'Teacher talk' with children with language disorders: four case studies II

Abstract

In this second part of a study which examined the general characteristics of the talk of language unit teachers and the effect it had on that of their pupils, the similarities and differences found amongst the teachers are discussed and illustrated by examples of teacher-child interaction. The possible implications for teacher practice are considered.

How do teachers manage topic and repair?

“…Drew (1981), examining a large body of mainstream classroom data, reports that teachers use a mixture of other-initiated other-repair and otherinitiated self-repair, but comments little on the frequency or function of these repair strategies. Sadler and Mogford-Bevan (1997) nd that up to half of language unit teachers' repair moves are other-initiated other-repair, the form less likely to be found in adult interaction. They helpfully distinguish between repair turns designed as reformulations and those constituting clari cation requests.…”

“…Neutral requests such as 'pardon' provide no support, whereas speci c or direct requests can function as a supportive device when they help to indicate the precise nature of the problem to the child. Sadler and Mogford-Bevan (1997) found that this type of support was occasionally used by language unit teachers (see fragment R2 above).…”

“…However, classroom talk differs from topic in social talk in that the teacher typically retains control of the topical agenda. Some work has paid attention to the consequences of various ways of designing the rst turn, concluding, for example, that the use of questions as initiations predicts responses of different length in contrast to the design of rst turn as personal contributions or phatics (Wood et al, 1986;Sadler and Mogford-Bevan, 1997). Several issues are worth exploring in this area, in order to investigate how to provide support for the pupil's language learning in the long-term.…”

“…to take our spelk out (laughs) OIOR!3 Teacher it's for taking spelks out. could be 4 Pupil maybe blood miss Sadler and Mogford-Bevan (1997) In other-initiated self-repair (OISR) the initiator of the repair, as shown in fragment R2, a teacher invites the pupil to sort out the trouble alone. This functions as a kind of hint or prompt, but assumes that it is within the linguistic resources of the pupil to repair the original turn.…”

“…Whilst useful, such studies rarely include elements of re ection on the actual talk that occurs between teacher and learner, in spite of the fact that this is the context in which learning takes place and is likely to be the source of dif culties for such children. There is, however, a small amount of research on the characteristics of talk used by specialist teachers in language units (Sadler and Mogford-Bevan, 1997). This work considers the implications of teacher language on pupils with a language need.…”