Education

A classroom observation technique that describes classroom events at the level of activity and analyzes the communicative features of verbal exchanges between students and teachers within each activity is described. Activity characteristics indentified include type, participant organization, content, student modality or skills used, and materials; the communicative features observed include the use of the target language, information gap, sustained speech, reaction to code or message, incorporation of preceding utterances, discourse initiation, and relative restriction of linguistic form. Coding procedures have been developed for both the activity analysis and the exchange analysis. Preliminary data analysis from initial use of the coding technique reveals significant differences in communicative orientation between French and English second language classes at two grade levels. Additional data sor different class types (core, extended, immersion, and second language French classes) are under analysis. (MSE) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************t**************************** S