Noting that conversation between adults and young children is a well-known stimulus to language development, but that conversation is seldom fully used in the classroom, this paper argues that conversations can and should be used more. It presents a range of research findings and classroom examples to support that argument. Chapter 1 examines the…

Facing an increasingly heterogeneous society, teachers need to be communicators. Most of human communication is nonverbal, but nonverbal behaviors are largely culture-bound. Teachers' sensitivity and understanding of students' nonverbal behaviors and their competence in sending correct nonverbal messages can make a difference in classroom…

Reading is an area of the curriculum that contains many opportunities for students to develop self-esteem. Three common procedures used in the classroom, however, are likely to threaten students' self-esteem: required oral reading; team selection and the aspect of competing and declaring winners and losers; and question and answer procedures.…

A study analyzed in detail one 37-minute classroom literature discussion to better understand how to foster students' critical reasoning. It investigated the characteristics of classroom interactions that support students in the process of responding to literature, the roles of the participants, and how the teacher can structure the tasks and use…

The RE-FOCUS Program at Ruskin High School in Kansas City, Missouri, helps at-risk students to redefine their efforts in social behavior and academic success. When inappropriate behavior occurs and the classroom teacher needs assistance, the student is taken out of his/her regular school environment and assigned in the RE-FOCUS room. The program,…

Education may be seen as a form of verbal communication. Opinions about the part language plays in pedagogical communication differ according to the emphasis placed on: (1) the teacher (i.e., language as a means of transferring knowledge, as in the traditional teacher-centered concept); (2) the students (or language as a means of learning); or (3)…

This paper examines remediation as the product of perceptions and beliefs about literacy and learning. It illustrates some ways teachers inadvertently participate in constructing inaccurate and limiting notions of learners as being cognitively defective and in need of "remedy," and thus limit classroom learning. It combines an empirical,…

A case study examined the brief conversations about writing that took place between a high school English teacher and two of his students. One illustrative writing conference conversation lasting 1 minute and 19 seconds shows how, through the push and pull of their short exchange, student and teacher simultaneously read the book, read the writing…

A common problem for teachers and students is that the teacher's control of the communication in the classroom limits the students' use of their language to learn. Group learning, an alternative to the traditional teacher-led classroom structure, can enhance the students' opportunity to use their language. An understanding of the following three…

This paper suggests a new way to approach the study style in instructional communication. First, the paper reviews and critiques existing approaches to communication style research. Following that it is suggested that a fundamental limitation of existitng approaches is that researchers have typically superimposed conventional criteria for teaching…

The current public debate between the images of the smiling war hero and of the grimacing Vietnam veteran provide opportunities to define two discourse communities that manifest themselves in students' written discourse. These can be seen as akin to the first American jeremiads, which were Puritan treatises written by seventeenth century religious…

This collection of 98 lesson plans for foreign language instruction is the result of a series of eight Saturday workshops focusing on ways that language teachers can develop their own communicative activities for application in the classroom. The lessons were produced by 30 foreign language teachers, each of whom was required to write a brief…

A microethnographic study and intervention were conducted in a mixed-age preschool classroom with 3- to-5-year-old native speakers of English, Khmer, and Spanish. All were learning English and had native-language support. In the study's first phase, the language of five children was audiotaped during play time. In the second phase, the whole…

A naturalistic study investigated writing-related teacher planning and classroom activities in a combined second and third grade classroom and a sixth grade classroom. Data were collected from participant observation, teachers' reflections on classroom writing, and naturally occurring teacher and student writing samples. The study, which was based…

Observations of 90 lessons reveal the limitations of the whole-class discussion, the dominant teaching method in elementary and secondary schools. In addition to producing a low percentage of student involvement, rarely more than 50%, teachers' questions and answer techniques do not usually stimulate critical thinking. Besides most often asking…