A Study Of Appraisal Resources In English Classroom Teaching Evaluation Discourse From Expert Teachers

Classroom teaching evaluation is a general term for the measurement and evaluation related to classroom teaching.As an important approach to promote teachers’ professional development,it has the functions of guidance,encouragement,appraisal and decision-making.According to the source of evaluation,the evaluation for teachers can be divided into the evaluation for teachers from students,the evaluation for teachers from other teachers,and the evaluation for teachers from teachers themselves,among which the evaluation from other teachers is principally conducted through classroom observation and evaluation,playing a significant role in teachers’ professional development.These teachers usually involve expert teachers,peer teachers,etc.This study focuses on the classroom teaching evaluation from expert teachers.Previous studies on classroom teaching evaluation are mostly in light of education.Few studies have ever looked at the discourse of classroom teaching evaluation from linguistic perspectives,and less studies from the perspective of the Appraisal Theory.In light of the Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and White(2005),the present study selects 58 samples of classroom teaching evaluation discourse from expert teachers from the 8th to 10 th National Foreign Language Teaching Contest as the corpus and employs UAM Corpus Tool 3.3 Version to annotate the corpus and collect statistics.The following research questions are discussed through the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis: 1.What types of appraisal resources are employed in English classroom teaching evaluation discourse from expert teachers and how are they distributed? 2.What interpersonal meanings are conveyed in English classroom teaching evaluation discourse from expert teachers by appraisal resources?On the basis of statistics and analysis,the findings are concluded as follows: 1.Every type of appraisal resource is available in these samples but varies greatly in its proportion.In order of their frequencies from high to low,the three sub-systems of appraisal resources are Attitude,Engagement and Graduation,accounting for 51%,29%and 20% respectively.The further distribution of their sub-systems are as follows.(1)In Attitude system,Judgement resources occupy 45.7%,among which Capacity resources have the highest proportion.Appreciation resources follow after with the proportion of 37.4%,among which Valuation resources take up the largest part.Affect resources rank the lowest with the proportion of 16.9%,among which Dis/Inclination resources account for the highest proportion.Additionally,the ratio of positive Attitude resources to negative ones approximately stands at 4 to 1.(2)Engagement resources consist of 58.3% Monogloss resources and 41.7% Heterogloss resources.Heterogloss system can be further divided into Contract and Expand.The proportion of Contract resources is much higher than Expand resources.(3)Graduation resources are comprised of 89.2% Force resources and 10.8% Focus resources.The ratio of upscaling Graduation resources to down-scaling ones stands around at 3 to 2.2.Mainly three interpersonal meanings are conveyed by the appraisal resources in English classroom teaching evaluation discourse from expert teachers.(1)Evaluators’ authority is constructed through Monogloss resources,Disclaim resources,Proclaim resources and Acknowledge resources.(2)Politeness is expressed by Attitude resources,Counter resources,Entertain resources and Graduation resources.(3)Negotiation is conducted through Entertain resources,Acknowledge resources and Distance resources.Theoretically,the present study extends the application range of the Appraisal Theory to analysis of classroom teaching evaluation discourse from expert teachers.Practically,the findings of this study can enlighten teachers to better understand evaluations received for their teaching practices and to better express their evaluations for others’ teaching practices.