Teacher´s talk in different grades and across subjects

• Dieter Isler & Claudia Hefti
  Challenging communicative tasks such as reporting real life experiences, inventing stories, explaining
  knowledge or negotiating points of view are essential in classroom communication and crucial for
  successful academic learning. If provided with the opportunities and tailored support by their
  language models (Bruner, 1983 [2002]), children begin to acquire these abilities as soon as they start
  using oral language to represent complex information transcending the space of shared perception.
  However, young children's familiarity with these oral texts varies widely depending on the linguistic
  and educational practices in their families (Heller, 2012). Furthermore, educators in daycare settings
  and kindergarten classrooms do not yet sufficiently focus on promoting linguistically and cognitively
  challenging conversations (König, 2006). As recent studies show, the interactional support provided
  by educators and teachers can be improved by professional development, and progress in teacher
  support positively affects the children's language acquisition (Piasta, 2012). These promising results
  have not yet been confirmed for children's higher order text abilities, though.
  The intervention study «Promoting oral texts in kindergarten classrooms» aims at supporting
  teachers to purposefully and effectively promote the production of oral texts in everyday
  kindergarten communication. In a pre-post-follow-up-design with intervention and control group, the
  quality of the teachers' interactional support and the abilities of the children to produce oral texts
  will be measured at the beginning of the first (t0) and the second (t1) as well at the end of the second
  (t2) year of kindergarten. The teachers of the intervention group will receive a nine months
  professional development program consisting of both individual video-based coaching and small
  group coursework.
  In our paper, we will briefly introduce the study design and the children's instrument (which has
  already been tested and published) and then focus on the new instrument to measure teachers'
  interactive support for the acquisition of oral text abilities in kindergarten children. We will present
  the theoretical foundations, the rating instrument and the statistical analysis of a trial with 36
  kindergarten teachers.
  References:
  Hausendorf, H. & Quasthoff, U. (1996). Sprachentwicklung und Interaktion: Eine linguistische Studie
  zum Erwerb von Diskursfähigkeiten. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
  Piasta, S., Justice, L., Cabell, S., Wiggins, A., Turnbull, K. & Curenton, S. (2012). Impact of professional
  development on pre-school teachers’ conversational responsivity and children’s linguistic
  productivity and complexity. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27, 387–400.
• Anke Börsel
  Because of its a dominating role in instructional settings, different areas of academic reserach focus
  on teacher talk as cognitive, communicative, interactional or institutional concept.
  The presentations will look into contrasting concepts of teacher talk, their underlying features, and
  what we know about teaching effective teacher talk to student teachers. Its theoretical onset is
  rooted in the interactional language acquisition hypothesis, which is one of the most far reaching
  hypothesis and applies to language acquisition processes in general (Lightbown/Spada 2010). The
  leading questions enquire interactional features (micro-scaffolding and feedback), the actual amount
  of teacher talk and its caracteristics, i.e. features of voice, input, pedagogical purpose (Skinner 2017:
  154), choice of words, collocations, syntagmas (Harren 2011: 107ff) in language sensitive teaching
  (see below).
  It is expected that the teacher talk in the sample is less time-consuming than in other lessons, that it
  is mainly interactional and used for pedagogical purposes. The language used by the teacher is
  expected to be the variety used in school for organizing the classroom, starting and ending the
  lessons and maintaining it.
  The sample is explorative and consists of five hours in lessons of technology at a secondary school in
  Berlin (Germany), recorded in 2014. The lessons were task-based and focused on a curriculum-based
  topic of work placement or professional training; they were taught by different student teachers. The
  data was analysed by using software for qualitative research (MAXQDA). The lessons were planned,
  conducted and rated as language sensitive (Thürmann/Vollmer 2013).
  The implications of content-domain knowledge, the interlocuturs and their age will frame the
  discussions of the results.
  References
  Lightbown, Patsy; Spada, Nina (2010): How languages are learned. 3. ed., 6. impr. Oxford: Oxford
  Univ. Press (Oxford handbooks for language teachers).
  Skinner, Barbara (2017): Effective teacher talk: a threshold concept in TESOL. In: English Language
  Teaching Journal 71 (2/April), S. 150–159.
  Thürmann, Eike; Vollmer, Helmut J. (2013): Schulsprache und Sprachsensibler Fachunterricht: Eine
  Checkliste mit Erläuterungen. In: Charlotte Röhner und Britta Hövelbrinks (Hg.): Fachbezogene
  Sprachförderung in Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Theoretische Konzepte und empirische Befunde zum
  Erwerb bildungssprachlicher Kompetenzen. Weinheim: Beltz-Juventa, S. 212–234.
• Anne-Grete Kaldahl
  This paper reports on how teachers, across subjects in tenth-grade in Norwegian lower secondary
  schools, give meaning to oral competence (oracy), the teaching, and assessment of oracy.
  The background is the latest school reform in Norway (based on DeSeCo competencies (OECD,
  2005)), where oracy became a key competence (Norwegian Knowledge Promotion, 2007). Oracy is
  expected to be taught and assessed across the curriculum, this became the responsibility of each
  individual teacher, since the assessment plan was not revised accordingly. However, Norwegian
  teachers have arranged oracy exams since 1883 (Aksnes, 2016). Despite the political importance, it
  cannot be taken for granted that the teachers know how to define, teach, and assess oracy, this
  research attempts to unravel: How do teachers define, teach, and assess oracy, what is the
  underlying construct, what norm sources do teachers utilize in their professional judgement?
  A rhetoric topos analyse was conducted to interpret the interviews with nine tenth-grade teachers at
  the lower secondary level in Norway. The interviews will give some insight into the teachers’ doxa
  knowledge, which in return is an important source to the teachers understanding of norms.
  Based on the results from the analysis of the interviews, the content of the utterance is the most
  valued part of oral competency. The findings indicate that the teachers value a complex oracy
  construct, which has subject characteristics, but simultaneously entails features, which are consistent
  across disciplines. Rhetorical skills such as the ability to display character (i.e. ethos), have emotional
  influence on the audience (i.e. pathos), discuss, argue (i.e. logos) etc. matter in the assessment
  process.
  Literature:
  Aksnes, L. (2016). Om muntlighet som fagfelt. [Oracy as a discipline]. In Kåre Kverndokken (Ed.), 101
  Måter å fremme muntlige ferdigheter på- om muntlig kompetanse og muntlighetsdidaktikk [Ways to
  promote oracy – about oracy and oracy didactics] (pp. 15–34). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.
  DeSeCo. (2005). Definition and Selection of Competencies. Executive summary. Organisation for
  Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Retrieved from
  http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyondschool/definitionandselectionofcompetenciesdeseco.htm
  Norwegian Knowledge Promotion, (2007) Udir. Oslo