A Case Study On The Feedback Discourse Of High School English Teachers In EFL Classrooms

According to I-R-F model for analyzing classroom discourse, teacher’s discourse includes Initiation move and Feedback move. Students’ discourse refers to all the output, including the response move and the immediate output brought about by teacher’s feedback. Effective feedback can promote the output by encouraging students’ participation in the interaction.The present study will descriptively analyze six observational high school English classes. The research questions are listed as the following: 1) What’s the proportion of teacher’s feedback in the total amount of teacher talk? 2) What feedback patterns are demonstrated in each class? What’s the distribution feature of each pattern? 3) What’s the effect of feedback quantity on the quantity of the immediate output? Does more feedback necessarily initiate more output? 4) What’s the effect of feedback patterns on the students’ immediate output? How to apply appropriate pattern to improve the immediate output? 5) What kind of attitudes do teachers and students hold towards feedback patterns respectively?The data is obtained through listening to the recordings of the collected lessons repeatedly and transcribing them elaborately with the analysis of the questionnaires and interviews. Revised on the basis of Hu, etc.(2004), the transcripts from 6 classes of the same lesson type-reading I, which last 270 minutes altogether, are analyzed and discussed.The result shows that 1) The average ratio of teacher’s feedback is 31.4%.2) There are altogether 12 feedback patterns in the classes and the frequency of each pattern varies: the three most frequently applied patterns are acknowledging a correct answer, repeating the responses and praising, while explicit correction and other unclassified feedback are the least frequently used. 3) More feedback does not necessarily initiate more output. 4) Students’ total output initiated by different patterns varies, further asking tops the list with 492 total output while explicit correction initiates the least with no immediate output. Proper feedback pattern can promote the output. 5) Teachers and students have different attitudes towards teacher’s feedback.The implications are as the four aspects. Firstly, it is necessary for teachers to deliberately provide more opportunities for students to practice the target language and offer guidance and help when needed, so as to encourage their participation in the interaction. Secondly, much importance should also be attached to the quality while emphasizing adequate feedback; teachers should notice students’responses and modify their talk accordingly; and activate and consolidate the learners’ performances while providing and supplementing the knowledge. Thirdly, it is necessary for teachers to skillfully use strategies and apply appropriate feedback patterns, so as to optimize the positive effect of teacher’s feedback and reach the ultimate understanding and mastery of the target language. Last but not least, students’mastery of the target language is still subjected to other factors, so it is beneficial for teachers to coordinate these factors with teacher’s feedback, so as to improve students’comprehensive ability of the target language.