Listening to Children: A Descriptive Study of Children's Expressions of Curiosity, Concern and Role Enactment (February 1979) Eva Ann Peterson, B.A., University of Arizona M.S., Bank Street College, Ed.D., University of Massachusetts Directed by: Professor David E. Day The purpose of this study is to provide a deeper understanding of children's behavioral styles and strengths in school through an analysis of verbal expression in a variety of instructional situations. The study grew out of the author's unsatisfactory experiences with two predominant current research approaches concerning children's learning in the classroom. The first approach focused on discrete behaviors in controlled environments and fails to take into account the complexities in the daily I i fe of a real classroom. The second approach considers broader ranges of activities in the classroom context, often focusing on teacher interactions, curriculum evaluation, or normative behavioral objectives. This latter approach still fails to consider the complexities of children's expectations, the meaning of children's behavior, and the patterns of language which indicate their learning styles. The contents of this study include the development of a method and framework for listening to children's verbal communications. The method uses documentation and analysis for cognitive ( curiosity) , emo tional (concern ) , and soc io-cu I tura 1 ( role enactmenj^) aspects of

New Directions in Open Classroom Evaluation: Situational Tasks.

Listening to children : a descriptive study of children's expressions of curiosity, concern and role enactment.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of two different school language programs at the end of third grade, Follow Through (FT) and Non Follow Through (NFT), on the development of chil­ dren's oral and written language on measures of complexity of structure and diversity of meaning. Linguistic complexity was studied by use of the T-unit and percentage of complex T-unit measures, while linguistic complexity was examined through use of the type-token ratio. The two language programs studied were FT, the Tucson Early Education Model (TEEM), an innovative language experience program, and NFT, a tradi­ tional approach. Subjects used for the study were 70 children continuously enrolled in FT (n = 34) and NFT (n = 36) classrooms since kindergarten or first grade, allowing for examination of program effects at the end of the third grade. One oral and two written language samples were obtained for each of the 70 subjects. Collection of the language took place within the classroom context, emphasizing sampling of children's natural language abilities. Instruments used for the collection, coding, and scoring of oral and written variables were the Children's Language Assessment-Situational Tasks (CLA-ST), developed by TEEM at the University of Arizona, and the Productive Language Assessment Tasks (PLAT), developed at the High Scope Education Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Structure and meaning in the oral and written language of third grade children in follow through and non follow through classrooms

/pdf/new-directions-in-open-classroom-evaluation-situational-1qgp4q8frq.pdf

New Directions in Open Classroom Evaluation: Situational Tasks.

Citations

Listening to children : a descriptive study of children's expressions of curiosity, concern and role enactment.

Structure and meaning in the oral and written language of third grade children in follow through and non follow through classrooms

References

Listening to children : a descriptive study of children's expressions of curiosity, concern and role enactment.

Structure and meaning in the oral and written language of third grade children in follow through and non follow through classrooms

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