A Case Study On The English Classroom Interaction In Senior High School

The new curriculum reform aims to develop the students’ comprehensive language ability from the perspective of students’ learning interest, life experience and cognitive level. Implementation of curriculum is the core aspect of curriculum reform, and its basic way is classroom instruction, which can be carried out through interaction. Classroom interaction has been widely researched in western Second Language Acquisition. Recent years, quite a lot of scholars and researchers in China have fixed attention on classroom interaction. Till now, many studies have shown that classroom interaction can lead to significant achievement in English learning. Classroom interaction provides students with an English studying atmosphere, which will increase the opportunity of language input and output for students so as to improve students’ overall ability. So, classroom interaction directly affects the students’development.Based on a ground of interaction theories, the author conducted a case study in Zhejiang LY Middle School for a term. This research is done among four English teachers and200students, with methods of classroom observation, interviews and questionnaires, aiming to know the current situation of classroom interaction and find out influential factors so to propose strategies to improve English teaching.The results of the classroom observations showed that the current English classroom interaction was not satisfying. Firstly, the class size was big. There were over40students in a class and it’s difficult for teachers to care for every student. What’s more, many students weren’t interested in English class; underachieving students were reluctant to take part in the classroom interaction. Thirdly, many teachers paid little attention to the English classroom interaction. The teachers’ talk dominated the class.The interviews with four teachers and questionnaires of200students showed that there were three kinds of factors which affected classroom interaction: teachers, students and the society respectively. For teachers, they were unwilling to design classroom activities because of traditional beliefs that teaching more language points is much more helpful for students’scores. Besides, the heavy teaching burden, overdued outcome and inconsistent requirements influenced teachers’motivation in conducting classroom interaction. The last but not the least important one was the teachers’professional knowledge. For students, they held the view that their roles and responsibilities were to listen carefully and take notes of what the teachers taught in class. What’s more, they benefited a lot from the traditional way of teaching. Besides, students’English levels also affected the implementation of classroom interaction. For the society part, schools and the government didn’t invest enough in the equipments and facility which affected the realization of classroom interaction indirectly. The current evaluation system and parents’ expectancy also influenced classroom interaction.Based on the literature review and investigation on the teaching practice in Zhejiang LY Middle School, this thesis describes the current situation of English classroom interaction and discusses problems in the interaction. With references to solutions learnt from the classroom interaction cases, strategies are proposed accordingly. It is suggested that English teachers should pay attention to classroom interaction consciously. They need to learn about the factors that influence classroom interaction, and constantly make adjustments to implement interaction effectively in practice. Only in this way can teachers give the advantages of classroom interaction into full play.