A series of conferences with supervising teachers involving 10 female students training to be teachers of young children was examined. Conferences were conducted after the supervising teacher had observed the teaching of the students. All participating students were early childhood education majors involved in student teaching at least 25 hours per week. For each student teacher, a total of four conferences was tape-recorded. Each conference was conducted within the constraints of one of four different communication strategies, which varied in several ways. Two were controlled by the supervisor, two by the student-teacher. Two involved specific questions, two involved general questions. Affect, organization, reflectivity, and specificity differentiated the questioning strategies. Findings showed that when the supervisor functioned as a facilitator rather than a control agent, student-teachers engaged in longer, more positive conferences. Conferences including specific questions were longer and contained more reflective statements about instructional strategies and children's behavior than the conferences using the other three strategies. (RH)