This book offers a generalized way of examining the moral significance of what occurs in classrooms, with a focus on analyzing classroom interactions from a symbolic/expressive point of view. The book's ideas were derived from the Moral Life of Schools Project, a 2-year study that investigated the ways in which moral considerations permeate the…

Features of a special purpose English as a second language (ESL) course for foreign graduate students entering the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania are described. In response to the rigorous demands and competitive atmosphere at Wharton, the course has been designed to teach coping skills and strategies, particularly for…

A study examined the questioning behavior of teachers following the reading of a basal reader story. The four teachers who served as subjects were chosen from a pool of 18 fourth grade teachers, and were selected because their classes produced the two highest and two lowest mean scores on a standardized reading comprehension measure. Each…

Given the complexity of classroom reading observations, maintenance of measurement reliability is a concern to researchers. Sources of variation contributing to the unreliability of many measurements may be either (1) lasting and specific, (2) lasting and general, (3) temporary and specific, or (4) temporary and general. Lasting-specific sources…

The first chapter in this booklet about teaching and the art of questioning defines educative questions which advance pedagogical purposes, classroom processes, and educational ends and facilitate student thinking and class participation. Examples throughout the publication are in the form of recorded and transcribed actual classroom discourse,…

This handbook was developed for teachers with hearing impaired students in their regular classrooms. A preliminary discussion on hearing impairments describes various degrees of aural handicaps, ranging from deafness to hard of hearing, and communication methods used in educating children with these handicaps. Activities for preparing…

The relationship between visual-motor perception and classroom behavior was investigated for a sample of 76 first-grade children. Analysis of regression indicated that three types of classroom behavior tend to be associated with poor visual-motor perception. These behaviors are described. (Author)

Communication workshops can provide opportunity for secondary students to participate in oral communication, which will help them become more active in the classroom situation. (JH)

A study tested the validity of a speaking apprehension questionnaire developed by Marshall that monitors the performance of secondary school teaching in oracy in the Netherlands. This questionnaire, intended for 11- to 16-year-old students, was administered to 86 secondary school students. The improved instrument, the Speaking Apprehension Measure…

This study was conducted to address the question of how teacher written comments affected students from elementary school to college and to see if there were any differences within and between these groups. Twelve students, five male and seven female, from elementary, high school, and college (including some education majors), were the subjects of…

This newsletter discusses a Swedish research project investigating the command immigrant school children living in Sweden have of their native language and of Swedish as a second language. The project's objective is to describe the children's language proficiency and factors promoting or inhibiting it in the classroom. The study is undertaken in…

A study examined student responses to teacher-initiated questions in classrooms of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The study focused specifically on the similarities and differences in the questions asked by native-speaking (NS) teachers of ESL and by non-native-speaking (NNS) teachers of EFL, and to…

Aspects of dominant and submissive sex role behaviors in preschool children and their teachers during conversation at the snack table were examined in three experiments. Experiment 1 was intended to determine whether the number of times children interrupted their teacher and the teacher interrupted children differed according to the sex of the…

Teachers need to become students again and pay attention to how they learn best in order that they may then use like means in teaching their students. Teacher students often connect by telling anecdotes and other narratives that have meaning in their personal experiences. They share these stories and build on them, finding fresh ways of looking at…

A study examined the power of communication apprehension, person perception, network connectedness, and course satisfaction to predict learning outcomes in a college communication course. Subjects, 81 students from a multisection course, completed a variety of self-report instruments measuring their communication apprehension levels; perceptions…