（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）课堂话语交互特征对比研究.pdf

shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis iii 论文摘要 学生英语交际能力的培养在我国外语教学中日益受到重视越来越 多的以英语为母语的教师参与了我国的大学英语教学但是在中国 对以英语为母语的教师是否对英语课堂的交互特征产生了影响迄今为 止并没有进行充分的研究本研究运用课堂观察问卷调查及非正式访 谈收集的数据对以英语为母语的教师和非英语为母语的中国教师 的英语课堂在交互模式课堂提问话轮转换及反馈方式方面进行了对 比研究 研究发现教师学生教师t s t 交互模式在中国教师的课堂上 出现的频率明显高于以英语为母语的教师的课堂在课堂提问及话轮转 换方式上两组课堂没有显著差异以英语为母语的教师给学生的反馈 明显少于中国教师而且似乎更不能容忍学生所犯的语言错误研究还 发现那些接受过语言教学培训且有教学经验的教师的课堂无论是以 英语为母语的教师或中国教师课堂互动更频繁学生参与更积极 研究结果对教师培训及外语教学具有一定的指导意义同时对外 教的引进提供了参考 关键词课堂话语交互模式提问话轮转换反馈 shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis ii abstract in recent years, an increasing number of native speakers of english (nse) have been introduced to china in order to improve college english teaching. however, there has yet been insufficient research on what effect these nse may bring to classroom interaction. to bridge this gap, this study attempts to explore the interactive features of the classes instructed by nse compared to those instructed by chinese teachers of english (cte). four aspects are compared: 1) classroom interaction patterns, 2) questioning, 3) turn-taking, and 4) feedback. the study is based on the transcript data from classroom observation supplemented with a questionnaire and informal interviews. four conclusions have been drawn from this study: first, tst pattern (teacher initiation, student response, and teacher follow-up) appears to occur more frequently in the classes taught by cte than in those by nse; second, the two groups of classes do not have much difference in the types of questions asked and in the way of turn-taking; third, nse tend to make less follow-up moves and show less tolerance for students errors than cte; finally, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, teachers with special training and with work experience in language teaching tend to make their classrooms more interactive and communicative. the findings have implications for both teacher training and language teaching. teachers, either nse or cte, need to receive training in applied linguistics in order to teach effectively. it is advantageous to take into account the backgrounds of the candidates in education and teaching experience when recruiting nse teachers. key words: classroom discourse, interaction patterns, questioning, turn-taking, feedback 上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明所呈交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下独立 进行研究工作所取得的成果除文中已经注明引用的内容外本论文不 包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果对本文的研究 做出重要贡献的个人和集体均已在文中以明确方式标明本人完全意 识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担 学位论文作者签名李素枝 日期2004 年 1 月 8 日 上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留使用学位论文的规定同 意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版允许 论文被查阅和借阅本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学位论文的全部或 部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索可以采用影印缩印或扫描等复制 手段保存和汇编本学位论文 保密在 年解密后适用本授权书 本学位论文属于 不保密 请在以上方框内打“” 学位论文作者签名 李素枝 指导教师签名陈永捷 日期 2 0 0 4 年 1 月 8 日 日期2 0 0 4 年 1 月 8 日 shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 background of the study since the 1970s, there has been an increasing attempt in research into language classrooms in the field of second language teaching and learning. owing to the failure on the part of the researchers in trying to find a single teaching method that was markedly superior and effective for language learning in the late 1960s, researchers have come to realize that successful language learning depends as much on the type of interaction that takes place in the classroom as on the method used (ellis, 1985:143). thereafter considerable attention has been directed to the research on what actually happens in the classrooms rather than on the study of the sole contribution of the methodology to language learning. many researchers have contributed to the study of second language classroom interaction in order to understand how learning opportunities are created (allwright, 1988, 1991; ellis, 1990, 1994, 1999; chaudron, 1988; long, 1996). ellis (1994:573) claims that the live person-to-person interaction in the classroom provides learners with opportunities to encounter input or to practice the l2, and that many learning opportunities, which arise in the classroom interaction, constitute the major determinant of acquisition. allwright (1984) argues that the meaningfulness for learners of classroom events of any kind depends on the extent to which communication has been jointly constructed between the teacher and learners. in spite of the considerable increase in the research into language classrooms in recent years, we still understand little of classroom discourse because of its complexity and variability for different classroom settings. whats more, to date many studies on classroom interaction are involved with second language learning environment, while few shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 2 empirical studies have been conducted in efl context, and little research has been done to chinese efl (english as a foreign language) classrooms. as china has the largest population of classroom learners of english, the study of the t-s interaction in chinese efl classrooms is a particular area deserving research in its own right. 