Teacher‐Student Verbal Interaction and Questioning, Class Size and Bilingual Students' Academic Performance

Abstract

This article is a result of a small-scale study with the purpose of investigating teacher-student verbal interactions and questioning and students' curriculum-related performance in small and large mainstream classes. In mainstream classes the bilingual students were taught together with their monolingual Norwegian peers. The study shows that there are inter-group and intra-group differences with respect to: (i) teacher-student verbal interaction; (ii) academic questioning; (iii) curriculum-related performance of students in small classes compared with large classes. The bilingual minority students in general, and bilingual minority girls in particular, benefit from civics lessons in small classes more than they do in large classes. It is suggested that by creating rich possibilities for teacher-student verbal interaction and curriculum-oriented academic questioning, small classes can provide conditions for better academic performance in content area subjects, i.e. civics, for bilingual students in general and bilingual girls in particular than do large classes.