A Comparative Study Of Classroom Interaction In Chinese And American Music Appreciation Courses:from A Goal-directed Perspective

The present study aims to provide some useful implications for both teachers and students in the course of Music Appreciation in Chinese universities by conducting a comparative analysis of the teacher-student interactions in Entering the World of Symphonies and Listening to Music using the Goal Analysis Model. It also attempts to expand the applicability of the Principle of Goal Direction in classroom interaction.Guided by the Goal-direction Discourse Analysis Model, the Principle of Goal Direction is employed to analyze goal relation, specific goals and goal system, discourse cohesion, linguistic strategies of teachers and students, power relations and goal realization in the teacher-student interaction.As to goal relations, both the Chinese course and American course exhibit convergent goal relations in that the goals of the teacher’s and students’are compatible. In terms of goal system, the American course shows more complexity than the Chinese one. Interactions serve to fulfill the goals in the lectures and hence, the general goal of the courses. Top-down goal organization patterns are found in interactions initiated by test questions while bottom-up organization patterns maintain students’interest and focus by leading the students step by step to the goal in the recitation that follows it. By focusing on each teacher-student interaction, the American course is more diverse in interactional patterns. Moreover, the interactional discourse is cohesive in that teacher-student interactions reflect or serve the goals in the lectures. In terms of goal strategy, teachers use direct questions and requestives to initiate interaction. By responding to student questions and giving feedback to student answers, they can always shift back to the goals concerned in the lecture. However, students are viewed as passive cooperators because they only respond by either answering teacher questions or raising a question upon the teacher’s request. As questioning is the main strategy of interaction initiation, both teacher questions and student questions are coded using the Dialogic Values Scale to reflect the dialogic pulse of the two courses. The Chinese course with its much smaller number of questions actually has a higher dialogic density than the American course. Furthermore, the analysis of goal strategy demonstrates that teachers and students are not equal in classroom interaction. Finally, as to goal realization, the linguistic strategies employed by the teachers and students serve to fulfill their goals in classroom interaction.The results of this comparative study show that the Principle of Goal Direction can be applied to discourse of classroom interaction. They also provide some useful implications for classroom interaction in music appreciation classrooms. First, music teachers can make the best of classroom interaction to organize his or her teaching according to the general goal of music appreciation. Second, they help music teachers learn about classroom interaction and decide what linguistic strategies to adopt to attain the general goal. Last, by reviewing the students’linguistic strategies, music teachers can set out to create more opportunities for students to express their ideas and get actively involved in music appreciation lectures. What is more, the findings of this study may prove enlightening to teachers of other subjects too.