TaLC – Teacher Language in Classrooms

Project Description

Do teachers speak differently depending on the students they are talking to or the composition of the class? Language tells us a lot about psychological processes, for example what stereotypes and prejudices people have. They often adapt their language according to how they assess other people or what they expect from them. This linguistic adaptation happens on two levels: How one speaks (style) and what one says (content). Linguistic style refers to the way in which a person expresses themselves. If a teacher tries to use very simple language, fewer prepositions (e.g. about, in, on) are used. Teachers might use simple language when they have low expectations of certain students. In addition, the use of certain pronouns can indicate whether a teacher wants to set themselves apart or establish closeness. Linguistic content in the context of teaching includes, for example, the quality of the content of instructions, explanations or feedback from teachers. 

Language plays an essential role in the classroom. Interactions between students and teachers make up a large part of the lesson. At the same time, language of varying quality can have an impact on students' future performance. In this research project, we therefore focus on teachers' language and how it changes depending on which child teachers speak to or in which class they teach. On the one hand, we are using existing data sets that provide classroom videos. These offer the opportunity to examine language in authentic interactions. On the other hand, language is examined in experimental studies in simulated teaching situations under the control of other factors.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods offer efficient ways of evaluating language. Specific methods are developed to investigate aspects such as the complexity of langauge, the use of different word types or certain words, such as the names of the students. The emotional content of language is also being investigated. In the future, the development of language models will also create opportunities to examine specific teaching characteristics. For example, the quantity and quality of certain teaching quality features, such as cognitive activation, will be examined using language. Subject-specific vocabulary will also be examined more closely in this way.

Project Objectives

The project pursues various goals:

1. to gain an insight into teachers' language as a function of certain student or classroom characteristics and with reference to teaching quality research
2. to develop language models for the automatic assessment of linguistic aspects of teachers
3. to apply or develop existing models and corpora to the German language region
4. to create possibilities for training teachers with regard to their language in the long run

Funding

This project is funded from the institutional budget.

Cooperations

• Prof. Dr. Heather Hill, Harvard University

Project Management

• Dr. Hannah Kleen
• Prof. Dr. Mareike Kunter

Project Details