Teacher-Pupil Interaction and Oral Language Development of Mildly Retarded Children

Abstract

The relationship between pupil-gains in oral language development and the classroom behaviour ofmikilyretaixiedspedal class pupilj and their teachers was examinedmtwo studies. In Study 1 it was (bund that the children from classes which made high gains in receptive oral language spent more time in reading and writing activities and less time listening to the teacher, than those from low gain classes, but the classroom behaviour of the teachers of high and low gain classes did not seem noticeably different In Study 2, a contrast was drawn between classes in which children had made high gains in expressive oral language development and those where the children had made low gains. The children from high gain classes spent less time in structured/teacher-directed language activities than did children from low gain classes, and the teachers of the high gain classes spent less than half the time shown by teachers of tow gain classes in interacting with the observed children. The results of the two studies are discussed together with apparent inconsistencies between them, and the need is underlined for specific data on the actual language used by special class teachers and pupils in subsequent research in this area.