Communication in Learner-Centered Classrooms : An explorative study of the communication patterns in two classrooms

Sammanfattning: The purpose of the present study was to explore teachers’ orchestration of the class communication during teaching and to show whether the communication can be explained by frame factors. This study is a multiple case study of two physics teachers – one public and one private school teacher - using observational and interview data to illustrate and analyze their communication/talk process in the classroom. Implications are drawn for the way that they develop dialogue, which is further explored in regards to identified frame factors. Data collection was complemented with field notes and audio-recordings. The observations served for identifying the communication process. Interviews were used to develop the understanding of the teacher’s background and their beliefs on teaching for further strengthening the evidence for the findings. Transcripts were developed for detailed qualitative analysis of selected episodes of their communicative approaches.Concepts and theories on the importance of the communication process for reflective thinking and a learner-centered classroom along with the frame factors theory aid the construction of the research and are linked to the findings.The study provides insight on the frequency of elicitation of dialogic communication encouraging of reflective thought occurring at recurrent rate by the private school teacher during lecturing. The findings showed that frame factors steering the two teacher’s elicitation of communication were the curriculum, the teachers’ educational opportunities, external support and their ideologies. Findings suggest that reverting the teachers discourse fully towards an environment of dialogic communication encouraging of reflective thought - an aim of the Kosovo Curriculums - require additional sustenance and a profounder inquiry of the influence of teachers ideologies and how it can be diminished. Furthermore, an assessment of the curriculums implementation in classrooms and its limiting aspect of providing dialogically organized instruction is necessary along with assessment of the trainings offered to teachers.