Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Talk Among The Dragonflies And Dalmations: An Investigation Of Communicative Competence In A Pre-Kindergarten Classroom: A Dissertation, Lauren Foley Goldberg

Educational Studies Dissertations

A year-long ethnographic study of young children's language was conducted in a pre-kindergarten classroom. The investigation focused on the teachers' direct instruction and the children's emerging communicative competence in the rules and structure of group conversation. The class "Morning Meeting" was recorded once or twice a week for the entire year; a subset of these recordings formed the data set for the analysis. Of particular interest were communication behaviors that emphasized the growth of a sense of membership and community within the group as well as evidence that the children had learned conventions for turn-taking, topic maintenance, and solidarity.