Strategies For Communication Between Teachers And Pupils In A Rural Malaysian School

The purpose of this study was to assess teacher-pupil communication in the classroom through an analysis of verbal interactions. Teacher-pupil interactions in the classroom were examined to identify instances and patterns of effective and ineffective communication, and these were compared to instances and patterns of comunication used at home and among peers. A profile of the teachers and pupils competence in specific strategies for communication was used to develop specific hypothesis about the causes of ineffective communication in classrooms; that ineffective communication was caused by the selection of different strategies during the interaction. The hypotheses suggested further speculations on the pedagogical effects of communicative events. Specific recommendations were then formulated to improve classroom comunication and related classroom learning. The study was conducted at a primary school situated in a federal land development scheme (FELDA) in Sungai Tiang, in north peninsular Malaysia. All teachers and pupils were first speakers of Kedah Dialect, and Bahasa Malaysia which was used in classroom interactions. The sample was composed of two teachers and four girls and four boys, two each from two second grade classrooms. the data consisted of audiotapes of classroom lessons for Elementary Science, Language and Reading (both in Bahasa Malaysia and English Language),and spontaneous communication at home with mothers and other members of families, and with peers for both teachers and pupils. In addition, the pupils were individually administered a simulated teaching-learning task, the Nested Boxes, and each mother and teacher was informally interviewed. The main unit of analysis was the episode, a complete communication event in which one of the subjects was an active participant. The analysis was done in two phases, each phase using one or a combination of two theoretical frameworks that accounted for social and psychological bases of the communication process: (1) Gumperz's model of conversational analysis, and (2) Pascual-Leone's theory of constructive operators. The data indicated that each individual, whether teacher or pupil has a repertoire of strategies for communication that are used to attain basic objectives. Information-based objectives were giving,requesting, and sharing information; strategies were questions,statements, narrations, discussions, and problem-solving. Activity based objectives were directives requiring an activity or task in response; strategies were commands, requests, indirect requests,and persuasions. General negative feedback was used when a response was not what the initiator intended and usually implied some degree of reprimand; strategies were rhetorical questions or requests for repetition. All strategies were available to all participants. Selection was determined by a combination of factors, including constraints of time, assumptions of social hierarchy and amount of information brought into the interactions, and importance of objectives to participants. These factors differed in classrooms and other settings, thus strategies differed too. But pupils tended to treat classrooms like other settings, consequently there were more instances of ineffective communication in classrooms between teachers and pupils then between participants during home and peer interactions. The diagnosis of ineffective communication between teachers and pupils during daily classroom interactions indicated that these were caused by one or a combination of three factors: mismatches of strategies for negative feedback, teachers' treatment of errors, and mismatches in contextual boundaries. It seemed reasonable to speculate that the effects of an ineffective teacher-pupil communication was of two kinds, immediate and long-term. When pupils were not able to comprehend the teacher's information or directives, they could not follow the classroom procedures, would make incorrect responses to the teacher's requests,and would not learn the lesson content. Over a period of time, ineffective communication would accumulate and affect pupils' interest and performance in classrooms and also the teacher's performance and expectations of pupils