Jennifer

In a London classroom the teacher and the children share a warm, supportive, and productive relationship. Mr A would be an asset to the staff on any school. The interaction we see here is primarily between the teacher and the class as a whole, but revealed amongst the interactions is the relationship between the teacher and one child, Jennifer. In attempting an analysis of these interactions I want to do two things . First, I would like to demonstrate how any teacher can do some self-monitoring by leaving a tape recorder running whilst teaching and then listening in a focused way to the interactions that occurred. Second, by exploring the relationships between the teacher and Jennifer and her class mates, I want to point out how powerful our talk is in transmitting our attitudes and expectations, even when we are not aware that we are doing this.