Good communication and maintaining effective relationships within a school community are essential for achieving high academic standards. The aim of effective communication between teachers and learners is to elicit and ensure behaviour that will enhance the learning process. It is therefore important that teachers relate to learners in a sensitive manner when they communicate their knowledge (Bingham and Sidorkin 2004, 5). Sotto (2007, 96) further contends that teachers‟ communication styles reveal their core attitude towards learning and that the success of their teaching will be partially determined by how effectively they communicate. Many schools are experiencing disciplinary problems, low teacher and learner expectations, a breakdown of the social order, and a high incidence of academic failure. Bingham and Sidorkin (2004, 5) explain the above-mentioned problems as symptoms of a breakdown in communication between educators and learners. Once relationships in a school have been jeopardised, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve high academic standards. It is therefore essential that educators create meaningful interactions in an environment in which all individuals can develop to their full potential. The National Education Policy Act No. 27 of 1996 (Education Labour Relations Council 2003, A- 4) advocates the enhancement of quality education and innovation through systematic research and development. The principles contained therein are directed towards enabling the education system to contribute to the full development of each learner, respecting each learner‟s right to freedom of thought, opinion and expression within a culture of respect for teaching and learning. The establishment and strengthening of relationships in a school will contribute to improved academic achievement.

This study aimed to explore teachers‟ abilities to identify learners with behavioural and emotional problems, to examine the strategies that they implement to address the challenges and their measure of success in addressing these. This study was qualitative in nature and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 volunteer teachers located in the northern areas of Port Elizabeth and an additional 50 teachers completed open ended questionnaires. The learning areas taught by the teachers varied. Descriptive and content analysis procedures were utilized to analyze the findings. The findings indicated that teachers lack the skills and knowledge to assist learners with behavioural and emotional problems. The teachers tended to view their roles as imparting knowledge rather than tending to the mental health of learners so they did not adopt approaches to assist the learners with their behavioural and emotional challenges. This was in spite of the fact that the learners' psychological and physical well-being impacted their academic achievement.

Output, input and interaction are examined in this study for a native English speaking (NS) teacher and for native and non-native English speaking (NS, NNS) young children in two situations in the classroom, child organized and teacher organized. Video tapes and transcripts of fourteen samples of interactions in teacher organized situations and fourteen samples of naturally occurring interactions in child organized situations, each limited to the first consecutive one hundred utterances, were analyzed. Output was assessed in terms of verbal participation - utterances and words. Input and interaction were assessed both for discourse features (twelve negotiating devices) and in terms of the situational structure of the contexts that existed during the interactions - their distance from the speaker and the action was assessed with measures of exophoric and anaphoric reference (twenty-four reference items). The results indicate: 1) that output or verbal participation varies for the teacher and the NS, NNS children with situation, 2) that discourse features, often used to assess input, vary in their use by the teacher and the children with the situational context, increase with verbal participation, and may not be useful measures of input, and 3) that the situational structure of the contexts that exist during teacher organized interactions and child organized interactions vary with situation - the distance of the language and the action from the speaker as well as the nature of the interaction. Individual variations amongst items, within and across groups are noted. It is concluded that: 1) output, input and interaction vary with situation, 2) data analyses concerning input and interaction are more meaningful if they are related to the output occurring in different situations, and 3) L2 researchers will benefit from moving beyond the analysis of discourse features as the sole predictors of input during interaction to examine other aspects of the interaction situation. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

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The Vernon-Nay Category Instrument was developed as the result of an experimental project in an inner-city school. The effects of the reorganization of the administration of the school and the total staff participation in a workshop about human relations and communications were evaluated by the change of behavior of fifth- and sixth grade students in the classroom. The Flanders’ Interaction Analysis (assesses teacher-student verbal behavior) would measure change that occurred: however, the Vernon teachers wanted an assessment instrument that could, also, be used in the future, without professional assistance. The F.I.A. observation system was too complex for the staff’s, unassisted, use (statistical interpretation is based on the ratios of direct to indirect verbal teacher behavior, and student responses); many simpler (verbal and non-verbal) observation instruments were examined. No instrument was found to be appropriate for this particular situation. A new, non-verbal, instrument was designed that fit the needs of this staff and could also be used in adult-child situations other than the classroom.

An experimental study of the effects of active participation on student learning was conducted with two levels of treatment of the independent variable. Intact groups were used because it was reasoned that results generated in classroom settings would likely be more generalizable to other classroom settings. The study was conducted in a medium-sized suburban school district mainly residential in character. Five project teachers were trained to teach a lesson on simple probability. Each teacher taught four lessons to fifth grade classes, two with Treatment I (active student participation) and two with Treatment II (no active student participation). The lessons were alike in all possible respects except the treatment. Immediately upon completion of instruction the students were administered a 15-item multiple choice posttest. The lesson and posttest were both researcher-developed instruments. The instruction and testing lasted about one hour for each class. The total number of students was 447. The research hypothesis for the study was that the posttest mean of classes taught with active participation would be greater than the posttest mean of classes taught without active participation. The statistical hypothesis was stated as (mu)(,1) = (mu)(,2). The results of a t-test were found to be statistically significant at the .05 level causing the statistical hypothesis to be rejected and the research hypothesis to be accepted. From this study, it appears that teaching is more effective when active student participation is incorporated into the teaching method. Additional research is recommended to test the retention of the effect and to test the effect with different age groups.

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