Critical thinking, learner autonomy, and students' active engagement in knowledge construction are becoming increasingly important in contemporary education in Kazakhstani context. This shift requires moving from transmissive, teacher-centered models to dialogic practices that foster epistemic agency: the ability for students to independently inquire, reason, and co-construct meaning with their peers. Socratic seminars represent such practices, involving structured, collaborative dialogue centered on text analysis, where participants pose questions, challenge assumptions, and build collective understanding through reasoned discourse.

Most teachers in second or third language instruction contexts traditionally assume language learning occurs only through practiced limited methods: vocabulary memorization, grammar drills, reproductive tasks reproducing fixed models, and standardized test preparation. In this view, language serves primarily as an information transmission tool, not a means for thinking, argumentation, or social interaction.

This qualitative practitioner research draws on empirical experience implementing Socratic seminars with 11th-grade students at the Nazarbayev Intellectual School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Medeu in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Despite students' high academic proficiency, implementation revealed profound challenges: learners were mostly unaccustomed to independent text reading, self-generated questioning, or peer-oriented analysis, relying instead on teacher directives and approval. This came from the school's science-dominant curriculum, where English instruction with concepts at its core focuses on exam preparation (IELTS, SAT) through controlled reading and writing tasks, mostly pushing aside open-ended speaking and collaborative discussion.

The study aims to assess the potential of Socratic seminars as a dialogic instrument for redefining teacher roles in exam-oriented settings and promoting epistemic agency. It addresses three research questions:  

(1) How does participation in Socratic seminars shape high school students' epistemic agency?  

(2) What resistances and difficulties emerge when transitioning from exam-focused to dialogic pedagogies?  

(3) How does the teacher's role evolve during Socratic seminar implementation?  

Data come from classroom dialogues, participation observations, and student reflections, focusing initially on Ken Liu's "The Paper Menagerie" (first term). Subsequent seminars analyzed Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (second term) and Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" (third term), exploring themes of tradition, conformity, time's fragility, and consequences.  

Theoretically, the study integrates dialogic pedagogy (Mercer, 2000; Wells, 1999), where language acts as a tool for joint thinking and knowledge construction, with epistemic agency frameworks (Damşa et al., 2010). In Kazakhstan's context, it bridges local high-stakes testing to global demands, preparing learners for diverse university environments where collaborative inquiry prevails. By democratizing classroom discourse, Socratic seminars counter rote learning's limitations, empowering students as epistemic agents in international academic landscapes.

This qualitative research employs a case study design for in-depth, situated analysis of pedagogical shifts in a natural classroom setting. Conducted with 11th-grade students at Nazarbayev Intellectual School in Almaty, participants showed varied English proficiency (IELTS approximately 6.0 to 7.5+), contextualizing dialogic inquiry amid high academic standards and exam pressures. The intervention incorporated Socratic seminars into English lessons with concepts at the core through gradual release: - Phase 1 (Scaffolding, First Quarter): Small groups (13 students or fewer) used five teacher-provided plus five student-generated questions for "The Paper Menagerie", and students worked in small groups, usually divided to two smaller groups. This ensured equitable turns and inquiry practice. - Phase 2 (Fading Support, Second Quarter): Full-class seminars over two 40-minute sessions on "The Lottery" relied solely on student questions. The teacher shifted to silent observer, noting dynamics without intervention. Participation rubrics guided active listening, peer invitation, and depth (for example, character motives over plot summary). - Phase 3 (Third Quarter): Independent seminars on "A Sound of Thunder," with students self-managing. Triangulation ensured validity: - Systematic field notes on behaviors and interactions. - Semi-structured interviews capturing student experiences. - Discourse transcripts analyzing utterances, turn-taking, and questioning. - Summative assessments contextualizing qualitative shifts against performance. Thematic analysis coded epistemic agency (for example, question sophistication), peer patterns, and resistance; discourse analysis examined structural changes. Ethical protocols anonymized data for research use only.

Although implementation challenges like teacher dependence and underdeveloped discussion skills led to transformative growth across texts, gradual scaffolding fostered autonomy: by third term, students self-organized seminars on "A Sound of Thunder," managed roles, turn-taking, sustain extended discussions independently, without teacher intervention. Multimodal outputs, like analytical posters, evidenced deeper causal reasoning. Discourse evolved progressively: from "The Paper Menagerie"'s identity probes, to "The Lottery"'s conformity critiques, culminating in sophisticated analyses of time's consequences and butterfly effects, showing interpretive agency. The qualitative shift in discourse was particularly visible during discussions of Saki’s The Open Window, where students moved beyond plot summary to interrogate narrative unreliability, social manipulation, and the influence of normative expectations on interpretation. This progression from descriptive responses to collaborative interpretation signals the development of interpretive and epistemic agency. Graduate reflections affirm longevity: enhanced self-efficacy in university seminars, navigating diverse peers via clear argumentation. Socratic seminars bridge exam-centric high schools to European and international higher education's collaborative demands. Overall, despite being resource-intensive yet potent, they reimagine classrooms as democratic knowledge arenas.

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