A Study Of The Effects Of Teachers’ Verbal Feedback On Students’ English Learning Motivation In Senior High Schools

Recently,the effects of teachers’ verbal feedback on students’ English learning motivation have attracted many researchers’ great attention.Teachers’ verbal feedback plays a vital role in second language teaching,whose significance has been widely accepted by the second language researchers at home and abroad.Meanwhile,learning motivation is one of the most dynamic factors in the process of language learning and also one of the main variables affect second language learning outcomes.Having Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis and Sinclair and Coulthard’s IRF Model as its theoretical frameworks,this thesis attempts to explore the major types of teacher’s verbal feedback in English classroom as well as their effects on students’ learning motivation in senior high schools.It aims at answering the two questions as follows: 1)What are the main types of teachers’ verbal feedback in senior high school English classroom? 2)What are the effects of varied teachers’ verbal feedback on students’ English learning motivation?This research starts from September 12 th,2017 to November 12 th,2017.97 students in senior one from Jintang Middle School were chosen as the research participants.With instruments as classroom observation,questionnaires,and interviews,this thesis investigates the main types of teachers’ verbal feedback and their effects on students’ learning motivation in senior high school classroom.The research results show that:1.Teachers mainly adopt direct affirmation in English classroom of senior high schools.And teachers mainly use explicit correction when students give the wrong answers.The frequency of teachers’ repetition,teachers’ recast,teachers’ form negotiation,teachers’ detailed inquiry,teachers’ comment or supplement of theme,and teachers’ meaning negotiation is lower,among which teachers’ repetition is the lowest one.2.Students’ extrinsic learning motivation is generally higher than students’ intrinsic learning motivation.3.Teachers’ direct negation has a negative correlation with students’ intrinsic learning motivation,while teachers’ direct affirmation,teachers’ recast,teachers’ detailed inquiry,teachers’ supplement of theme have positive correlations with students’ intrinsic learning motivation.Teachers’ explicit correction has a weak correlation with students’ intrinsic learning motivation.And teachers’ repetition and teachers’ meaning negotiation is not correlated with students’ intrinsic learning motivation significantly.4.Teachers’ direct affirmation,teachers’ recast,teachers’ form negotiation,teachers’ detailed inquiry and teachers’ supplement of theme are highly correlated with students’ extrinsic learning motivation.The correlation coefficient between teachers’ meaning negotiation and students’ extrinsic learning motivation is of moderate level.And teachers’ direct negation,teachers’ repetition and teachers’ explicit correction have negative correlations with students’ extrinsic learning motivation.5.Teachers’ direct affirmation and teachers’ supplement of theme have significant effects on reinforcing students’ intrinsic learning motivation,and teachers’ recast,detailed inquiry and teachers’ form negotiation can also improve students’ intrinsic learning motivation.6.Teachers’ direct affirmation,teachers’ recast,teachers’ form negotiation,teachers’ meaning negotiation and teachers’ supplement of theme all contribute to reinforce students’ extrinsic learning motivation.On the basis of the findings above,this study provides English teachers with some proposals on teachers’ verbal feedback in hoping to strengthen the English learning motivation of senior high school students: teachers should provide classroom verbal feedback according to students’ characteristics,master the skills of various verbal feedback,and synthesize the application of various verbal feedback scientifically and reasonably.As for the students with low intrinsic learning motivation,teachers can adopt more direct affirmation and supplement of theme and use less direct negation and repetition.When it comes to students’ extrinsic learning motivation,teachers should synthesize the application of recast,form negotiation,detailed inquiry,meaning negotiation and supplement of theme,and adopt repetition,explicit correction and direct negation cautiously.