Enhancing teachers’ classroom communication skills – Measuring the effect of a continued professional development programme for mainstream school teachers

Continued professional development (CPD), tailored to teachers’ needs and expectations, is required for updated skills and knowledge. In this study, twenty-five teachers working with first and second grade students participated in an 11-week programme focusing on enhancing classroom communication. The participating teachers were randomly assigned to either a direct intervention track (intervention) or a delayed intervention track (waiting control). Teachers’ perceptions of activities and interactions in the classroom and self-efficacy were assessed on three occasions: T1, T2, and T3. The direct intervention track received intervention between T1 and T2, while the delayed intervention track received intervention between T2 and T3. A percentage change score for changes between T1 and T2 was calculated, to compare the direct and delayed intervention tracks and assess any intervention effect. Results revealed no significant difference between the groups, i.e., the intervention had no effect on teacher self-reports. The teachers gave an overall positive evaluation of the CPD. Thematic analyses revealed continued need for professional development and insights into the reciprocal influence of student and teacher behaviour. The quantitative and qualitative results paint somewhat different pictures showing the need of mixed methods when analysing these kinds of data.

A Study on the Application of Teacher Feedback Language in Middle School English Class

Teacher feedback language has a very significant impact on students' learning. Appropriate feedback language will promote students' learning motivation, arouse students' interest in learning, and have a positive role in promoting students' language ability development. However, in middle school English classrooms, many teachers do not pay attention to the role of feedback language, ignore the positive feedback to students or lack the application skills of feedback and students do not participate in classroom communication, and lose interest in English. This article proposes corresponding improvement measures in response to the current problems in the application of teacher feedback in middle school English classrooms.

Challenges of the Sudden Switch from Mother Tongue Instruction to English as a Medium of Instruction

The present study explored the challenges encountered through the transition from using the mother tongue as a medium of instruction at schools to using English as a medium of instruction at universities. Two focus groups were conducted with Saudi undergraduates and faculty members from different Saudi universities. The focus groups investigated how participants perceive this experience, what difficulties they face and how they cope. Participants expressed their preference for using English as a medium of instruction in higher education to maximise students’ future and international opportunities. Participant students reported difficulties in lecture comprehension, taking notes while listening and classroom communication. Participant content lecturers reported difficulties related to students’ reluctance to speak in English, lack of English terminology and insufficient lecture comprehension. Some suggestions that have been offered to overcome these challenges include the following: designing adequate trainings for content lecturers on teaching their content in English; using Arabic-English bilingualism as medium of instruction; giving emphasis to academic literacy and communication skills over the use of standard English models and enhancing the collaborative work between English language teaching practitioners and content lecturers.

A Multi-Layered Framework for Analyzing Primary Students’ Multimodal Reasoning in Science

Classroom communication is increasingly accepted as multimodal, through the orchestrated use of different semiotic modes, resources, and systems. There is growing interest in examining the meaning-making potential of other modes (e.g., gestural, visual, kinesthetic) beyond the semiotic mode of language, in classroom communication and in student reasoning in science. In this paper, we explore the use of a multi-layered analytical framework in an investigation of student reasoning during an open inquiry into the physical phenomenon of dissolving in a primary classroom. The 24 students, who worked in pairs, were video recorded in a facility purposefully designed to capture their verbal and non-verbal interactions during the science session. By employing a multi-layered analytical framework, we were able to identify the interplays between the different semiotic modes and the level of reasoning undertaken by the students as they worked through the tasks. This analytical process uncovered a variety of ways in which the students negotiated ideas and coordinated semiotic resources in their exploration of dissolving. This paper highlights the affordances and challenges of this multi-layered analytical framework for identifying the dynamic inter-relationships between different modes that the students drew on to grapple with the complexity of the physical phenomenon of dissolving.

