Teacher language in the classroom.

This study is an exploratory investigation into certain aspects of classroom verbal interaction by means of an analysis, description and comparison of teacher language and certain pupil differences found during six Form II and eight Form III classes in the course of 42 prescribed social studies lessons. Transcriptions of recorded lessons were analysed to obtain certain language variables and the resulting measures were related to pupil variable measures. The teacher language variables were: 1. the logical structure of units of the verbal interaction as indicated by question types, 2. the content relevance of these units, 3. the purpose and content relevance of teacher monologue explanations, 4. the linguistic structure of teacher monologues, 5. the discourse style employed. The pupil variables were: 1. measures of intelligence and associative reasoning, 2. attainment in terms of understandings acquired in the course of the three lessons and tested by means of a pretest and a post-test, 3. attitudes toward and interests in school subjects as indicated in questionnaires, 4. other background differences such as parents' socio-economic status, prior experience, and availability of resource material