagogical intervention known as the ‘dialogic approach’ to medical English was introduced at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, which integrated sociocultural theories of learning and language (Vygotsky, 1986; Bakhtin, 1981) and interwove this with the literature of academic literacy, in English. This action research underscores students’ awareness of ‘self’ as a medical student and a future doctor, and scaffolds their understandings of different types of medical discourses and genres in English. This, in turn, reveals some possible ontological transformations in terms of re/constructing Iranian students’ identities as learners and professionals. The findings are shown through two narratives, selected out of larger case studies to represent possible processes of appropriation towards shaping the new self and ‘becoming’ a voiced and agentive medical student in a community of medical professionals. These lead to promising implications for transformation at multiple levels through EAP/ESP courses and ensures equitable access for both local and global voices.