COOPERATIVE CONVERSATIONS - THE EFFECT OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON CONVERSATIONAL INTERACTION

An ongoing challenge for educators of deaf and hard-of-hearing student s is to find opportunities for students to use their language skills i n a functional way, that is, through conversation. This study was init iated to determine whether cooperative learning is a viable means of e ncouraging mainstreamed hard-of-hearing students to engage in conversa tional interaction with their hearing peers and teachers. A single-sub ject design utilizing three mainstreamed hard-of-hearing subjects atte nding middle school was used to examine this question. Results of the study indicated that cooperative learning positively influenced the co nversational turns, initiations, moves, and mean length of turn in the se hard-of-hearing subjects.