Scripts for school: Cross-cultural communication in elementary classrooms

Abstract

This study reports on successful and unsuccessful efforts at communication between teachers and students who do not share a common language. A topdown processing model is proposed to account for the phenomena, with scripts the highest level and code the lowest. Significantly, commonalities in scripts allowed Interpretation of meaning with minimal understanding of linguistic forms. Conversely, communication was impeded by cultural differences in scripts for school, including setting, roles and responsibilities, activity organization, curriculum sequence and content, and rules/expectations for behavior. The structure of classroom interaction provided constraints on intentions and expectations which facilitated communication in this setting. l. IntroductionAnalytic differentiation of the elcments that enter into communication is perhaps most difffcult when all participants share the same language, background, and sociocultural norms for Interpretation, and when nothing Out of the ordinary' occurs in interaction which calls attention to itself. For this reason, we decided to study a Situation that involved communication among participants who did not share a common language or culture. In this way we hoped to set into relief those elements that entered into the successful negotiation or breakdown of communication.The setting which we chose for research was a public elementary school serving large numbers of students from other countries who are the children of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois. While all the 0165-4888/86/0006-0207 $2.00 Text 6(2) (1986), pp. 207-221 © Mouton de Gruyter, Amsterdam Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 4:48 AM Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 4:48 AM Cross-cultural communication in elementary classrooms 209aspect of communicative behavior. Paradoxically, however, perhaps because they are also generally obvious to other participants in a communicative event, we have found that they appear least likely to interfere with successful communication in any serious or prolonged way.As for the middle level, structure, successful interaction between teachers and their limited English-speaking students appeared to be heavily dependent on shared structures of communication, including mutual recognition of the tripartite Initiation-Response-Feedback cycle that is characteristic of 'teacher talk' (see Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975). Classroom discourse structure, however, was learned very quickly, and the only evidence we have found for failure to recognize and adhere to the constraints of this structure occurred early in the kindergarten year with children who had had no prior school experience.Before proceeding to our analysis of scripts, we will describe briefly the database from which our examples will be drawn.

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