1.2 aims of the study with more and more emphasis placed on communicative ability in foreign language teaching, an increasing number of native speakers of english (nse) are introduced to china to teach english. it is assumed that with more exposure to nse and thus more opportunities to attend their classes, students are more likely to cultivate their communicative abilities. however, to the authors knowledge, little research has been done in the classroom setting on how nse teachers contribute differently to classroom interaction from chinese teachers of english (cte). the present study, based on the transcript data from classroom observation supplemented with a questionnaire and informal interviews, explores the interactive features of the two groups of college english teaching classes, one being the classes instructed by nse and the other by cte. special emphasis is put on a close study of the following four aspects: 1) classroom interaction patterns, 2) questioning, 3) turn-taking, and 4) feedback. the study aims to find out: whether the teacher-student (t-s) interaction patterns are different between the two groups of classes; whether nse organize their classes differently from cte and how if they do; and whether it is true that the students in the classes instructed by nse stand a better chance of cultivating their communicative abilities. 1.3 organization of the thesis the thesis consists of five chapters. chapter 1 is a brief introduction to the present study, including the background, the aims, and the organization of the thesis. chapter 2 briefly reviews the previous studies related to the present study. it encompasses both the shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 3 theoretical aspects and the empirical studies. chapter 3 describes the methodology for the present study, including the research questions, subjects, instruments for data collection and data analysis procedure. chapter 4 presents the findings of the study in four respects: interaction patterns, types of questions, characteristics of turn-taking, and feedback. in chapter 5, the concluding chapter, the author summarizes the major findings, and then points out the limitations and implications of this study, and finally puts forward some suggestions for further research. shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 4 chapter 2 literature review 2.1 overview the research of classroom interaction is of classroom-centered research (ccr) in nature. although ccr enjoyed popularity in the second language learning field abroad as early as in the 1980s, it is only in recent years that some attempts have been made to conduct research into this area in china (zhao, 1998; zhou chaudron, 1988; ellis, 1990). chaudron (1988) identifies four different research traditions: psychometric, interaction analysis, discourse analysis, and ethnographic approach. although there are varied ways to classify approaches to research, generally each of the research methodologies has a different focus and function, and it is not possible to say that one is superior or inferior to another. what really counts is that the adopted research design and procedure should be appropriate to the issue under investigation. so far in the field of research on the interactive features of classroom discourse, both interaction analysis and discourse analysis have been used. in spite of the common research fields the two methods are used to serve, they also bear some differences. shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 6 interaction analysis tradition involves the use of some forms of observational schemes consisting of sets of categories for coding classroom behaviors (ellis, 1990:67). the researchers in this tradition at the beginning followed flanders interaction analysis categories (flac). this includes categories of teacher behavior such as teacher question, teacher feedback and learner behavior. later some more complex expanded interaction schedules for use in the language classroom were developed in order to take account of more behaviors found in language classrooms. more details about interaction analysis can be found in chaudron (1988:31) and ellis (1994:575). no matter how inclusive the interaction analysis tradition is, it has its weaknesses. one the one hand, the content of these early interactional systems was not motivated by any strong theory that predicted what behaviors were important for language learning (ibid). furthermore, the validity of these observational instruments is questionable in the sense that these instruments are idiosyncratic to particular researchers or situations, and seldom based on systematic theoretical argumentation or empirical tests of the categories (chaudron, 1988:40). this leads to the later boom of discourse analysis approach, which studies the classroom interaction in a more systematic way. the next section is devoted to the discussion of this approach in more detail. 2.3 discourse analysis discourse analysis helps us in understanding how people actually use language in real situations, as opposed to studying artificially created sentences. there are two major schools of discourse analysis: the british school and the american school. this section briefly introduces: 1) the definition of discourse and discourse analysis; 2) the two schools of discourse analysis; and 3) classroom discourse. 2.3.1 defining the terms linguists define the term discourse and discourse analysis in different ways from shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 7 different perspectives (widdowson, 1979; brown cook, 1989). but one common feature is that discourse generally refers to connected texts as opposed to isolated sentences. discourse analysis thus is a study of larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts. the present study focuses on conversational exchanges in classroom settings. 