A Case Study Of Teacher Feedback In English Class Of Junior High School

The typical conversational structure in foreign language class is I-R-F model:I means an initiating move from the teacher, R means a response move from the students, F signifies a feedback move from the teacher. Among them, feedback move, is of substantial significance in facilitating students’ English learning in class. It not only informs students how their behavior was perceived by the teacher, but also can arouse more reflection from students.The present study aims at investigating the possible reasons for the inconformity between teachers’ actual use of feedback and students’ preference towards feedback in junior high school English class. Accordingly, three research questions are listed below:(1) Which types of feedback in actuality exist in junior high school English classroom and their proportions respectively?(2) Which type of feedback do the teachers and students prefer?(3) What reasons may be attributable to the present discrepancy between teachers’ actual use and students’ preference?Through classroom observation, questionnaire and interview, the findings could be drawn as follows:There are13types of feedback used in class, among which, positive feedback includes simple assent, positive repetition, supplement, comment, simple assent plus positive repetition, simple assent plus supplement and simple assent plus comment; Corrective feedback covers explicit correction, elicitation, clarification request, recast, meta-linguistic and negative repetition. The most frequently used feedback was simple assent plus positive repetition and explicit correction. Whereas students most preferred feedback was comment, supplement and elicitation. The teacher also approved of the use of comment, supplement and elicitation. However, the teacher disagreed to correct students’ all errors and she also doubted correcting can make students learn more. By interviewing ten students and the teacher, the author found that what students were most concerned about was learning more knowledge and improving their grades. But owing to the limited period and the inadequate energy, the teacher had to omit certain feedback like supplement and comment based on the real classroom conditions.