The Effect of Training of Prospective Secondary School Teachers in Flander’s System of Classroom Interaction Analysis on the Classroom Verbal Behavior of their Students

Abstract

The teacher in any educational system performs a significant function since his role is to perpetuate society heritage and simultaneously to energize human resources towards social progress. The face of twentieth-century life is a rapidly changing society, a mentoring store of knowledge, amazing innovations and new understanding, theories and concepts about the teaching learning process. Efforts are being made all over the world to bring about the changes in all educational programs and practices according to the changing needs of society, time and subjects. The sample included 32 prospective teachers drawn from M.A. secondary education class. Eight male and eight female prospective teachers voluntarily participated in the study and formed the treatment group. Equal numbers of male and female prospective teachers, from the same population, were matched to the treatment group and formed a no-treatment group. Two trained observers categorized the classroom interaction on the teaching of Urdu English and Pakistan studies and gathered data in the quantitative form. The interobserver reliability coefficient on the data ranged from .97 to .99. Three Factors Analysis of Variance with repeated measures was applied to find the effect of training, gender and subjects on the verbal behavior of the prospective teachers. The interaction effects between training & gender, training & subjects were also studied. Training of teachers in Flander's system of classroom interaction analysis has a positive and significant effect on the verbal 'behaviour of their students on the greater (accessed) use of the following categories of student talk on Spontaneous talk and Questioning by students. Flanders and other systems of classroom interaction analysis should be included and introduced in teacher education programs of the country at all levels. Teacher educators of all levels should use this system of classroom interaction analysis along with other observation procedures for the supervision and guidance of prospective teachers in practice teaching.