An Investigation Into OK Usages By EFL Teachers

This study explores EFL teachers'instructional language, OK usage in particular, through the perspectives of the functions performed by OK in different scenarios, and the social factors that influence the proportions of the functions performed via OK by individual teachers. The objects included are 18 English teachers, who are native Chinese, in several middle schools in Shanghai and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The research method is data collection and descriptive analysis. The major findings are summarized as follows:1. The teachers'OK usage generally reflects dictionary senses or conforms to native ways of usage, i.e. as a transition marker signifying the next activity or topic, as an interactive marker including attention getter entrapping attention, command softener mitigating orders and progression checker checking on students'attentiveness, and as a structural marker basically for self-correction.OK does not necessarily refer to agreement only in teachers'instructional language. As a feedback, OK signs evaluation of students'performance:"Yes, but you've missed something"in some cases or"Yes, you're right"in others. Unusual deployment of OK emerges such as comprehension checker, checking students'understanding of what has been said or instructed, and explanatory OK, elucidating a word or a language point. Native speakers, especially in life situations, do not normally use OK in this manner.OKs beyond the categories researched so far have been detected. They arise inappropriate and redundant, weakening the cohesion and coherence of the discourse. Some teachers are found to insert OK between repetitions, which is assumed misused.2. That the employment of OK is varied in quantity and quality according to gender, age, education background, teaching experience, academic title,class type, and even school type has been proved in the study.Males use more OKs than females do. Male teachers tend to provide feedback with OK rather than other devices such as"great","well-done", and"remarkable", etc. The inadequate variation of commentary language substantiates that males are less sensitive than females to social meanings of linguistic elements.The overall frequency of OK usages tends to be higher on the part of the younger teachers. Younger teachers in the present research demonstrate a stronger capability of using those not-so-prevalent OKs such as structural marker and unusual markers such as comprehension checker and repetition.BA diploma holders fluctuate a lot concerning such OKs as transition markers and repetition, pause filler and inappropriate OKs.Experienced teachers with a higher academic title are discovered to be more cautious in diction, leading to more appropriate and fewer marginal OK usages in comparison with inexperienced teachers.Whether the class is demonstrative or non-demonstrative does not make striking difference on the teachers'OK choice as a certain function. Nor does school type result in variation of the use of OKs.