A Study On Teacher-Child Interaction In Two Preschool Classroom Contexts

Teacher-child interaction refers to the interplay among teachers and children which permeates through all the activities in kindergartens. It has significant influence over children’s cognitive development, language development and social skills. Teacher-child interaction has become an important indicator in predicting children’s future academic performances and evaluating the quality of early childhood education. In view of this trend, this study is aim to get an overview of teacher-child interaction in Chinese kindergartens, its variances of in different educational contexts and its development through specific interactive behaviors.In the first stage of study, the researcher launched a large-scale assessment on the quality of teacher-child interaction by natural observations. The qualities of teacher-child interaction in different contexts were compared in term of format and content. It was found that, generally, the quality of teacher-child interaction was rated in the middle range. Among the three dimensions, the average score of emotional support was the highest, classroom organization the lower, instructional support the lowest. The quality of teacher-child interaction varied to different extents in term of contexts. There was an extremely significant difference on instructional support between whole group activities and center activities.To reveal the dynamics of teacher-child interaction and how the variances of quality in teacher-child interaction are reflected by interactive behaviors, the researcher forwarded the study into the second stage. Recruiting4participants from the large sample of teachers, the researcher tracked the4participants’ teacher-child interaction in whole group activities and center activities. Their interactions were recorded, transcribed and coded for data analysis. The results show that teachers are major initiators of teacher-child interaction through inquiring and take major responsibility of maintaining the interaction in both of the two preschool classroom contexts. Teachers’interactive behaviors vary greatly both on the initiations and extensions of interaction in the two preschool classroom contexts. The cognitive level of teachers and children’s questions is in the low range. The inquiries of teachers and children also differentiated according to the stage of interaction and contexts.