Studies of primary education within the UK have shown that small groups can feature within classrooms; however, equivalent research within secondary education remains scarce. Research has established effective group work approaches, yet secondary teachers may encounter difficulties employing approaches tied to parameters embedded within primary…

Relationships among peer social interaction rate, classroom activity, and teaching style were investigated to determine whether teaching style could be defined in terms of differential student interaction rates across various classroom activities. Peer interaction rates were determined in three primary level classrooms representing various…

A system for observing and coding verbal interchanges between the teacher and his pupils, at all instructional levels, is described in this study. The system, widely known as the Flanders System of Interaction Analysis, is reviewed in terms of its effect on the classroom behavior of teachers and on student attitudes. The application of the…

Though the need for a language or languages to describe teacher behavior has been recognized for some time, few systems of analysis exist. A conceptual framework and a set of terms have been developed to describe the messages students and teachers send and receive in second language classrooms. This system is called FOCUS (an acronym for Foci for…

TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT CULTURALLY-BASED WAYS OF LEARNING AND COMMUNICATING MIGHT HAVE IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING, AN ANTHROPOLOGIST AND A BEHAVIORIST CONDUCTED BOTH FORMAL AND INFORMAL OBSERVATIONS AND INTERVIEWS IN FOUR JOB CORPS CENTERS AND TWO VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOLS, ONE WITH A STUDENT POPULATION OF 86 PERCENT WHITE AND 14 PERCENT NEGRO,…

The study evaluates the effectiveness of a set of social studies activities in promoting cooperative interaction among junior high school students. A field experiment was designed to test three hypotheses: (1) groups which have previously worked together structure tasks more cooperatively than a newly formed group: (2) groups which have…

Suggestions for improving conversation groups in the intermediate and advanced English as a second language classroom are considered with attention directed to design of the activities, preparation of the individuals involved, and selection of the subject matter. In addition, factors that cause conversation groups to fail are discussed. A…