High quality interaction in the classroom

A focus for professional learning

Abstract

Oral language education is important throughout primary school for the development of language and learning. Yet in today's educational practice this core principle is neglected and classroom interactions lack quality. Teachers know that supporting students to participate actively in learning is important but they do not master the interaction skills to apply this knowledge in practice. However, as small scale studies demonstrate, teachers can acquire the necessary skills to improve the quality of classroom interaction and can learn to adopt a new teacher role. To promote this on a national scale we developed a checklist for teachers that focuses on acquisition oriented interaction strategies. These teacher strategies are linked to complementary child participation. In order to yield actual changes in classroom conversations professional learning must be well structured. Major course elements on the checklist are: the use of video footage of teachers’ own classroom conversations, and team meetings combined with individually oriented teacher guidance in the classroom. Evaluations of this course yielded positive reactions. In order to guarantee implementation we developed courses for teacher facilitators as well. Presently efforts are being directed at science education in primary schools, and integration of the language and learning course in the teacher training college curriculum.