How do children adapt to classroom discourse? Quantitative and qualitative analyses of first grade homeroom activities

The purpose of the present study was to explore how first-grade children abjust to classroom discourse. Interactions observed in one first-grade homeroom in April (the first month of the school year in Japan) and in the subsequent July were compared by coding and interpretive analysis. The class had 40 children, half boys and half-girls; the teacher was a 40-year-old man with more than 20 years' teaching experience. The results showed that soon after the start of the school year, the first-grade teacher used different types of expressions, depending on what he was asking the children to do. Instructions regarding what the children should say in the classroom were give with polite explanations and directions, and the children repeated exactly what he told them to say. On the other hand, when he wanted the children to explain their own thoughts to their classmates, he modeled the form of reply, and the children imitated what he had said. In early July, after nearly 3 months in elementary school, children became able to initiate child-led activities that were rich in content and active. Additional data, including peer relations research, a questionnaire survey of parents, and interviews with the teacher indicated that the children's abjustment process was supported by formation of a relationship with their teacher and their peers, an increase in the children's interest in homeroom activities, and the teacher's appropriate recognition of the children.