The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of teacher expectancy on student performance. The question is asked: Do teachers in secondary grades treat students for whom they have low expectations in ways that tend to fulfill them, and if so, what is the nature of this differential treatment? Differential teacher behavior (quantitative and…

This pamphlet, provided in both English and Spanish, presents a brief overview of Situational Reinforcement (SR), a teaching methodology used in the materials published by the Institute of Modern Languages. Explanations are given concerning its theoretical basis, its practical applications, the history of its development, and the support it finds…

Meeting the needs of a wide range of student abilities in the classroom taxes the talents of educators. If mainstreaming is to be effective, interactions in the mainstreamed classroom should be supportive of students' learning abilities. Since they shoulder the major responsibility of effective mainstreaming, teachers need information and support…

To determine what counts as success in a French first grade, an ethnographer investigated what happens when the teacher "applies" her categories of "things students do" to particular situations. The category called "searching" served as an example. To produce a body of data, the teacher commented on videotapes of…

This report describes a classroom communication training program for foreign teaching assistants (FTAs) developed at the University of Minnesota in response to evidence that the FTAs were the subject of criticism and complaints because of poor communication abilities in their classes. The first two sections of the paper discuss the background to…

The process of invitational teaching involves the creation of an optimal situation where teachers with positive perceptions of students interact with students who feel good about themselves. The content of this invitational process is a type of self-belief extended from one person to the other, a belief that each individual has an unknown…

The results of a study in applied educational psycholinguistics are presented. The project used a theoretical model of communicative competence to develop testing techniques for diagnosing levels of ability in functional language skills, and to develop training techniques to promote the acquisition of speaking and listening skills among elementary…

The concept that teacher beliefs about future student achievement may actually influence the subsequent performance of students provides the basis for a model of teacher expectation communication which uses attribution theory as explanatory links in the communication process. These model links were tested in a two-year study involving 16 third-,…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between effective classroom management and the manner in which teachers assign and hold students responsible for written work in junior high schools. Seven more effective and seven less effective teachers were studied, and a summary of each teacher's accountability systems was written. Based on…

Two types of teacher behavior were elicited from student responses to the Pupil Control Behavior Form (PCB). Two custodial teacher types emerged from the data: the "screamer" type, described as a teacher who controlled pupil behavior with verbal methods that expressed anger or frustration; and the "cold fish" type, depicted as a teacher who…

A step-by-step description is given of the development of a model for the improvement of student teacher relationships. This model was created by a student forum in workshop sessions with teachers, other school personnel, and parents. In this report the design of the workshops is described, and the recommendations resulting are outlined. Included…

This pamphlet is the third in a series of ten stemming from the view that language is central to learning, that teachers can gain insights into their work and into learning by examining the language of the classroom, and that current language theory can be the means to such insights. Specifically, the pamphlet presents ideas drawn from a five-year…

A STUDY WAS DESIGNED TO EXAMINE THE LINGUISTICS STRUCTURE OF SECOND- AND FIFTH-GRADE TEACHERS' CLASSROOM LANGUAGE USING PROCEDURES THAT HAVE BEEN APPLIED IN RECENT STUDIES OF CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE (LOBAN, 1963 "THE LANGUAGE OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN" ED 001 875). TEN SECOND-GRADE AND 11 FIFTH-GRADE TEACHERS IN A LARGE, SUBURBAN, PUBLIC SCHOOL…

The purpose of this project was to initiate a classroom journal-writing program that would provide children with an opportunity to express themselves freely, and that would offer useful information for improving relationships within the classroom. Both students and teacher kept daily journals for a year. Four simple rules governed the procedure,…

This module is designed to provide practice in observing the verbal interaction in a group and to provide an opportunity to participate in a discussion group and receive feedback. Specific activities include the formation of a group of 16-20 people and participation in three exercises; the fishbowl, the fishbowl and reversed roles, and group…