In the Least Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs), School Based Teacher Development (SBTD) is sometimes advocated as a potential mechanism for improving the classroom practices experienced by millions of children in a complete school system, as quickly as possible. Robust evidence is required for approaches to be implemented with some…

Inherent in classroom research are the inevitable, and often unanticipated, challenges experienced by researchers. This article moves beyond the main issues highlighted in the literature and identifies some of the problems the authors encountered when conducting two common methodological procedures, classroom observations and stimulated recall…

After reviewing units of discourse analysis generally used by sociolinguists, this article reports on a study conducted in university English-as-a-Second-Language classes in Los Angeles to show differences between interactions in and outside of class and proposes a broader frame of analysis to include both the turn and the exchange systems. (CFM)

Argues for a conceptualization of the foreign language classroom that matches descriptions of real functional language for communication within a cultural group. Suggestions are provided for needed kinds of classroom-based research from a social interaction perspective to help us better understand what goes on in the language learning environment.…

Selected studies in three areas of second-language classroom process research are reviewed: the linguistic environment of instruction, patterns of participation, and error treatment. Also reviewed are recent applications of introspective or mentalistic research to the problem of describing the second-language classroom experience. (MSE)

The results of participant-observer research in beginning French and German classes shows that recognition of common ground in the classroom is essential for communication, and that a sense of classroom community is crucial to truly communicative interaction. (Author/MSE)

This study is a qualitative exploration of the amount of talk (also known as linguistic space) used by girls as opposed to boys in a grade 2 English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classroom in British Columbia. The focus of this study is the amount of language generated in a classroom lesson-time talk based on gender. Data was collected through…

This is the second of 12 research reports on the phenomenon of language instruction within a large class environment. The report is written in five sections. The second section (following the introductory first section) discusses the reasons for studying large classes in language instruction, including the facts that teachers find large classes…

Reports findings from an action research project that set up an instructional program for Punjabi-speaking women immigrants and traced their English and literacy development in classroom and home settings. Data indicate that efforts to teach and acquire literacy focused on language code; self-control strategies and schematic representations for…

Records teachers' ideas on several topics. These include becoming a teacher/researcher convert; suggestions for juggling research recordkeeping and teaching; three systems for taking notes in class; turning the lesson plan into a research tool; involving students in self-exploration; students' experience with classroom cheating. (10 references)…

A discussion of classroom research on language teaching looks at what researchers have learned so far from attempts to study what happens in the language classroom. The discussion is based on the idea that it is not the currency of instructional method used that matters most, but rather a fuller understanding of classroom interaction. The first…

Classroom research procedures to help teachers to investigate their own teaching behaviors are outlined, and the benefits of such research are discussed. For undertaking investigations of teaching behaviors and their consequences, teachers are first provided with background knowledge and experience in classroom observation. A variety of techniques…

The focus of this highly quantitative investigation is the analysis of the differences observed, both in methodological approach and in language choice in the classroom, during five years of classroom visitations. The study reflects information collected from two very different institutions with radically distinct populations: a rural setting with…

This book presents 46 classroom activities that teacher educators have used in helping people learn to teach. Some are specific to learning how to teach second languages, but most can be used to address the teaching of any subject matter. All emphasize what teacher trainees bring to the process of becoming independent, self-sufficient classroom…

The procedures used in an ethnographic study of a classroom language learning community are described. The research was undertaken to gain insights into adult language learning taking place among students who were not foreign language majors in an elementary French class at Michigan Technological University during the 1986-87 academic year. The…