Multimodal Directive Interactions in a Preschool Classroom

Preschool teachers use language to instruct children in classrooms around the globe. The present article contributes to the literature on directives used by preschool teachers in the classroom by presenting an eight-month ethnography of a preschool class. The study investigated the directives used by preschool teachers and students and the multimodal resources that were used, including verbal directives, songs, gestures, forms of eye contact, visual cues, and material objects. The study also analyzed ways in which preschool children were socialized to speak and act in culturally appropriate ways through directives. Analyses of observations and interviews show that directives were a major feature of the multidirectional language socialization of children in the classroom. Teachers and students used a variety of multimodal resources, including their verbal discourse, intonation, gestures, and objects to use discourses in the classroom to socialize children into appropriate modes of interaction in the classroom.