Teacher-Student Verbal Interaction Patterns At The Tertiary Level Of Education

Abstract

The main objective of the proposed study was to explore Teacher–Student verbal interaction patterns at tertiary level education in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan using Flanders’ Interaction Analysis system.  This study was significant because its findings and conclusions may stimulate teachers to improve their teaching behaviour in order to maximize student learning.  To achieve the above study objectives, three hypotheses were formulated in the light of Flanders “Two-thirds rule” of teacher-student classroom interaction at the tertiary level, namely, about two-thirds of the classroom time is devoted to talking, about two-thirds of this time the person talking is the teacher and two-thirds of the teachers’ talk is “direct” talk. Twenty-five classrooms at the tertiary level were randomly selected as samples for this study.  Twenty-five observations were carried out, one in each classroom, using Flanders Interaction Analysis system to secure the data.  To do this, time sampling was used and each classroom was observed for 810 seconds (13.50 minutes) in a 45-minutes class.  After obtaining and encoding the data, it was tabulated, analyzed, and interpreted by using percentages, means, and standard deviation.  All the hypotheses were supported and it was concluded that, at the tertiary level, more than two-thirds of classroom time was devoted to talking. Thus, talk method dominated in classes. More than two-thirds of the classroom talking time was devoted to teachers talking at the tertiary level with the teachers playing the dominant role.  More than two-thirds of the teachers’ talking time was devoted to direct talk, which showed the direct role of the teacher and indirect role of students at the tertiary level.