This paper analyzes teacher communication with deaf students in terms of four dimensions: power, repair, pace, and linguistic complexity. Students interacting with teachers who used communicative features associated with power communicated less effectively than with teachers who exerted less power. Evidence that adults can change how they…

Analysis of postobservation conferences between 20 pairs of teachers and supervisors revealed four major micropolitical strategies used by participants to influence conference interaction. Two strategies--reflecting personal orientation and conversational congruence--prevailed in conferences rated positively by participants, whereas supervisor use…

This article examines various forms of communication systems for their "partner friendliness" and presents a model of different types of communication partners and their communication needs. Case examples illustrate how the forms of communication of two students who are deaf-blind were expanded to promote greater communication with a variety of…

Describes a special class to train deaf students of all ages in ways to work with their interpreters in mainstream school settings. The class uses explanation, role play, and questions to clarify the roles of the teacher and the interpreter and to stress the importance of flexibility in the mainstream. (DB)

Discourse analysis describes a level of spoken text that lies between grammar and nonlinguistic organization. Using such an approach to understand the practical problems of communication in supervisory conferences, this paper explores two dimensions of the conference: risk and politeness levels. Level of risk is determined by the degrees of…

This paper explores the habits of isolation that teacher educators bring from previous lives as teachers, administrators, and students who have been part of typically individualistic and competitive K-12, undergraduate, and graduate schooling. The paper also addresses the lack of communication inside teacher education programs that isolates the…

Examined teacher-student communication patterns in both regular and special education classes for behaviorally and emotionally handicapped students. Used Webster's (1984, 1986) Process Interaction Model to analyze the communication patterns. Expected differences between how regular and special class teachers intearct with students were not found.…

This article reports on several studies that used discourse analysis to interpret the linguistic interactions between students with special educational needs in segregated and integrated settings. Results indicated that integrated settings were characterized by "didactic" interactions, while segregated settings showed "familiar" behavior. (DB)

A study examined age differences in the use of interaction management strategies. Students (13 seventh-graders and 24 eleventh-graders) were asked to describe how to play a game to a peer. Each speaker then became a listener in the next dyad. A tally was kept of speaker and listener use of six categories of feedback, and the quality of that…

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…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 21 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) comparison of receiver profiles in Clark County, Nevada, for various school-community relations communications channels; (2) effects of profit knowledge, size…

This study examined the effects of an intervention program to improve the quality of daily interaction between six congenitally deaf-blind children and their 14 educators (teachers, caregivers, and mothers). With video analysis as the most important tool, the interaction coaches trained the educators to recognize the children's signals and attune…

The question of whether the English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom is an environment that promotes input, feedback, and the production of output that is necessary for successful second language learning is addressed. Such questions have arisen within the context of a growing emphasis on communicative activities and student-to-student…

This report presents the activities, accomplishments, and outcomes of a study of the long-term outcomes of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions with individuals with severe communication disabilities. The study evaluated long-term outcomes for 7 young men (ages 19-23 years) who had used AAC systems for at least 15 years.…