Analysis On Classroom Discourse Of Award-winning Teachers From The Perspective Of Functional Grammar

Classroom is a major place for students’ learning and development,and classroom discourse is the main medium of communication between teachers and students.In English class,teachers use English language to organize classroom teaching activities and help students acquire the language.The use and effect of teachers’ classroom language directly affect the language learning effect.Therefore,it is necessary to analyze English teachers’ classroom discourse from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives.However,at present,teachers’ discourse in the English classroom has not attracted enough attention in China,and there are still many problems in the use of teachers’ discourse in the classroom.Under this background,we urgently need to study English classroom teachers’ discourse from different perspectives.Systemic functional grammar,a powerful tool for discourse analysis,provides us a good research perspective for English teachers’ classroom discourses.The systemic functional grammar,founded by Halliday,has two meanings.On the one hand,it believes that language is a symbol system used by human beings for communication,and these symbols are systemic meaning potential.It describes the composition and operation of the language system,and studies how people express their ideas through the use of language.On the other hand,it focuses on the function of language in the actual situation,identifies the expressive function of language symbols in different situations,and further summarizes language into three metafunctions,including the experiential function,interpersonal function and textual function.Based on the classroom discourse of three first prize teachers in the 11 th senior high school English Classroom Teaching Observation and Training Activities in 2018,this paper uses " Hearing Letters" to transcribe the video voice into study material,and then uses UAM Corpus Tool to make qualitative analysis and quantitative statistics on the text based on Halliday’s systemic functional grammar theory.The purpose of these studies is to solve three major research questions:(1)Based on the analysis of experiential function,to determine which process type dominates the discourse of English teachers’ classroom discourse?(2)Through the analysis of interpersonal function,to judge how teachers organize teaching activities through tone,modality and evaluation.(3)Through the analysis of textual function,to determine how teachers impart new knowledge(new information)by organizing discourse.It also tries to explore how English teachers organize discourse to help students master knowledge in high school foreign language teaching activities.By solving these three problems,we hope to be able to improve the effectiveness of English teachers’ classroom discourse,so as to promote the development of English teaching quality in China.Through statistical analysis,the author draws the following conclusions:(1)Through the analysis of experiential function,the discourse of English teachers’ classroom discourse is mainly material process,supplemented by a psychological process.(2)Through the analysis of interpersonal function,high school English teachers often use declarative mood and interrogative mood to carry out teaching tasks,and at the same time use low value modal verbs or modal adverbs to express modality meaning.(3)Through the analysis of textual function,the author finds that in English class,teachers tend to use unmarked subjects and adopt normal word order,which is convenient for students to directly receive the information they want to express.At the same time,grammatical cohesive devices are often used to connect information units between words,sentences and paragraphs,which make the preceding and following texts logically related.At the end of the study,the author puts forward some methods to improve the shortcomings of teachers’ classroom discourse from three functional perspectives.From the perspective of experiential function,teachers should return the discourse power to students,encouraging and guiding students to speak actively.From the perspective of interpersonal function,teachers should reduce imperative and compulsive mood,and build an equal relationship between teachers and students.From the perspective of textual function,teachers should have discourse awareness and cultivate students’ control over the whole text rather than the understanding of single words or sentences.