Categorizing Elementary School Music Teachers' Utterances :

Clues for Supporting Students' Proactive Efforts

Abstract

  This study focuses on establishing analytical categories of teacher utterances to reveal teachers' approaches to students in music classes. Thereby, clues to help support students' proactive efforts through teacher comments were discovered.

  Utterances in two music classes were analyzed and classified into 20 categories. Consequently, the percentage of “behavior instructions and encouragement” was the most notable analysis item that characterized the balance of teachers' approaches to students. Furthermore, “encouragement of thinking,” “acceptance,” and “evaluative judgments of students' efforts” played important roles in supporting students' proactivity.

  In one class, the ratio of instructions was 41%, and a teaching style based on the teacher's instructions and students' responses was established. Evaluation of students' performance reinforced the style ; a student performed in response to the teacher's instructions, and the teacher evaluated the student's performance. In the other class, the ratio of instructions was 22%, and the teaching style was based on questioning ; the teacher repeated and thereby showed acceptance of keywords in students' utterances in response to teacher questions that encouraged students' thinking. The teacher then asked further questions. Evaluation of students' efforts reinforced this style, and the teacher encouraged desirable approaches to questions.

  Overall, different teaching styles resulted in a different balance between desire for self-fulfillment and desire for solidarity in students' proactivity, and different roles of teachers.