Communication in classrooms

Abstract

This article examined frameworks in which classroom communicatiom studies were done. Two lines of studies were made. One focusing on the interaction between teachers and students as the main medium of teaching: it was found to be desirable that utterances and their contents would be organized toward a structure of a whole lesson. The other line called ethnographic studies analysed details of communication qualitatively to describe the “rules of classrooms”. Many such studies demonstrated that children at school —as one of social contexts— were expected to learn and to interact in ways particular to that classroom. However, methodological and theoretical elaborationr were needed. In concluding, it seemed important to combine those two lines and to study communication in classrooms in more numerous types and in a wider range of age. © 1986, The Japanese Association of Educational Psychology. All rights reserved.