A Study On Teacher Elicitation In English Classroom Of Senior High School

With the deepening of educational reforms, learner-centered teaching theory and teaching model are always the hot topic among teachers and educators. To put this learner-oriented teaching model into practice, increasing number of teachers focus on promoting the classroom interaction, because in an interactive environment, learners, with the scaffolding provided by teachers, can develop capacity and habit of learning themselves. However, a tough problem existing in classroom interaction is that students may not actively get involved in classroom interaction. It’s not rare that students keep silent in their English class, whether the questions or tasks given by teachers are difficult or not. In author’s opinion, teachers’ elicitation, if used wisely, will promote students’ participation in classroom interaction and thus facilitate learning.In this study, the author intends to investigate and describe how English teachers of senior high school use elicitations in their class by examining both the quantity and quality of their using elicitations. Besides, the author also investigates how a teacher, who is good at promoting interaction, adjusts her elicitation to scaffold students’ learning. The two research questions are:(1) What are the characteristics of teachers’ use of elicitation in English class of senior high school?(2) How does teacher elicitation provide interactional scaffolding to promote students’ English learning?The research results show that teachers use various forms of elicitations. Besides, the experienced teachers tend to use more elicitations in higher cognitive level and adjust the cognitive complexity of their elicitations in accordance with students’ prior responses in the classroom discussions. This study is significant as it promotes our better understanding on teacher elicitations and the classroom interaction.