Purpose: This study addressed a relatively understudied process of school leadership: the principal-teacher conversation about instructional change. Two distinct conversation structures were examined: controlling conversation and transformative leadership conversation (TLC). Self-determination theory (SDT) was used to make the case that TLC is a…

This article describes academic conversations in kindergarten classrooms and how they vary across two different instructional activities: teacher-led and student-led book conversations. Conversations about texts have been recommended to improve the comprehension of kindergarten through third graders. The research was conducted in a K-8 urban,…

In primary-grade classrooms, young children are expected to participate in rich conversations as they build their speaking and listening skills. One way to support students' success with these types of conversations is to explicitly teach them academic conversation skills. Academic conversations are intentional, focused on school-related topics,…

Questions that challenge the curriculum can put educators on the defensive. Lauren Porosoff discusses helpful ways that educators can be proactive about creating productive and meaningful conversations with parents and community members about curriculum choices and the reasons behind them.

Engaging in frequent, meaningful conversation during the early years of schooling is foundational for children's literacy development. Specifically, developing oral language through daily conversations is essential for language comprehension, and eventually, reading comprehension. In this article, we discuss how teachers can use the…

How do people determine whether a conversation is good or bad? Do conversational phenomena (reaching common ground, striving to contribute equally, successful conversational closings) influence judgments of conversation quality and recall of conversations? We tested whether individuals reading previously transcribed conversations considered…

How do we support learning and teaching about complex issues? Researchers from the University of Auckland worked with 54 students and teachers from three Auckland secondary schools to evaluate health-science learning designed to investigate this question. The instructional strategies based on context familiarity, systems thinking, and narrative…

Even though corpora have transformed language education, the majority of corpus-related research focuses on the teaching of writing. Via a systematic review of previous studies and a survey of language corpora available, this study aims to ascertain whether and to what extent the teaching of speaking, especially of conversation skills, to EFL…

This experiential activity invites students to investigate the mental, affective, and behavioral effects of personal investment and authenticity during intercultural conversation. We invite students to create intercultural interactions through engaging in un/familiar conversational subject matter to simulate the sensations of navigating cultural…

This paper is an extension of our 2021 research into pre-service teachers' linguistic autobiographies in a culturally diverse South African university. The paper, which is presented as conversations, examines what we learned about ourselves and our students through their reflective writing, our reflective writing, and our ensuing conversations.…

This study explores ways in which a group of teacher educators co-construct knowledge about students' academic writing and aspects of academic writing instruction in collegial conversations. Analysing the communicative projects, communicative acts and types of talk in 22 episodes from four collegial conversations, it investigates how the teacher…

Background: Persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) increasingly outlive their parents. Therefore, we designed a structured group conversation to support family members and care professionals in exploring together how parental roles may be taken over by others when necessary. Method: We conducted a mixed methods study,…

In the late 1990s, linguist Deborah Tannen argued that America had become an "argument culture" characterized by an adversarial frame of mind when approaching the world and the people in it. Recent events appear to have added apocalyptic fears (not entirely unfounded) to our adversarial approach. How can we talk to each other in such a…

Background: This study reports the process evaluation of the In-Dialogue conversation aid to facilitate shared decision-making with people with intellectual disabilities in the palliative phase. Methods: Training for In-Dialogue was evaluated by 53 support staff members through questionnaires. The use of In-Dialogue in four residential care…

As a follow-up to White et al.'s (2021) "We Don't Talk About That": Exploring Money Conversations of Black, Hispanic, and White Households, this article examines social capital and financial conversations among racial and ethnic groups. Although most people avoid discussing money, Blacks and Hispanics have the fewest financial…