Nonliteral Language Used By Teachers In The Classroom

Abstract

The purpose of this research project was to determine ifregular education and
special education classroom teachers used a varying amount of idioms in the classroom.
Two groups of subjects were involved in the study; 12 regular education classroom
teachers (four first grade; four second grade; and four third grade) and 12 primary crosscategorical
classroom teachers. The teachers were observed for one to two hours via
naturalistic observation methods during math and language arts lessons. The sample was
transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcriptions (SALT).
The transcriptions were coded for the following criteria: nonliteral idioms[n] (e.g.,just a
minute); idioms used literally[l] (e.g., raise your hand); idioms not present in the online
dictionary [ nd] ( e.g., my bucket feels full); and number of different idioms used by each
teacher. Results indicated that primary cross-categorical teachers used fewer idioms than
regular education classroom teachers; however, the difference was not statistically
significant.

Date of Award	2011
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Lynn Calvert (Supervisor)