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Historical Perspectives on Instructional Language as Applied to an Assessment of Preservice Teachers

The purpose of this study was to investigate aspects of instructional language from three historical perspectives in order to operationally define elements of teacher language behavior and to develop an instructional language assessment instrument that might be useful in evaluating the language behaviors of preservice elementary and music education majors. An investigation of the educational treatises of Quintilian, Erasmus, and Herbart revealed a number of views regarding teacher language behaviors. The Instructional Language Assessment instrument (ILA) and corresponding operational definitions for verbal interaction, subject-matter vocabulary, general vocabulary, speech speed, voice pitch, and articulation were developed from these historical instructional language views. The quality of the instructional language of 143 elementary and music education majors was evaluated using the ILA and video/audiotaped time-sampled music lessons. A descriptive analysis revealed that the elementary education majors received more percentage points for positive verbal interaction, accurate subject-matter vocabulary usage, variable voice pitch, and clear articulation; the music education majors received more percentage points for correct general vocabulary usage and steady speech speed.