OF TEACHERS BEHAVIOR AND EXPECTATIONS ON STUDENTS
..."You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will." This quotation from George Bernard Shaw's play, PYGMALION, suggests that a person's place in society is largely a matter of how he or she is treated by others. This also perfectly describes the effect of teachers’ behaviour and expectations on students, the pygmalion effect, which infers that students' intellectual development is largely a response to what teachers expect and how those expectations are communicated through their behaviour. In what ways teacher expectations are communicated to students in classroom settings and how these messages influence students? TEACHER EXPECTATIONS refer to inferences that teachers make about the future academic achievement of students. Early in the school year, teachers form different expectations on student behaviour and achievement. Consistent with these different expectations, teachers behave differently toward various students. This treatment tells students something about how they are expected to behave in the classroom and perform on academic tasks. If the teacher treatment is consistent over time and if students do not actively resist or change it, it will likely affect their self-concepts, achievement motivation, levels of aspiration, classroom conduct, and interactions with the teacher. These effects generally will complement and reinforce the teacher's expectations; so that students will come to conform to these expectations more than they might have