Tait, Merle (1994) What do children hear? : what do children understand? Research Master thesis, Victoria University of Technology.

Abstract

'What Do Children Hear? What Do Children Understand?' is a study of a prep grade of children and their interaction in a day-to-day classroom teaching-learning situation. It is a brief glimpse at the complexity that is a part of teaching children. Research studies show and acknowledge differences in children's development, that they learn and progress at different rates in different areas and their knowledge base at any particular time is as individual as the children themselves. The children's responses to questioning about picture-free stories as part of whole grade participation, and the responses of a small group of ten children to retelling of the texts, show a diversity of answers and raise questions about why these children after listening to the same listening experiences responded in different ways and at different levels of understanding. The teacher's role in the teaching-learning process is also varied, but in this study the aim was to show how the interaction by the teacher was necessary in clarifying any misunderstandings that had arisen through misconceptions of the text. The study was undertaken over eleven days by the classroom teacher in a setting that was familiar (the prep classroom) and as naturally as possible to avoid intimidating the children and therefore influencing their responses. Use of an audio tape and video camera was necessary to record the data and appeared to be accepted by the children who had been video taped prior to this study. Children's responses to questions about each story over the eleven story sessions were recorded in grid form. The responses by the ten children who were invited to retell the stories was copied verbatim from the audio tapes.

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