This is the first edition of Teacher Communication: A Guide to Relational, Organizational, and Classroom Communication. It is written for all “teachers,” including in-service and preservice, veterans and novices, and education students enrolled in various method and communication courses. It is a practical and readable resource for college classrooms and in-service...

I acknowledge that I am not an expert about teacher communication. I have studied it for over thirty years and taught it for about the same amount of time. But I know the difference between theory and practice. I continue to be a learner. I have had communication successes in schools and classrooms—with colleagues and students—and I have had setbacks. I find assurance in teaching...

I

Effective communication is an essential part of teaching. A teacher’s communication skills can be a decisive factor in success or failure in critical...

Chapter 1 discussed how communication helps teachers to perform necessary tasks by effectively initiating action through commands and by limiting those actions in clearly prescribed ways through feedback. In addition, the chapter presented command communication as the combination of a number of different components. To summarize,...

Chapters 1 and 2 emphasized that teacher communication involves both command and relational skills. Challenges to effective teacher communication are normal because students are people and people are imprecise, unclear, and unpredictable. This...

Chapter 3 showed how everyday teacher communication is influenced by teacher perceptions about communication and relationships. Choice is a necessary part of effective teacher communication. Teachers always have a choice in communication to respond either negatively or positively to students and others and to be either interpersonal or impersonal. Teacher perceptions of communication affect their...

II

This chapter describes major characteristics of effective learning relationships—most importantly, Étienne Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice and Hans-George Gadamer’s (1989) concept of dialogue. Both concepts move further away from the command- and message-oriented model of teacher communication described in chapter 1 and to a more transformational and...

This chapter discusses communication between a teacher and parents. It shows how communication with parents includes both command and relational skills and builds effective learning relationships. Although it recognizes that current parent-teacher relationships are strong (NEA, 2012), it also shows how many...

This chapter discusses communication between teachers and principals. Like communication with parents, effective teacher communication with principals involves building effective learning relationships. And like with parents, strong communication with principals requires building a community of practice, a...

Disagreement is nearly an everyday fare for teachers. Students, colleagues, and administrators supply plenty of sources for conflict. Conflict seems to be an inevitable part of teaching, and the need to manage conflict effectively is always with teachers. When conflict is viewed as inherently negative, it is treated as a weakness in a classroom or school—a flaw in design and operation. It is...

III

Part II looked at the various issues that teachers find when attempting to develop effective learning relationships with parents and principals. It recognized issues of diversity, sex, and age. It integrated the concepts of effective learning relationships, communities of practice, dialogue, and the fusion of horizons as ways of building productive communication among teachers, students, parents,...

Part III introduced the concept of rhetorical situations. If teachers want to understand the full dynamics of effective oral presentations, they need to take into account the rhetorical situation of the presentation—the teaching context, the student audience, and the emotional climate. Consequently, this chapter looks at how effective presentations require analyzing the rhetorical situation,...

One of the challenges for new teachers is developing the ability to guide students through class discussions. Discussion is a highly effective teaching method that encourages students to share opinions and ask questions. It provides a means for students to clarify information in readings, videos, and lectures. Students can share ways for explaining information, concepts, and principles. Most...

A teacher is preparing to instruct students in an online college, high school, or even a middle school class. Like other social situations—families, educational institutions, corporations, industrial businesses, social service agencies, governmental departments, church meetings, and special interest groups—online classrooms have potential for developing communities of practice and...

Ken White holds a B.A. in education from Western Washington University, an M.A. in education, and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Speech Communication in the areas of interpersonal, instructional, and organizational communication. He is a tenured faculty member at Everett Community College in Washington State, where he teaches education and public speaking...

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