A Comparative Study Of Proficient And Novice Teachers’ Feedback In Junior High School English Classrooms

Teachers’feedback in this study refers to teachers’verbal responses to students’performance in class.It does not only help teachers check whether students have grasped the knowledge taught in class or how well they have completed the assigned tasks,but can also serve as a major source of comprehensible language input In other words,students can learn new knowledge from teachers’ feedback.It is essential to language acquisition.However,novice teachers are often unable to give appropriate feedback in junior high school English classes.Therefore,this study is to compare the feedback of proficient teachers and novice teachers so as to reveal the features of high-quality feedback,hoping to render some suggestions to teachers,who desire to improve the quality of their feedback in English classes.In this study,classroom observation and interviews are used to compare the feedback of three proficient teachers of junior English and three novice teachers of junior English from a nine-year consistent education school in Chengdu High-tech Zone.Four aspects of teachers’ feedback are compared in this study:quantity,type,language and the facilitation of students’ output.At the same time,a questionnaire is used to discover the preference of junior high school students for teachers’ feedback.Based on the findings,the features of high-quality feedback are revealed.The results show that the percentage of proficient teachers’ feedback in their total classroom discourse is significantly higher than that of novice teachers’.Proficient teachers’ feedback facilitates more output from students.Moreover,both proficient teachers and novice teachers prefer to use discoursal feedback and positive feedback,but proficient teachers’ positive feedback is mostly in the forms of explanation and expansion while that of novice teachers mainly praise and repetition.Besides,in correcting students’ errors proficient teachers often use elicitation and explicit correction whereas novice teachers use metalinguistic feedback and elicitation more often.Though there is no difference in the accuracy of proficient and novice teachers’language in giving feedback,proficient teachers’feedback is more goal-oriented and appropriate.Based on the differences in teachers’ feedback between proficient and novice teachers and students’preference for teachers’feedback,the features of high-quality feedback are concluded as following:high percentage of feedback in total teacher’s discourse;ability to facilitate students’ output;ability to facilitate interaction;positive feedback in the forms of interpretation and expansion;discreet use of negative feedback;accurate,appropriate and goal-oriented instructions.Based on the present findings and conclusions,some implications and suggestions concerning ways to improve feedback quality before,during and after class are put forward.It is hoped that this study can be of any value to the promotion of teachers’feedback quality in junior high school English classrooms.