A study was conducted to document the written language of kindergarten children as a transaction among writers, teachers, and the writing process. Six children's writing processes and two teachers' instructional behaviors were examined using videotaped observations during an eight month period in two kindergarten classrooms. Writing products of…

With the goal of generating research questions about teacher effectiveness, the first half of this paper deals with literature investigating teachers' nonverbal behavior in the classroom. This review lends support to the following ideas: (1) nonverbal cues affect relationship quality; (2) the more positive the teacher feedback to students, the…

A study was conducted (1) to investigate factors that influence an instructor's choice of behavior when confronted with incidents of students' poor communication performance, and (2) to demonstrate how attribution theory can be used as a vehicle for describing and understanding the causes of instructor reactions or behaviors. The study sought to…

Students from minority groups may have a hard time asking for and accepting help from teachers with different backgrounds from theirs. Instructors need to meet them more than halfway. (Author)

A distinction should be made between specific teaching methods (and their improvement) and the more global concept of teacher roles. There are important questions to be answered about how teachers view both the teaching learning process and their contribution to it, as well as how students contribute to this same process. Two men have developed…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the verbal interactions of children assigned to multiage classrooms. Specifically, the study investigated whether children of a particular age group interact with other children across age groups and the types of interactions each age group display. It also investigated student-to-teacher interactions and…

Teachers calling on students to answer questions in class regarding homework assignments and general knowledge frequently invoke the Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968). Many of these questions automatically put the teacher in the Persecutor or Rescuer role and students in the Victim role. Retaliatory transactions by students often put the teacher in…

In this paper, it is suggested that reading instruction can be improved by studying the interactions of students and teachers in beginning reading classes. Such research could identify effective environments for learning to read, providing teachers with alternative and effective ways of adapting reading instruction to the students' needs. The…

A college expository writing instructor investigated how students perceive teacher intervention during the writing process and how written teacher comments affect successive drafts of student compositions. During the semester, four students were asked to react on tape to the comments the instructor wrote on the second drafts of their compositions…

Studies of successful beginning readers have suggested two factors--a responsive communication environment and the awareness of reading as communication--that contribute to early success in reading. In light of this, a study was conducted to identify and differentiate high communication and low communication classrooms and to explore the…

This annotated bibliography focuses on the fields of cognitive anthropology and sociolinguistics. Topics covered include: (1) classroom ethnographies; (2) conversational and discourse analysis; (3) ecological and sociological approaches to the study of education and schooling; (4) ethnomethodology; (5) communication and speech act theory; (6)…

A study was carried on for 2 years in a predominantly Italian-American suburb near Boston. During the period of data-collection, the researchers observed both classroom interaction in a kindergarten/first grade and the interactions of two members of that class at home with their families. The analysis is an attempt to discover what factors in…

The T.V. Taxonomy of Questions was developed for use by teachers who wish to stimulate their students' critical thinking skills, but who find the terminology of existing skill taxonomies both confusing and elusive. This taxonomy consists of six levels of questions. Each level is given the name of a television program reflecting how the student…

A system of identifying teacher and student interactions as they relate to discipline problems was developed and validated as a method of resolving disruptive classroom behavior. SOBAD (Systematic Observation of Behavior with a Focus on Academic Disruptions) involves the use of trained observers who code and record student and teacher interactions…

This study examined the conversation patterns of 26 Hawaiian kindergarten children in order to determine whether children with a Hawaiian Creole (HC) preference or a Standard English (SE) preference speak to each other. The normal interactions of the children (14 boys and 12 girls) were monitored during the learning center sessions of the…