Children's In-Class Participation Mixing Academic and Personal Material Teacher's Instructional Response

• Published in: The Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology Vol. 48; no. 1; pp. 21 - 31
• Main Author: FUJIE, YASUHIKO
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Japanese Association of Educational Psychology 30.03.2000
• Subjects: classroom discourse; elementary school children; mixed formal; personal verbalizations; social studies
• ISSN: 0021-5015; 2186-3075
• DOI: 10.5926/jjep1953.48.1_21

Children's verbalizations during academic learning were investigated through direct observations made during a month of social studies lesson in a 24-student fifth-grade class. In response to the teacher's instruction, the children's answers included both formal, academic-related verbalizations, and informal verbalizations reflecting their individual experience and intention. These mixed verbalizations and the teacher's interactive management style were investigated by coding and interpretive analysis. Results of the coding analysis showed that the children's mixed verbalizations were accepted by the teacher if the content was related to social studies. Interpretative analysis indicated that the teacher used 3 styles of interactive management. First, students who gave unexpected personal responses were directed to give information related to the topic of the lesson. Second, for those students who resisted discussion of the academic topic, the teacher quickly acknowledged their irrelevant responses, and then changed to a different topic also related to his lesson plan. Third, when the discussion seemed to have stagnated, the teacher himself used mixed verbalizations in order to stimulate further interactions.