Abstract
The major purpose of this study was to investigate the development of practice teachers' images of teaching, teachers, and children, and class observational skills through their actual communication with their supervising teachers, children, and colleagues. The following aspects of the practice teachers' communication were analyzed: (1) the quantity of experience; (2) the impression of experience; and (3) the degree of usefulness of their experiences. Fifty-eight student teachers participated in this study. Major findings were: (1) a lot of communication with children in activities and critical communication between practice teachers and their colleagues was related positively with changes in the images of teaching to more flexible ones; (2) a lot of critical communication between practice teachers and their colleagues was related to changing both their development as teachers and their images of teachers to authoritative ones; (3) a lot of critical communication with children and colleagues was related to changes towards a negative image of children, and a lot of positive communication with supervising teachers and children was related to positive change in the image of children; and (4) critical communication with supervising teachers and children was meaningfully important for practice teachers' class observational skills ("the number of descriptions that identified problems in the class" increased). Also, a lot of negative communication with children was related negatively with practice teachers' class observational skills ("the number of negative descriptions that proposed alternative plans for the class").
