Classrooms can serve as laboratories for experimenting with collaboration rather than win-lose conflict styles. Productive conflict tactics and patterns of interaction can be used for all parties to learn effective conflict management. (Author/MSE)

A comparison of the acts and arts of teaching and loving suggests some similarities: that teaching is a revelation of the self more than it is the use of professorial postures, that authenticity is more important than authority, and that trust is essential. (MSE)

Using 77 junior high school students in two mathematics classes, this study investigated sex differences in interaction patterns and achievement in small cooperative learning groups. Results related to the male-female ratio in a group. Explanations for these results and consequences for group composition in the classroom are discussed. (BS)

The debate over whether classroom verbal exchanges should be evaluated by pedagogical or discourse criteria, and how this evaluation should be accomplished in class, is reopened. An approach combining the two types of analysis through development of "communication profiles" is recommended as the best means of clearly viewing the phenomenon of…

A social-interaction training procedure employing picture cues (photographs of play materials in their settings), prompts, and reinforcement was investigated to determine its effect on subject-peer and subject-teacher interaction. The results indicate that picture cues facilitate communication and allow independent social interaction and serve as…

Explores the concept of language for learning or discovery and suggests that classrooms based on that principle offer more favorable climates for assessing both students' language and their learning. (DF)

Investigates the nature of those portions of foreign language lessons in which teacher and students focus on the linguistic code rather than on content, that is meta talk. The focus is on scaffolded constructions and norms for meta talk. Examples and analyses are from lessons in Danish secondary schools. (SED)

It is argued that second-language classroom communication is often limited by the lack of instructor use of tonic pronouns. Two uses of the pronoun form that should be used from the beginning of the second-language program to promote authentic communication are described. (MSE)

Describes the components, functions, and applications of a computer-based audio/video learning laboratory at Texas Christian University that permits on-line communication between student learners and instructional staff. The laboratory gives instructors feedback from student learners during and after instruction and enables students to evaluate…

Classifies the different language interactions that occur in the school and home, ranging from those that give the child or learner the power to make language choices to those that control the child's use of language. (HTH)

Describes a survey of how Italian is taught in South Australian primary classrooms. Teachers in six classrooms were observed and recorded to measure the language used, the amount of time spent speaking Italian and English, the language used by children, and the content of pupils' and teachers' spoken Italian. (SED)

Reviews ERIC documents on communication skills, written by people in fields other than speech communication. (PD)

Outlines writing/reading experiences in projects that stretch conceptual understanding and illustrates ways to relate language experiences to children's everyday experiences. (CI)

Various studies of interaction between teachers and American Indian students indicate that nonverbal behaviors interfere with classroom communication and educational performance. American Indian children exhibit such behaviors as less talking, low voice tones, and averted gaze during conservations. These behaviors seem to hinder students in the…

Describes a successful college composition program that reduces writing anxiety and increases individual attention to students by pairing an advanced student writer with a faculty member as team teachers. (MM)