2.3.2 two schools of discourse analysis there are two influential schools in the area of discourse analysis: the american school and the british school. american discourse analysis emphasizes the research method of close observation of groups of people communicating in natural settings. what is often called conversation analysis within the american tradition can actually be categorized under the general heading of discourse analysis. in conversational analysis, the emphasis is on the close observation of the behaviors of participants in talk and on patterns which recur over a wide range of natural data. the representatives of this school are lobov, goffman, sack, etc. tsui (1994) also contributes a lot in this field. the american work has produced a large number of descriptions of discourse types, as well as insights into the social constraints of politeness and face-preserving phenomena in talk. different from the american school, the british school aims to build structural models of interaction in the setting of classrooms. the l1 classroom research of bellack et al. (1966) is the primary early example of this tradition in education, but these researchers failed to work out any influential theoretical models. a major step was made in the discourse analysis of l1 classroom with the research of sinclair and coulthard (1975), who developed a model for the description of teacher-pupil talk, based on a hierarchy of discourse units. this model is of great interest to teachers, not only because it provides a shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 8 model which might be applied with modifications to discourse in general, but also because the discourse type it chose to analyze was school lessons (cook, 1989:46). the detailed description of the model is found in the next section. 2.3.3 classroom discourse 2.3.3.1 the hierarchical structure a pioneering and influential study in classroom discourse was carried out at the university of birmingham by sinclair and coulthard. they recorded a number of british primary school lessons and on the basis of these data found a rigid pattern in the language of traditional native-speaker school classrooms, where teachers and pupils spoke according to very fixed perceptions of their roles and where the talk could be seen to conform to highly structured sequences. by using these data, sinclair and coulthard proposed a descriptive framework for analyzing classroom discourse. they suggested five ranks to handle the structure of classroom interaction (coulthard, 1985:123): - lesson - transaction - exchange - move - act these units are ordered in a hierarchical manner in which acts combine to form moves, moves combine to form exchange, exchanges combine to form transaction and transactions make up lesson. the lowest rank is what we have referred to as speech act. sinclair and coulthard simply call them act. any fine distinction the terminology might suggest can be found in tsui (1994:9). as it is not much related to the present research it wont be dealt with in detail here. coulthard (1985:123) states that lesson, as the largest unit, has no tight structure in it, like shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 9 paragraph in grammar. transactions have a structure expressed in terms of exchanges and marked by frames such as ok, well, right, now, good, etc. the following example may help to make it clear. after talking about the function of the axe, the teacher intends to turn to other things by saying, 1 right now then, ive got some more things here. (sinclair and coulthard, 1975:94) with the marker right now then, the new transaction of talking about some other things begins. as it can be seen, the transaction has completeness by itself. it is equivalent to sacks term topic in describing discourse (coulthard, 1977:107). 2.3.3.2 three-part exchange for sinclair and coulthard (1975), the basic unit of interaction is not the single utterance, but the exchange, which consists of at least two contributions or moves by different speakers. they believe that a typical classroom exchange is comprised of three moves: an initiating move from the teacher, a responding move from the pupil, and a follow-up move from the teacher. a move is the smallest free unit of discourse and is made up of one or more than one act. this is generally called irf or tst model. the following table illustrates what a typical exchange looks like: table 2.1 eliciting exchange (coulthard, 1977:106) initiating move can anyone have a shot, a guess at that one? (elicit) responding move cleopatra. (reply) follow-up move cleopatra. good girl. she was the most famous queen, wasnt she? (accept) (evaluation) (comment) shanghai jiao tong university m.a. thesis 10 both the initiating move and responding move in the above example are made up of one act each: elicit and reply respectively. the follow-up move, however, consists of three acts: accept, evaluation and comment. initiation in exchange by the teacher is the main instrument of education (garton, 2002). by asking questions, giving instructions and imparting information the teacher guides and controls his or her class. students can also make the initiation such as asking questions or volunteering information. it is a matter of teaching style how far the teacher allows or encourages initiation of the discourse by pupils. at one extreme, there could be a teacher who talked all the time to the whole class, asked all the questions and did all the initiating, just as sinclair and coulthard found in their observations of the traditional classrooms. at the other extreme, a teacher might set a variety of tasks to different groups of individuals, and then wait for the learners to ask questions, offer information, etc. so in what way the initiation is made and who makes the initiation (the teacher or the students) matters much for a classroom. it determines the interactive feature of the classroom discourse. responding move is generally made by students in traditional classrooms (sinclair and coulthard, 1975). it may be an answer to a question, or a response to the teachers instruction. response is also one of the criteria to judge how actively students participate in the classroom interaction. sometimes, teachers also make this move when students fail to give the response, or when students make the initiation. follow-up move or feedback is often (but not always) made by teachers after students response. it may be a repetition of the response on the part of the teacher making sure that everyone has heard it. the teacher can vary the wording of the response and rephrase it adding or subtracting parts of it to arrive at an approved version. he or she can also rephrase it