The Research On Expert English Teachers’ Classroom Teacher-students Interaction In Primary School

This study is undertaken to investigate the overall level of classroom teacher-students interaction of expert English teachers in primary school and how expert teachers interact with students effectively.The theoretical foundations are constructivism learning theory and Long’s interaction hypothesis.The significance of this study is to summarize the effective strategies adopted by expert teachers,so as to improve classroom teacher-students interaction in primary school and advance the efficiency of English teaching.Research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:1.What is the overall level of classroom teacher-students interaction of expert primary school English teachers?2.What are the characteristics of classroom teacher-students interaction of expert primary school English teachers?(1)What are the characteristics of classroom teacher-students interaction of expert primary school English teachers in pre-learning?(2)What are the characteristics of classroom teacher-students interaction of expert primary school English teachers in while-learning?(3)What are the characteristics of classroom teacher-students interaction of expert primary school English teachers in post-learning?Participants are two expert primary school English teachers with different teaching styles.The main instruments are classroom observation and interview.Data collection and analysis include four steps.The first step is classroom observation.Classroom Assessment Scoring System(CLASS)designed by Pianta,La Paro and Hamre(2008)is adopted to observe,record and evaluate the eight teaching videos(observation and log sheet in Appendix Ⅲ).CLASS is composed of Emotional Support(including Positive Climate,Negative Climate,Teacher Sensitivity and Regard for Student Perspectives),Classroom Organization(including Behavior Management,Productivity and Instructional Learning Formats)and Instructional Support(including Concept Development,Quality of Feedback and Language Modeling).The second step is email interviews.Two expert teachers are interviewed by email.The third step is videos transcription.Three worthwhile teaching segments of each teacher which are selected on the basis of pre-learning,while-learning and post-learning are transcribed.The fourth step is data analysis.Score data are analyzed by Excel and teaching segments are analyzed with reference to three domains and ten dimensions of CLASS.The major findings are shown as following:On the one hand,from three major domains,the classroom teacher-students interaction of expert teachers is at a high level as a whole.Obviously,the two teachers provide positive emotional atmosphere,effective classroom organization and sufficient instructional support for students.In Emotional Support,the score of TA(Expert teacher A)is slightly lower than that of TB(Expert teacher B)(MTA=6.688,MTB=6.75).In terms of Classroom Organization and Instructional Support,TA and TB have the same scores(MTA=MTB=6.916;MTA=MTB=6.583).As regards ten small dimensions,the classroom teacher-students interaction of the expert teachers is also at a high level in general.As for Teacher Sensitivity and Language Modeling,the scores of TA are slightly higher than those of TB(MTA=6.75,MTB=6.5;MTA=6.5,MTB=6.25).However,as to Regard for Student Perspectives and Concept Development,the scores of TB are slightly higher than those of TA(MTA=6,MTB=6.5;MTA=6.75.MTB=7).With regard to Positive Climate,Negative Climate.Behavior Management,Productivity.Instructional Learning Formats and Quality of Feedback,the two expert teachers gain the same scores.On the other hand,the two expert teachers have similarities and differences in classroom teacher-students interaction in different teaching stages.In pre-learning,the two teachers emphasize Emotional Support.They are close to students all the time.They also adhere to the principle of student-centered teaching.TA tends to set up these activities that contain playing Simon Says game and singing various English songs related to the text with body language to arouse students’ interest.Meanwhile,he is accustomed to interacting with students with exaggerated performance and imitating how foreigners speak Chinese for entertaining learning atmosphere.TB combines open-ended questions with personal experience,which can stimulate students to explore out of curiosity.She always uses soft voice and expected eyes to make students feel comfortable and relaxed.In while-learning,the two teachers highlight Classroom Organization.Whether group discussions or listening exercises,the two teachers walk around to monitor the students’ learning situation and offer help timely.They usually help students master the main idea of the text through listening exercises and group discussion.TA creates an incentive mechanism that stresses the importance of expression regardless of the number of words.TB focuses on developing students’learning strategies through multi-level listening training in which students use their ears to listen firstly,and then take notes to grasp detailed information,and discuss with their groups finally.In this training,students gradually internalize them into their own learning strategies.In post-learning,the two teachers underline Instructional Support.They insist that the effective input of language can contribute to effective output only if students internalize it.The most important point is to create effective and specific teaching situation.They always present some examples to help students make their own dialogues more easily.They also participate in students’ discussions and let students express their ideas freely and confidently through continuous and deeper questions.This study provides some implications for English teaching.Firstly,in pre-learning,Emotional Support should be accented.To create positive teaching atmosphere and stimulate students’ enthusiasm,teachers should care about students,respect students,employ activities related to teaching contents like playing games,singing English songs and so on.Secondly,in while-learning,Classroom Organization should be highlighted.Teachers should make full preparation,adopt diversified teaching activities,present explicit behavior expectation,adjust the bad behaviors timely and effectively,and change the teaching process based on students’learning situation,which are beneficial to the improvement of classroom organization and the high realization of teaching objectives.In addition,in post-learning,Instructional Support should be underlined.Teachers should use multi-element feedback modes,create specific situation,and provide instructional support so as to foster students’ independent thinking and advance the development of comprehensive thinking skills.However,there are some limitations in this study.First,the study mainly relies on CLASS to evaluate teacher-students interaction in the classroom.Second,the sample is small.Third,interaction which is a complicated process is mainly analyzed from teachers’ viewpoints.