A Micro-Analysis Of Teacher-Student Interaction In The Primary EFL Classroom

Primary school learners are in the critical period of language learning,therefore the research of primary school English teaching plays a pivotal role in the field of second language acquisition.Children,different from adults,have their own characteristics of language learning.Children do not have the ability to learn language explicitly,which means they are not able to identify and apply rules of the English language consciously.Their ability to employ learning strategies and mobilize affective factors is relatively weak,thus being involved in natural language interaction is their most important learning style.Language classrooms feature participants co-constructing meaning in any talk-in-interaction,including two forms,student-student and teacher-student,which are critical for language learning.Over the past few decades,conversation analysis has become a prominent methodological approach to the study of classroom interaction.One impetus for the growing application of conversation analysis can be traced to the empirical need for understanding how participants do teaching and learning.However,most studies are concerned with older learners,particularly adults.Studies of primary or middle years are relatively scarce,though there are some in the Netherlands,Switzerland,and Scandinavia.To fill in the study gap of this field,the present research represents a tentative exploration of the features of teacher-student interaction in primary EFL classrooms from a micro-analysis perspective.To increase the richness of the data and to deeply analyze the question from various dimensions,comparison groups are used,which orient to reveal similarities and differences among three groups of teachers: three non-expert native English-speaking teachers,two expert Chinese teachers and four non-expert Chinese teachers.The nine teachers are from five primary schools in Shanghai.The data is extracted from the database collected by School of Foreign Languages of a university to study EFL teacher expertise in whole-class scaffolding.Videos of classroom teaching,personal information questionnaires and various artifacts are used for analysis.The data-driven study does not aim to generalize the issue but wishes to have an in-depth exploration of the question.The results indicate a number of common features teachers tend to display.First,concerning the teaching modes,which directly influence the characteristics of interaction,most teachers' classroom teaching takes on PPP(presentation-practice-production)models.For the meaning or form-focus of the three phases,an F-F-M pattern is preferred by most teachers,which means teachers focus on form in the first and second phase,and meaning in the last phase.The entire teacher-student interaction uses the IRF(initiation-response-feedback)as the basic interactive structural unit.The basic IRF structure appears frequently,and the extended IRF interactive structure appears less frequently.Teachers essentially determine the process of teaching,the beginning and end of interaction,and the direction of topics.The interaction is mainly at the teachers' discretion,and each teacher is slightly different on this basis.In addition,some unique features of certain groups are also uncovered.The distinguishing features of expert teachers are their attention to interactive meaning and the effective provision of supports to students.The salient features of foreign teachers are the flexibility of classroom activities,reflected in the arrangement of group activities,and the openness of teacher-student interaction,which can be shown in their irregular IRF exchanges.The research is theoretically,methodologically and practically significant.It has theoretically bridged a gap in the field of EFL teacher-student interaction features from a micro perspective.It is methodologically constructive when applying conversation analysis with young Chinese English learners and broadens its usage within teaching contexts.Practically,the findings about the uniqueness of certain groups of English teachers are expected to provide more comprehensive insights for EFL teacher training programs and be used as references for improving teachers' pedagogical skills.