Teaching Grammar Interactively In Novice Teachers’ Language Classroom: Exploring EFL Teaching Practices

Grammar plays an essential role in language teaching and effective grammar teaching involves helping students experience the communicative function of grammar and develop the FUM view of grammar learning.The purpose of the present study is to explore whether novice teachers can teach grammar interactively in EFL education,and if so,what type of practices teachers engage with through a qualitative case study.First,a deep analysis of Steve Walsh’s Self-evaluation of Teacher Talk(SETT Framework),interaction theories and the FUM view of grammar learning was conducted as the theoretical basis of this study.Then,classroom observations and semi-structured interviews took place with four novice teachers participating in the study.Each teacher’s one grammar lesson focusing on“modal verbs +have done” structure was video-recorded.The mode and interacture distribution which represent the general patterns of interactions were calculated and analyzed with the support of classroom examples.Interview data including teachers’ stated beliefs and teacher knowledge served as triangulation of classroom observations.It is found that materials mode and skills and systems mode take up almost half of the classroom discourse in three teachers’ classes.There’s no classroom context mode in two novice teachers’ classes while this mode accounts for 52% in T4’s class.With regard to interactures,display questions,teacher echo,and teacher interruptions are frequently used in novice teachers’ class while seeking clarification and scaffolding are rarely used.The reasons of the results are listed as follows.First,three novice teachers tightly control the classroom interaction for fear that unexpected situations might occur.Besides,they fail to realize the significance of helping students experience language and engage students in communicative activities in grammar learning.Furthermore,they hold a wrong belief about language repair that grammar learning takes place when teachers interfere with students’ contributions and correct their errors.They ignore the fact that language learning occurs incidentally.Lastly,one novice teacher differs from the other three in the way that communicative context and learning opportunities are created for students to experience the language in her class because of her different teacher knowledge gained from college professional teacher training courses.The results of the research contribute to aiding the teaching training program designers in helping novice teachers teach grammar interactively.