Adaptation And Application: Implementation Of Negotiated Interaction In College EFL Classes In China

In the twenty-first century, B. Kumaravadivelu put forward the postmethodpedagogy advocating that teachers themselves are the founders of teaching theory.They should try to discover the method that is best suited to their specific contexts.Chinese teachers of English have been actively involved in searching for the bestmethods, constantly trying new teaching ideas and techniques in order to improve thequality of English teaching in China. However, problems such as students’paradoxically high scores on English tests but poor performance in language use andtheir learning passivity have not yet been solved thoroughly. This means that the studyof English teaching needs to be explored at the micro-level and in practical operationsin order to find the most suitable and operable model for Chinese EFL classes. Overmany years of China’s college English teaching reform, teachers have encounteredmany realistic problems including heavy resistance to the implementation ofnegotiated interaction. To confront this reality, we should not merely speak emptywords and stubbornly persist with the status quo, but instead adapt to the reality andmake changes.Negotiated interaction is the meaningful interaction between the speaker and thelistener according to M.H. Long. It is communication exchanges between both sideswho try to make each other understood through the adjustment of the language form,conversational structure, and content. Negotiated interaction between teachers andstudents and/or between student peers is significant in language learning. Krashen’stheory of Comprehensible Input, Swain’s theory of Comprehensible Output andVygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development all have proved that classroom interactioncan promote learners’ language acquisition. With the curriculum implementationtheory (fidelity, mutual adaptation and enactment) proposed by J. Snyder, F. Bolin,and K. Zumwalt as a framework, this dissertation examines the status, the adaptationprocess and a possible new model concerning negotiated interaction in collegeEnglish classes of China from the perspective of implementation with qualified classroom organization, a unique approach when compared with other studies whichare from the perspective of the second language acquisition (SLA). Hence, thefollowing research questions are addressed:a. What are Chinese teachers’ perceptions of negotiated interaction and theirpractices in classes?b. What factors facilitate or inhibit the classroom implementation of negotiatedinteraction?c. How do teachers adapt to negotiated interaction in EFL classes in China?This study uses quantitative and qualitative research methodology. Multipleinstruments (questionnaires, classroom observations, and interviews) were used tocollect data at Zhengzhou University, Sias International College and the Central ChinaInstitute of Technology.656students and40teachers from the three universities wereinvolved in the study. The collected data shows that the objective problems such aslarge class size, students’learning passivity, time constraints and examination pressurebrought difficulties to Chinese teachers of English in developing classroominteraction. Additionally, students themselves are too passive in “preferring to becalled on” and “teacher control tendency” due to the influence of Chinese traditionalculture, like “respecting teacher education” and “face matter.” All these facts make theteachers of English feel helpless and most of them who have tried interactive teachingend up resorting to traditional teaching methods. At present, the grammar teachingand teacher talk dominance are still the main practice in English classes in China.Based on D. Allwright’s idea--“the quality of classroom life”(i.e. the life ofstudents in the classroom is not only physical but also includes their respectablethoughts, feelings and knowledge) and based on Chinese traditional culture, this studysuggests that the existing teaching model be improved in interaction quality and themicroscopic strategy. A refined classroom model for better negotiated interaction inChinese-specific context is developed by introducing the famous “Deming Circle”(i.e.the PDCA circle: Plan, Do, Check and Act) into it. With the aid of rationales frompsychology, management, etc, the refined model displays the quality control on theteaching phases, the matched strategies, types of learning tasks, time allocation andteacher’s roles.Finally, a small scale teaching experiment lasting10weeks was conducted. The results of a questionnaire survey to students show that the teaching with the refinedteaching model is informative, instructive and practical in Chinese EFL classes.