Shares examples of explicit teacher talk to demonstrate its influence on learners: encouraging positive reading behaviors, thinking metacognitively, and using meaning as well as sounding out words. Describes teacher talk that (1) promotes struggling readers' understandings and control in reading; and (2) that empowers novice teachers and thus…

A study investigated interaction patterns between 11 children with autism, 9 with intellectual disabilities, and 9 teachers working with a multimedia program to increase literacy skills. Children with autism showed increased enjoyment and willingness to seek help from their teachers. Children with low language ability showed increases in verbal…

Relates concepts from research on intersubjectivity to problems emerging in designing learning environments, focusing on an undergraduate teacher education classroom designed to run according to an educational philosophy of community of learners and considering issues emerging from these efforts. The article also considers three aspects of…

Explains that semantic coaching is a system of conversational analysis and communication design developed by Fernando Flores, and was based on the earlier research of John Austin and John Searle. Describes how to establish the coaching relationship, and how to coach for improved performance. (PA)

Provides a framework of four constructs that can be used to analyze various forms of classroom communication. Develops and uses these constructs as two preservice teacher's concepts of communication and their corresponding classroom practices are considered. (Contains 33 references.) (Author/ASK)

Discusses negotiating pop culture and other literacies in current-events discussions. Gives some implications for teachers and teacher educators. Concludes that effective, innovative and sensitive ways of encouraging ESL (English as a second language) students and reticent local students to bring elements of their home (pop) cultures, media, and…

Investigated possible links between classroom interaction and the learning of new vocabulary. Learners were asked to report the new words they could recall immediately after their lessons. Found both positive and negative links between mentioning new words, repeating new words, focusing on new words, turn-taking around new words, and recall and…

Describes how, when asked to devote the day following the September 11 tragedy to class discussions, University of Michigan instructors benefited from the skills and classroom strategies honed by colleagues whose classes regularly deal with complex human realities. (EV)

Explores ways in which adults discuss literature in two different settings--a graduate English seminar and a graduate English education book club course. Examines the role of speaker turns, tentative and presentational language, overlapping talk and questioning in those literature discussions. Explores the different theoretical and pedagogical…

This article examines how question-answer sequences are constructed in primary school instructional activities. The interaction between teacher and students in two 3rd-year groups is analyzed using a conversation-analytic approach. Four questioning patterns--"yes-no, alternative, wh-questions", and a "non-interrogative format" very frequently used…

There is evidence that alienation from science is linked to the dominant discourse practices of science classrooms (cf. Lemke, J. L. (1990). Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex). Yet, in secondary science education it is particularly hard to find evidence of curriculum reform that includes explicit changes in…

This chapter reports on a mathematics professor's experience leveraging laptops in a required intermediate statistics course with a challenging student population. Use of laptops streamlined course delivery, enhanced classroom interaction, and improved both his students' and his own overall course experience.

This article is a reflective account of a teacher implementing the comprehension strategy of questioning to encourage genuine conversations with text, instead of the inquisition technique of testing comprehension practiced in many classrooms. Through the structure of a "gradual release of responsibilities," students practice questioning in…

This article explores how teachers use talk to scaffold pupil learning by examining "critical moments" in whole-class teaching contexts. The critical moments represent those points in a lesson where something a child or teacher says creates a moment of choice or opportunity for the teacher, and the article examines teachers' responses to these…

While there is general agreement that conversational interaction can facilitate interlanguage development, much of the research on interaction has been conducted in experimental laboratory settings. Questions have been raised about the generalizability of the benefits observed in the laboratory to the classroom setting. The current research…