A teacher's reactions to students' mathematical contributions have critical implications for shaping both teaching and learning. We present a framework for describing reacting moves that resulted from a comparative analysis between two existing frameworks; one developed by secondary teachers for parsing instructional practice and the other…

This book discusses the centrality of rhetoric in the academy, asserting the intimate connection between language and knowledge making and stressing the need for a change in the roles of teachers and students in today's classroom. The goal is mutuality, or sharing authority between teachers and students, and allowing everyone an equal voice. For…

Discusses an approach to analyzing teacher talk in second-language classrooms that assumes communicative classrooms are characterized by teacher talk reflecting external communication patterns. Argues that this analysis is over-simplistic, ignoring the reality of the classroom context and the features that make for effective communication within…

Transcripts of classroom interaction illustrate how emphasis on lesson planning and communicative activities in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher training, and dominance of a coursebook, had unintended consequences in three specific areas, leading to inhibition of teacher-student interaction, avoidance of genuine communicative…

As part of a study of the language used to conduct daily business in typical West German classroom situations, 30 native English speakers observed selected classroom interactions and used questionnaires to classify them and paraphrase them in English. The observers were from a variety of English-speaking countries, and some had explicitly…

Taking a Vygotskian perspective, this monograph focuses on the quality of interaction between children and staff in Australian child care and education programs. Aspects of quality interaction are presented through examples of interaction and through personal stories of staff analyzing their interactional patterns through video and audiotapes.…

When writing is taught through conferences between a student and teacher, the authority of the teacher profoundly influences what students think and say about writing. Also, as students learn to deal with their teacher's authority, they develop strategies for talking about writing tasks in voices that are authentically their own. An examination of…

A training instrument, designed for cooperating teachers and university supervisors, allows them to examine their willingness to give and receive feedback from their student teachers and each other. The "Student Teaching Triad Communication Survey" contains ten questions dealing with willingness to receive feedback and ten questions dealing with…

Preliminary results of a comparison of the language modifications made by teachers when telling stories to native English speakers and non-native speakers of English at various proficiency levels suggest that teachers need to do more than make the routine modifications in linguistic input to lower-level learners. Teachers need to: (1) act on the…

A set of recorded teacher-child interactions in a successful kindergarten classroom was analyzed using the Mehan interactional model for analyzing the sequential organization of speech acts within classroom lessons. The study identified aspects of teacher-student interaction during formal instruction time at micro-interactional levels. The class…

Describes the interactions of high school girls and boys during coeducational science lessons. Analyses of the audiovideo recordings of 144 lessons taught by 12 male teachers indicate that girls were more likely to initiate classroom discourse. Findings did not support the hypothesis that gender disparity in science achievement in favor of boys…

Discusses ways that language shapes moral experience. Suggests that words provide the tools necessary for thinking, feeling, and acting and so are essential to psychological functioning. States that understanding how language mediates the functioning of the psyche is prerequisite to understanding how narrative expresses moral experience and…

Five teachers using a conversational approach to language teaching with hearing-impaired students were studied. Teachers tended to exert a high level of conversational control, though conversational control decreased over time. The children (ages 4-10) exhibited language growth in their imitations and responses but not in spontaneous utterances.…

A collection of papers on the profession of teaching English for special purposes includes: "Scenes of Endless Science: ESP and Education" (A. Crocker); "Some Problems of a World-Wide Profession" (T. Johns); "The EST Teacher: A Negative View" (G. Greenall); "The Helpful EST Teacher" (W. Robinson); "A Way Forward: A Fusion of Two Cultures" (M.…

Reviews early research on innovative use of networked computers in language learning, focusing on a study of computer-mediated discussion that examined student/student and student/teacher interactions in a college French course. Due to rapid nature of computer-mediated exchanges, the "conversation" is a hybrid somewhere between writing and…