This study examined the office hour consultation between teaching assistants (TAs) and undergraduates from the participants' viewpoints. A total of 40 consultations involving five TAs from the economics department of a major American university were videotaped and transcribed. After dividing the consultations into three sections, namely initiating…

The Verbal Interaction Analysis System is presented as an assessment of initial, dyadic conversations. Application of the VIAS to two case studies featuring mildly to moderately intellectually disabled adults shows how the VIAS provides an index of competence and assists in the development of specific treatment strategies. (Author/JDD)

Case study recordings of a science lesson are assessed to examine the role of talk in the learning process. Implications are raised for similar informal assessments by practicing teachers. (Author)

Describes a study of class assessment meetings in Swedish secondary schools, focusing on communicative practices in these meetings, how interactional patterns are reproduced by the participants in the meetings, and how these patterns are linked to the social organization of schools. Findings indicate that time constraints and a standardized agenda…

The parents of a six-year-old disruptive boy were observed interacting with their son during 20 assessment-oriented, 10-minute experimental sessions. An experimental design consisting of alternately arranged baseline and self-monitoring conditions was utilized. Following the reversal-to-baseline phase, parents were given specialized training in…

This report describes a "culturally contexted" conversation analysis approach to the study of naturally occurring speech in supervisory conferences. The supervisors and teachers were participants in a graduate program for beginning teachers, and the conference's purpose was supervisory evaluation of teachers' classroom performances. Ethnographic…

Presents the Verbal Interaction Analysis System (VIAS), a computer-based system designed to analyze verbal interactions, and describes application of the VIAS in analyzing family/professional interactions during the Individualized Family Service Plan process. The results of a pilot test of the VIAS found high interobserver reliability. (Author/CR)

This article describes a teaching experiment in Finland to develop critical thinking and argumentation skills in a university course using both face-to-face and e-mail settings. Subjects (n=49) were advanced students of education and three faculty members. All students received two lectures on argumentation and packages of argumentative writings…

Thirteen years after the first edition of this book, significant changes in social and intellectual life have made the subject of classroom discourse more important than ever, and this new edition integrates current perspectives and research. New features in the book include: a new rationale for the importance of student-teacher talk (the…

A course in communication skills that is provided to all freshmen dental students at the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry is described. The course is based primarily on the human relations training models of Blakeman (1975), Carkhuff (1969), and Egan (1975), and consists of six modules devoted to the skills of structuring, attending,…

The Utah Pupil/Teacher Self-Concept Program is designed to train teachers in the use of verbal behaviors that improve the self concept of students by replacing judgmental statements with positive descriptive messages. The program is based on a successful prototype used with elementary school teachers. Four individualized modules were developed to…