Discusses a classroom where children from many cultures use talk to share and discover the "big" questions in their lives and where the teacher discovers what the critical issues for her and her students really are. (RS)

Presents a consumer's viewpoint of problems inherent in the use of interpretation to get deaf class members into the stream of vocally expressed communication, focusing on the kinds of misunderstandings that can arise when one language is expressed in the three dimensions of space and the other has only the dimensions of speech. (38 references)…

Results of a survey of 260 students to examine how they perceive foreign-born instructors (FBIs) revealed a marked preference for native-born instructors by respondents. Because the need to hire FBIs will continue, administrators must focus attention on improving the FBIs' communication and teaching skills. (JOW)

Describes the difficulties encountered in a graduate class called "Composition, Literature, and Literacy," whose students came from two very different constituencies (essentially theorists and practitioners). Discusses how the teacher and students probed their own rhetorical situation and emphasized, rather than ignored, the conflict…

Describes a high school remedial reading teacher's struggles to get her students to retell details of stories they had read instead of relying on questions from the teacher's manual. Notes slow progress in having the students value their own ability to respond to and understand a story. (RS)

Provides an outline for a careful simulation of classroom discussion, intended as both a functional oral language experience and a means of teaching the discussion process. (SR)

Observation of teacher-student interaction in 22 Kentucky postsecondary vocational classrooms showed equitable distribution between males and females; considerably lower volume than in studies of lower-level classes; most interaction as mere acknowledgement of student response; and very little praise or criticism. (SK)

How classroom discourse contributes to the content students learn was studied with eighth graders in social studies classes taught by two teachers. Content learning differences were associated with the forms of discourse used within curriculum events and the system of classroom discourse that evolved during a unit. (SLD)

Identifies five underlying reasons students communicate with their instructors: relational, functional, excuse, participation, and sycophancy. Finds that students who communicate for all the interpersonal communication motives tend to communicate more with their instructors to relate and participate, while students who communicated for the motive…

Discusses the elements of an interactional theory concerning content-related learning in classroom situations. Clarifies the concept of culture and outlines the narrative character of the reconstructed classroom culture. Presents empirical results to create elements of a theory of interaction of content-related learning. (Contains 37 references.)…

Encourages teachers to listen more carefully to what students say. Discusses two modes of reasoning in an effort to understand more deeply what students hear and the styles of reasoning that they might use in mathematics. (Contains 12 references.) (ASK)

Discusses elements of rhetoric as they are applied in education: its contemporary meanings, the history of rhetoric, its implications for teaching, and its applications for life. (SR)

Discusses the importance of talk in the classroom, in particular talk about books. Includes student conversations and comments about such discussion, and the lack of it in their classrooms. Describes what such discussion has to offer to individuals, classrooms, and society. Notes the difficulties of achieving discussion in the classroom. (SR)

Discusses insights gained by working with teacher-researcher teams in Pittsburgh Public Schools investigating portfolio reflection. Describes using reflection to create student-teacher dialog, and shows how expanding this dialog makes learning visible. Notes that this mutually satisfying classroom dialog about writing and learning expanded to…

Discusses the importance of communicating ideas in teaching any subject. Presents a story about an elementary-level mathematics lesson having to do with space and shape. Suggests that examining the assumptions held by teachers about the content of mathematics and how to communicate mathematics to students is very beneficial. (ASK)