Learning from Student Teachers' Cross‐Cultural Communicative Failures

Abstract

In a study of instructional interaction between classroom teachers and limitedEnglish proficient international children, student teachers were observed to be less successful communicators than their cooperating teachers. This was due largely to the student teachers' failure to draw on sociocultural and experiential elements necessary for the construction of meaning. The elements were the children's differing values, beli+, and attitudes about schooling and their prior knowledge and experiences, both in and out of school. This article describes the patterns of communicative failure, as well as the elements that can contribute to successful interactions, even without a common language. TION, CHlLDREN CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNlCATlON, CLASSROOM INTERAC-Concerns about the quality of teaching and the preparation of teachers have been emphasized anew with the Holmes Group (1986) report and in recent issues of educational journals, such as the Harvard Educational Review. Because teaching is preeminently a linguistic process (cf. Green 1983), teachers and teacher educators appropriately turn to the research in culture and language in education in order to better understand the processes contributing to success or failure in instructional communication. For example, research in the field of interactional sociolinguistics (cf. Gumperz 1982; ed., 1982) has examined cross-cultural communication among adults speaking varieties of the same language (e.g., Blom and Gumperz 1972; Erickson and Schultz 1982; Tannen 1984). Studies also have been carried out to analyze communicative failure between adults and children in and out of school (e.g., Dumont ). While teachers and teacher educators may learn much about linguistic processes from this work, they seldom find direction about ways to overcome the barriers to successful instructional communication. The present work attempts to suggest, through the analysis of communicative interaction in classrooms, a twofold strategy for preventing failure: increased awareness of the factors involved in communicative interaction and increased purposeful interactional practice.In a recent study examining the interactions between teachers and limited English proficient pupils in three classrooms (Kleifgen 1986), Jo Anne Kleifgen is currently on the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University. 218 Kleifgen Student Teachers' Communicative Failures

Age, gender, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, temperament, and actual social and cognitive competence as factors contributing to preservice teachers’ perceptions of preschool children's social and cognitive competence

“…Contrary to what was expected on the basis of past research, children's race/ethnicity (Alexander & Entwisle, 1998;Grossman, 1991;Kleifgren, 1988;Ogilvy et al, 1990) and temperament (Halvorson & Waldrop, 1976;Jewsuwan et al, 1993) were not significant as person variables in explaining preservice teachers' perceptions of children's social and cognitive competence. The fact that families from five different ethnic groups were represented in the sample other than White, and the need to consolidate them into a "non-White" category did not allow for a thorough analysis of race/ethnicity contributions to preservice teachers' perceptions of children's social and cognitive competence.…”

“…Anecdotal evidence is available indicating some teachers related to children from various racial/ethnic groups in ways that represent the generalized stereotypes of that culture (Burt & Sugawara, 1992). Other studies report teachers tending to adopt more controlling and "negative" behaviors toward children from countries other than Euro-American (Grossman, 1991;Kleifgren, 1988;Ogilvy, Boath, Cheyne, Jahoda. & Schaffe, 1990).…”