An Analysis Of The Classroom Modes In The Three Model Junior EFL Lessons Within Walsh's SETT Framework

The new curriculum changed the traditional roles of teacher,students,and the traditional models of teaching and learning as well.It demanded that teachers should use adequate highquality teacher talk to promote classroom interaction and increase learners‘ language output,thus to contribute to second language acquisition.Classroom interaction is vital because it is the primary source of target language exposure for many learners.The overriding purpose of this research is to sort out the relationship between language teaching,language learning and moment-by-moment interaction in three teachers‘ classroom interaction regarding SETT(Self-Evaluation of Teacher Talk)framework.The data for this study came from three recorded high-quality EFL class videos from Shenzhen Nanshan Experimental School.The analysis procedure followed four steps: a.Choose three videos as target data.b.Write down teaching procedures while doing the classroom observation,note which modes are in operation at the same time.c.Transcribe the interaction between teacher and learners into written text.d.Watch the video again,using the SETT key to identify what interactional features are used to accomplish teachers‘ pedagogical goals,and how.The research aims at identifying and describing the feature s of classroom interaction and the characteristics in terms of the Walsh‘s SETT framework of three selected English teachers in three different junior high schools.The research questions are addressed as follows: How are the four modes distributed in the three teachers‘ classroom? What are the similarities and the differences among the three teachers in their use of the four modes?The major finding of the research: all modes except classroom context mode appeared in three selected EFL junior high school teachers‘ classes.In the first teacher‘s class,materials mode is the dominant mode,skills and systems mode together with classroom context mode are the secondary modes;in the second teacher‘s class,materials mode is the dominant mode,skills and systems mode is the secondary mode while there is very little evidence to indicate the existence of classroom context mode.In the third teacher‘s classroom interaction,the proportion of modes from dominant to micro is skills and systems mode,classroom context mode,managerial mode,and materials mode.Though the materials mode,skills and systems mode appear in all three classes,their proportions are different from each other.Managerial mode occurs at the beginning or the end of the activity and functions as an introduction or the conclusion part;sometimes between two activities it works as a sub-mode to support the two dominant modes and to make the transition more smoothly.