Opportunities to Enhance Children's Communication Development at School in Underserved Communities

Purpose: Alternative service delivery approaches are required to provide support for children with communication difficulties in underserved communities. Schools have a unique set of assets that can be utilized to provide this support. This study explored what the education sector and classrooms in the early years of schooling offer as support for children with communication difficulties in an underserved Majority World country, the Maldives. The objective was to identify opportunities to enhance support provided for these children. Method: A qualitative multimethod approach was used involving (a) 520 min of classroom observational data from four remote schools, (b) interviews with four special education needs teachers, and (c) an interview with a Ministry of Education official. Classroom observational data were analyzed using the Communication Supporting Classroom Observation Tool. Deductive content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Results: The support system aimed to reflect the Inclusive Education Policy of the Maldives. The Ministry of Education official and teachers raised concerns regarding lack of allied health services such as speech-language therapy in schools. Teachers frequently used certain communication supporting interactions such as imitation in classrooms. Missed opportunities to enhance communication were observed, including limited use of some interaction features such as modeling language, limited planned opportunities for children to interact in class, and limited resources in the environment to develop communication in Grade 1 and 2 compared to preschool. Conclusion: Findings suggest building capacity among teachers and training teachers on identified classroom communication support areas to enhance support for children with communication difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17003980

The investigation of classroom communication strategies used by English department lecturers

This case study is aimed at finding out the types of classroom communication strategies employed by English department lecturers during their teaching. In this study, three lecturers participated (HQ, RR, and SW in pseudonyms). They were lecturers for academic English, critical speaking, and advanced reading classes. The instruments of this study were videotapes, observation guides, field notes, and interview guides. After the data collection process, the data were analyzed using coding analysis and interactive analysis. The results showed that the most employed direct strategies were circumlocution and code-switching. HQ used circumlocution 54 times and code-switching 51 times; RR used circumlocution 21 times and code-switching 32 times. The major use of indirect strategies was comprehension check, which was used 47 times by RR, 28 times by HQ, and 9 times by SW. Last, for the interactional strategy, filler was the most used strategy. RR used it 19 times, HQ used it 46 times, and SW used it 26 times. It is suggested that lecturers are expected to balance these three strategies to maintain good teacher-student communication. However, for adult learners (college students), it is found that lecturers mostly use circumlocution during the lecture.

An Action Research on Improving Classroom Communication and Interaction in Social Studies Teaching

The aim of this research is to reveal how communication and interaction in classrooms can be enhanced with the communicative approach education provided for social studies teachers. The participants of this research were five social studies teachers working at secondary schools and their 7th grade students, N = 110. The data collection tools adopted in this research were video and audio recordings, documents, semistructured interview forms, and stimulated recall interview forms. The data obtained from recordings of lessons were analyzed using the communicative approach, and the data obtained from document review and interview were analyzed using the content analysis method. The results of the study show that social studies curriculum contains items that require both dialogical and authoritative discourses and that the course books are prepared accordingly, but teachers as the practitioners of the program do not conduct their lessons accordingly. Instead, all the teachers participating in the research used only authoritative (interactive/noninteractive) approaches and they did not include dialogical (interactive/noninteractive) approaches at all. This situation, which is seen as a problem in terms of conducting successful in-class communication and interaction, has been solved in three action cycles with one of the teachers. The teacher who used only authoritative (interactive/noninteractive) approaches in her lessons prior to the trainings started to include dialogical (interactive/noninteractive) approaches too. It was also observed that the teacher’s impression of the lessons carried out by adopting the communicative approach model was positive. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the communicative approach model is applicable in the social studies course. It can be said that the trainings given to the teachers created awareness about the use of the communicative approach model in classroom communication and interaction and provided benefits in diversifying discourse styles.

Quantitative Analysis of Classroom Communication Environments for Learners With Deafblindness

Classroom environments were analyzed to better understand adult language modeling rates and whether teacher certification practices contributed to differences with learners with deafblindness (DB). Student characteristics were also examined in relation to communication rates. When there is a dual sensory loss, access to tactile and visual communication forms (i.e., multimodal) in addition to verbal communication is needed. Data were collected from 15 teacher–student dyads from four states through behavioral coding of videotaped language samples, teacher surveys, and the Communication Matrix assessment. Overall, teachers used verbal communication significantly more than additional classroom staff. Teachers in a state that required a severe/profound certification had significantly higher rates of overall communication, visual communication, and had students with higher communication levels.