Discusses the difficulties and usefulness of perceiving the interface between communication and instruction. Details the interface, and outlines three overall advantages for communication department chairs who view instructional situations as communication situations: improved instructional environment; more effective campus rhetoric; and enhanced…

Examined were the communicative patterns of 9 youngsters, aged 6-20, with moderate or severe mental retardation and severe spoken language impairments who are not independent speakers. Findings are discussed with respect to the modes and functions of the youngsters' communications with conversational partners at home and school. (Author/JDD)

Described is the adaptation to the educational setting of a family therapy-based systems approach to communications, intended to improve classroom atmospheres of both beginning and experienced teachers who were experiencing difficulty in creating and maintaining a good working atmosphere. (CB)

Presents an activity to develop an understanding of the importance of definitions in mathematics in which the teacher uses counterexamples to produce modifications in proposed definitions for the concept of quadrilateral. Suggested follow-up activities include telephone description, dictionary mathematics, and definition displays. (MDH)

Addresses the issue of how the centrality of virtue might be accommodated in dialog within common schools under the conditions of pluralism. Two contrasting approaches to moral dialog under these conditions are examined and rejected followed by a third approach, derived from John Rawl's conceptions of reasonableness and democratic tolerance, that…

Using transcripts of children's talk, this paper examines the validity of claims that children provided with opportunities to work cooperatively and collaboratively in small groups will use talk to help them make meaning and enhance their cognitive understanding. The claims are substantiated. (Contains 32 references.) (Author/LB)

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.…

Reflects on a teacher's first year back in the elementary classroom after having spent 12 years in university teaching. Notes that the teacher defines her role as a facilitator of student learning. Discusses struggling with reading aloud, partner reading, literature discussion groups, and talk about content area inquiries. Appends a transcript and…

Presents reflections on the articles in this special issue. Discusses how talk in the classroom has the potential to transform. Suggests that there is much more to learn about how to microanalyze teacher and student behavior, and that the greatest tool for this analysis is talk. (RS)

Discusses ways to encourage students to discuss and explain their problem-solving process, including journals, student-authored story problems, mathematician's chair, cooperative learning, family newsletter, and mathematics communication structures, which add variety to students' communication tasks. (MKR)

Examined two cross-aged tutoring corpora to show how conversational rules and politeness strategies can potentially enhance or inhibit effective tutoring. Suggests that politeness strategies are more prevalent in less constrained domains, even though their use may inhibit effective tutoring. Tutors should be cognizant of these costs and benefits,…

Addresses the renewed debate on cooperative learning in foreign language classrooms. First, the rationale for communicative language teaching in foreign language instruction is reported. Focus then shifts to research on potential drawbacks of communicative language teaching. Second, the role computers can play in cooperative learning is discussed,…

Examines the contribution that the teaching of controversial issues could make to student learning in the science classroom. Discusses the nature of controversial issues, some general guidelines for handling them, and various classroom techniques that might foster open-ended problem solving using small group discussion. (Author/MKR)

Considers the applicability of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (which focus on language and the social organization of linguistic interchange) to the study of education, children's techniques of communication, socialization processes, and classroom communication. (DMM)