Lessons learnt from contextualising a UK teaching thinking program in a conventional Chinese classroom

•Empirically examine the applicability of the Thinking Together (TT) intervention within the context of a Chinese classroom.•The congruence of the TT model with Chinese culture and its congruence with Chinese pedagogical practice.•Evidence based intervention.•Discourse analysis to examine the changes of talks.•Content analysis to examine the distribution of leadership moves.

This paper describes a case study in which we take a successful UK teaching thinking programme and contextualise it for a conventional Chinese classroom (aged 7–8), which has an established hierarchical leadership structure in student groups. Instead of imposing the programme with a top-down nature, this study identifies two methodological challenges for contextualising the programme bottom-up. Using the same evaluations as had previously been used, it appears that this programme succeeds in teaching thinking skills in China. In order to capture the hierarchical dimension in a Chinese classroom, a content analysis of leadership moves augments the discourse analysis used in previous studies in the UK and Mexico. It reveals a re-distribution of leadership moves amongst groups. It raises issues to Chinese teachers and educators about how dialogues and leadership roles should be introduced to primary classrooms and how to develop children's understanding of talking and forms of leadership in order to teach thinking. This may further enrich current pedagogical programmes to teach critical and creative thinking skills in Chinese classrooms.