A Case Study Of Cohesives In Classroom Discourse Of Junior High School English Teachers

Classroom discourse of English teachers is not only the main source of language input for students,but also an important means for teachers to regulate students' classroom behavior.However,in practical teaching,many junior middle school English teachers do not pay enough attention to the discourse coherence between teaching activities and each teaching steps,which makes the whole class lack of consistency.Therefore,in order to improve teaching effect and give full play to the regulating role of classroom discourse,this study adopts qualitative research method to analyze the transferred materials of ten teachers' classroom videos from high-quality class based on the cohesion theory.From the aspects of words and sentence structures with the aid of the Nvivo11,this paper aims to discuss the following research questions:1.What types of discourse coherence are used by junior middle school English teachers in teaching activities? What are their functions?2.What types of discourse coherence are used by junior middle school English teachers in different teaching steps? What are their functions?3.What are the characteristics of the usage of discourse coherence of English teachers in junior middle school? What's the problem?Three types of discourse coherence are found to be used in discourse coherence of English teachers' classroom discourse in general: question-answer,answer-answer and statement.Among teaching activities,the main types of discourse coherence are referential,restated,illustrative and general,in which the referential type plays the function of thinking-promoting and learning-prompting.The restated type plays the function of thinking-prompting,learning-promoting and summing-up.The illustrative type plays the function of thinking-prompting,learning-promoting,summing up,emotion and evaluation function.The example type mainly plays the function of thinking-promoting and learning-promoting.And the general type mainly plays the function of thinking-promoting,learning-prompting and summing up.And straight-forward,heuristic,moderate,advocacy,interesting-stimulating,hopeful,obligation,licensory,capable,and summary types are found to be used between teaching steps,among which the question-answer type includes the ability,the heuristic and the interesting-stimulating type;the answer-answer type includes the moderate type;the statement type includes the hope,the straight-forward,the advocacy,the obligation,the permission,the summary and the plan type.Of the above discourse coherence types,the ability type plays the function of thinking-promoting and learning-promoting.The heuristic type plays the function of thinking-promoting and learning-promoting.The interesting-stimulating type plays thefunction of learning-promoting and emotion.The moderate type plays the function of emotion and learning-promoting.The hope type plays the function of learning-promoting and emotion.,The straight-forward type plays the function of learning-promoting,the advocacy type plays the function of emotion,learning-prompting and thinking-prompting,the obligation type plays the function of learning-prompting,the permission type plays the function of emotion and learning-prompting,the summary type plays the function of summary,learning-prompting and thinking-prompting.And the plan type plays the function of learning-prompting.The following characteristics in discourse coherence of excellent English teachers are found in this study:(1)Topic guidance.(2)The problem-oriented.(3)Pay attention to the students.(4)Diversification of sentence structure.(5)Be good at building knowledge “ bridge ”.This study also found the discourse markers of excellent English teachers and their evaluation after completing activities,as well as restatement,question,explanation and summary played a cohesive role.In addition,excellent usage of discourse coherence in junior middle school English teachers' classroom discourse are based on excellent teaching design.And clear teaching thread and topic traction are found in their discourse coherence.Besides,great attention is paid to the relationship between existing knowledge and experience in new knowledge learning.However,not all of the discourse coherence in the classroom discourse of the excellent English teachers concerned about both the form and meaning.Some problems exist in the use of discourse coherence of the excellent teachers.The following problems are found in their discourse coherence:(1)Teacher-centred phenomenon exists in excellent English teachers' discourse coherence.(2)There is a simple duplication of discourse coherence.(3)There is an imbalance usage of discourse coherence in quantity.Therefore,in order to make classroom discourse of junior middle school English teachers being properly used,this study suggests that novice English teachers presuppose the usage of discourse coherence,pay attention to the leading role of topic and teaching line,balance the usage of discourse coherence and variate sentence patterns of their discourse coherence to avoid simple repetition in order to better the input and create a good language environment for students as well as make the classroom discourse of English teachers being properly used.Thus English teachers should optimize the design of discourse coherence so as to create a good language environment for students to learn.