Peer-reviewed article
Classroom Communication in Early Childhood Education
Sarasvati Gita Swari, Dewa Komang Tantra, Ni Putu Astiti Pratiwi ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined the types of speech acts and communication strategies used by teachers and children in early childhood education classrooms in Indonesia. Researchers observed 360 speech acts during learning interactions and found that directive acts (commands and instructions) dominated classroom communication at 93.3%, with telling and requests being the most common speech sub-types. Teachers and children used different communication strategies, with teachers relying heavily on code-switching between languages while children used self-repair and literal translation strategies. The findings suggest that the frequency of directive acts reflects children's developing communicative skills in the classroom setting.
Key points
- Directive speech acts made up 93.3% of all recorded speech, followed by expressive acts (5%), assertive acts (1.4%), and declarative acts (0.3%)
- Telling and request speech acts dominated verbal interactions at 44.4% and 32.2% respectively
- Teachers used code-switching strategies 77.78% of the time while children did not use any code-switching
- Teachers employed non-linguistic forms, all-purpose words, and requests for repetition strategies while children used self-repairs, filters/hesitation devices, and literal translation strategies
- Communication strategies were used to compensate for limitations in both teachers' and children's speech (96.11% of telling and request acts)
Limitations
This is a descriptive qualitative study that only documents patterns of speech acts and strategies without testing whether these patterns actually improve children's communication outcomes or learning. The study does not establish causal relationships or measure the effectiveness of specific communication strategies on child development.
Abstract
This study aims to investigated the speech act types and communication strategies in early childhood education. This research was a classroom research. Data were collected through unobtrusive observation during learning interactions. The obtained data were analyzed qualitatively. The recorded children’s and teachers’ speech acts were totaled 360. The research findings are as follows. Firstly, the recorded speech consisted of four types, they are: directive, expressive, declarative, and assertive acts. Directive acts were the most frequently used (93.3%), followed by expressive acts (5%), assertive acts (1.4%), and declarative acts (0.3%). The telling speech acts dominated the verbal interactions (44.4%) followed by request speech acts (32.2%). Secondly, 360 communication strategies were found. The telling and request sub-speech acts were delivered using compensatory strategies (96.11%). The teachers used 280 code-switching strategies (77.78%) while the children used none (0%); 14 non-linguistic forms strategies (3.89%) were used by the teachers while 6 self-repairs strategies (1.67%) by the children; 14 all-purpose words strategies (3.89%) were used by the teachers while none (0%) by the children; 14 asking for repetitions strategies (3.89%) were used by the teachers while none (0%) by the children; none filters/hesitation devices strategy (0%) was used by the teachers while 8 (2.22%) by the children; none (0%) literal translation strategy was used by the teachers while 12 (3.33%) by the children. The most frequently directive acts imply towards the effectiveness of the children’s communicative skill.