A Case Study Of Teacher Feedback On Junior Student Output In Different English Class Types

As an important part of teacher talk, teacher feedback plays a crucial role in classroom teaching. It is not only the source of students’input but also the stimulus to students’output. Recently, a lot of researches have been conducted on teacher talk including the comparison of the amount of teacher talk with student output, the way to initiate questions, characteristics and functions of teacher feedback. Error correction feedback draws the most attention, especially in college English classroom. However, little attention has been drawn to the influence of teacher feedback on students’language acquisition, especially lacking the study of teacher feedback through different class types. It is necessary to do a further research on teacher feedback in different class types in junior middle school English class.The thesis aims to investigate how teacher feedback is adopted to facilitate student language acquisition in junior middle school from the aspect of student output in reading, listening&speaking and grammar class. Four questions are to be explored:1) the types of teacher feedback adopted in reading, listening&speaking and grammar class,2) the distribution of teacher feedback in each class type,3) the amount of student output elicited by each teacher feedback in different class types,4) the correlation between the proportion of teacher feedback and student output per move. According to the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the statistics collected by classroom observation and interviews, a conclusion is drawn. First, different teacher feedback are well combined in different class types. Second, the distribution of teacher feedback varies in different class types. Positive feedback is widely adopted in different class types. In comparison, negative feedback is more likely to be adopted in reading and grammar class, while, discoursal feedback is preferred in listening and speaking class. Third, the amount of student output per move elicited by each teacher feedback in different class types is quite different. In reading class, elicitation, repetition and comprehension check is more likely to elicit student output. In listening and specking class, comprehension check, clarification and confirmation check elicit the most student output per move. In grammar class, it is repetition, clarification and metalinguistic that elicit the most student output per move. Fourth, there is a positive correlation between the proportion of teacher feedback and student output per move, especially in listening and speaking class with correlation coefficient of0.46. It turns out that the teacher prefers to adopt teacher feedback which is more likely to elicit student output.Based on the study, some implications can be drawn.1) Teachers in junior middle school should adopt different teacher feedback flexibly.2) Teachers in junior middle school should consider what kind of teacher feedback is more likely to elicit student output in different classes. For example, in reading class, elicitation, repetition, comprehension check should be adopted frequently. Comprehension check, clarification and confirmation check should draw more attention in listening and specking class. In grammar class, more repetition, clarification and metalinguistic are supposed to be adopted.3) Teachers should consider factors like the characteristics of junior middle school students and classroom interaction. When offering feedback, more positive feedback and prompt should be considered to help students achieve self-promotion, while, explicit feedback should be adopted with more consideration.