An Investigation Of Teacher Feedback In English Class In Senior High School

Teacher talk is the main source of English language input for students,and it is extremely important for classroom teaching.Teacher feedback,one element of teacher talk,if used with care,which is conducive to increase students' engagement in class activities and promote the output of the target language.Guided by the Input Hypothesis,the Output Hypothesis and the Interactive Hypothesis,the research analyzes the teacher feedback in nine natural English classes in senior high school.By observing the patterns of feedback and distribution of patterns to find out the answers of following questions:(1)What common feedback patterns are demonstrated by teachers in English class in senior high school? What is the frequency of each pattern?(2)What are the effects of different feedback to interaction between teachers and students in senior high school?(3)What are the preferences and expectations of students towards teacher feedback?The research records and analyzes the related data through classroom observation,questionaire and interview.The results of the research show that:(1)There are nine patterns of feedback in classes: explicit correction,clarification request,repetition,recast,elicitation,praise,approval,further ask,and summarize,and the most frequently applied one is approval,while the clarification request is the least frequently used.(2)Based on the effects that the nine patterns of teacher feedback has on classroom interaction,the paper is to classify the teacher feedback into positive and negative aspects.The results show that positive feedback accounts for 83.06%,while negative feedback makes up 16.94%.Moreover,positive feeback plays an important role in promoting students' discourse output and classroom interaction,negative feedback discourages students' enthusiasm and makes them become tired of learning English.However,some kind of negative feedback can also benefit classroom interaction to some extent.(3)The questionaire demonstrates that all the students hope that their teachers provide them with positive feedback,but the students cannot realize their problems only provided with simple praise.At the same time,they expect that their teachers provide evaluation more targeted and specific.In short,through the investigation and analysis,the author finds out that:(1)According to the actual level of the students,teachers should use the effective feedback strategies flexibly in different stages of teaching,in order to create more opportunities for students to speak.(2)Teachers should use more positive,inspiring and enlightening feedback to encourage students,and create a harmonious and pleasant learning atmosphere for students to improve their initiative in learning English.(3)Teachers should pay more attention to corrective feedback in classroom teaching,they should choose the most direct and effective feedback form according to the different types of errors,to help students find out their mistakes.The above conclusion will not only be a lesson for further study in teacher feedback in senior high school,but also can improve the English communicate competence of students.It is inevitable that there are still some limitations in the present study.