An Empirical Study On Student-Student Interaction Of English Class In Senior High School

In recent years, more and more teachers and students have been aware of the importance student-student interaction (SSI) in English teaching and learning. Student-student interaction can not only facilitate learners’language acquisition and communication but also promote learners’speaking ability, in addition, stimulate learners’learning interests. Due to its importance, many researches on student-student interaction have been conducted. However, most of the previous studies on student-student interaction have been restricted into the theoretical aspects and subjects are mainly the advanced English learners. This thesis intends to conduct an empirical study on student-student interaction in senior high school students with the purpose of finding out the present situation of SSI, influential factors and the problems of classroom interaction and finally proposing pedagogical implication for English teaching and learning.The following research questions guide the present study:1. Is student-student interaction able to make students become actively and improve their learning initiatives?2. What are problems existing in the student-student interaction of English class in senior high school?3. What are the factors affecting the SSI and how can we improve the situation of SSI?In order to conduct the study, both quantitative and qualitative analyses are to be adopted. The collected data was analyzed through SPSS17.0.The subjects involved in the study were two classes of127students and20English teachers in ABC senior high school. The data was collected through conducting the classroom observation of class1and2in ABC senior high school in Henan province, delivering questionnaires to students and interviewing the chosen teachers.127students from class1and2, Grade2in ABC senior high school were asked to respond to the questionnaires to find the influencing factors and problems existing in the present SSI classroom. Meanwhile, twenty participants, twenty teachers from the ABC senior high school were interviewed, which attempted to further explore the problems and related factors influencing the implementation of SSI.According to the result of data analysis, the findings of this research could be summarized into the following points:1) Student-student interaction can make students become more active in the classroom and strengthen their motivation to learn English.2) Based on the data of interview and questionnaires, it is obvious that student-student interaction has been used widely and accepted by students and teachers, but there are still many problems, for example, the types of the interaction and the interactive activities are simple. The SSI is not employed very frequently and the time of interaction is limited. Only several students in the classroom are active. The SSI can improve students’abilities, but can not improve scores in a short time.3) The influencing factors of the problems of student-student interaction founded in the dissertation are talked. The content of interaction, the teachers, the students, the present evaluative system and the other social factors are the main parts affecting the student-student interaction.To solve these problems, some pedagogical suggestions according to the affecting factors are put forward from the following aspects, including making changes in teachers’and students’traditional beliefs, building a harmonious relationship between the teacher and the students, placing emphasis on learning values through interactive activities, the principles of designing interactive activities. With these suggestions, we hope it can give some enlightenment to teachers and students so that student-student interaction can be implemented well in the senior high school.Despite the theoretical and practical value of this study, some limitations are still needed to be mentioned, such as the limited size of the subjects, only in a senior middle school in Henan province, so the information obtained in the ABC school may not be comprehensive and representative for other senior high school in other places; the relations between the different interactive types of student-student interaction needs to perfect and explore; these limitations require more efforts to make on the related studies in the near future.