A Comparative Study Of Responses To Students' Answers Between Novice And Experienced Teachers In Senior High School English Classes

Teachers' responses to students' answers refers to how teachers deal with and respond to students' answers during the class.Generally,classroom questioning and answering includes asking,waiting,answering and responding.As the last part of classroom questioning and answering,responding exists throughout the class and plays an important role in the teaching process.It is a kind of “dialogue” activity between teachers and students,which enables the teachers to interact more with the students and helps build harmonious relationship between teachers and students.In the course of the new curriculum reform,the concept of “classroom dialogue” has drawn more and more attention.Appropriate,effective,and reasonable ways of responding to students' answers in English classroom will exert a subtle influence on students.It can not only improve the students' understanding of knowledge,urge them to think so as to train their thinking ability,but also arouse their interests in English class and even in the English subject,and encourage them to have positive psychological experience.The wisdom of teachers in making responses makes a perfect class.However,in view of existing research,many scholars and teachers focus more on classroom questioning,and less on a systematic study of teachers' responses to students' answers.There is not a lot of research on comparative study of this behavior between novice and experienced teachers.In addition,the research related to teachers' responses to students' answer is mainly centered on Chinese and mathematics,especially in the primary school level,and there is little research related to comparative study of teachers' responses to students' answers in senior high schools.Based on the above situation,the study tries to find the differences between senior high school novice and experienced English teachers in how they respond to the students in class,and analyzes the reasons by classroom observation and interviews respectively.What' s more,by conducting a questionnaire survey,the study also discusses what effects different types of teachers' responses to students' answers have on students and what types can be more effective for the students.At last,some suggestions about how to improve the teachers' responses to students' answers are put forward to help novice teachers catch up with experienced teachers.The data of classroom observation shows that the novice teachers and the experienced teachers are different in making responses to students' answers: the novice teachers are inclined to use more mechanical repetition and their language is monotonous;they are not able to praisein most cases and their responses lack pertinence;developmental responses to students' answers are not used flexibly;their responses lack the guidance and inspiration;and sometimes,barrier type of responses to students' answers can be seen in class.Interviews with these four teachers shed light on the main reasons for the differences: the lack of attention of novice teachers on this,the lack of teaching experience and the understanding of students as well as the lack of their reflection.The analysis of the questionnaire of students finds: students are comfortable with simple affirmative or corrective responses;they are not so much against the type of simple negative;they prefer teachers to praise,encourage and guide them so that they are more willing to take an active part in class;they want teachers to use more nonverbal expressions such as smile so that they may feel more relaxed in class.Moreover,there are some subtle differences in gender.Compared with the boys,the girls' psychological enduring capacity is relatively weak,so the types of teachers' responses to students' answers such as simple negative or ignorance to their answers may dampen their enthusiasm.Therefore,when responding to students' answers,teachers are supposed to take gender in consideration and try to get all students involved in class.Finally,according to the data analysis,the author comes up with some suggestions from three aspects to improve the novice teachers' level of responses to students' answers: enhance the awareness and pay attention to presupposition before class;enrich language and use skills flexibly during class;practice reflection after class to develop individual styles.It is hoped that these suggestions may be of help and use to the novice teachers.