THE NATURE AND QUALITY OF CLASSROOM VERBAL INTERACTION: IMPLICATIONS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN ZIMBABWE

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature and quality of classroom verbal interaction obtaining in a primary school classroom. A case study design was adopted for this study. Only one class comprising of 15 boys and 15 girls was used to study verbal interaction between the teacher and pupils. The study found out that the teacher talked more than the pupils did. This means that classroom verbal interaction in primary classrooms is still teacher- dominated, thus, confirming earlier research findings on classroom verbal interaction analysis, that, in the researches they did, teachers talked 2/3 of the time while pupils talked only 1/3 (Flanders, 1970; Nagel, 1992; Muhammad, 2005; Nyambura, 2012).Educators generally agree that children learn most by doing, yet, this awareness is rarely translated into classroom teaching methods. The study recommends that similar studies be conducted across grades and extended to secondary school level.