A Study On The Influence Of Teachers’ Verbal Feedback On Students’ Learning Motivation In Junior High School English Class

Learning motivation is a key factor influencing students’ learning,and teacher discourse is one of the most important factors influencing learning motivation.As an important part of teacher discourse,teachers’ feedback not only affects student’language input and output,but also promotes interaction and communication between teachers and students.At present,many scholars have done researches on teachers’ feedback and students’ learning motivation respectively,but there are relatively few studies that combine teachers’ feedback and learning motivation.Therefore,based on feedback intervention theory,Skinner’ s reinforcement theory and Swain’ s output theory,this research uses classroom observation,questionnaire and interview to investigate the effects of teachers’ verbal feedback on students’ English learning motivation in junior high school English class,so as to improve the quality of teacher discourse.This study intends to address three questions:(1)What is the current situation of the use of teachers’ classroom verbal feedback and learning motivation of students in junior high school English class?(2)What influence does different types of teachers’ verbal feedback have on learning motivation of students in junior high school English class?(3)What are students’ attitudes and preferences toward teachers’ classroom verbal feedback?The subjects of this research are 2 English teachers and 162 students in a middle school in Luoyang.Through analyzing collected data,following conclusions can be made: First,single-type feedback is used more frequently than mixed-type feedback in current English teaching of junior high school.In addition,students’ intrinsic motivation is stronger than extrinsic motivation in English learning on the whole.Second,results of correlation analysis shows that there is a significant and positive correlation between teachers’ verbal feedback and both students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.And the correlation between teachers’ verbal feedback and intrinsic motivation is higher.Specifically speaking,for intrinsic motivation,comment,restatement and repetition have medium correlation with it,and positive feedback,additional question,elicitation and clarification request have low correlation with it.Comment has the highest correlation with it.Expansion and direct correction has no correlation with it.For students’ extrinsic motivation,expansion,clarification request,direct correction,comment and restatement have weak and positive correlation with it.On the contrary,positive feedback,repetition,elicitation and additional question have no correlation with it.Expansion has the highest correlation with students’ extrinsic motivation among all the verbal feedback.Results of descriptive statistical analysis of the questionnaire shows that positive feedback,elicitation,expansion and clarification request are relatively welcomed forms of verbal feedback by students.Third,most students find teachers’ verbal feedback helpful and are satisfied with teacher’ s feedback,and students prefer positive feedback and detailed feedback.In addition,students agree that teachers should give different kinds of feedback according to students’ learning levels.Based on results of the study,some feasible suggestions are made for teachers in terms of using verbal feedback:(1)teachers should give appropriate feedback according to students’ motivation types and learning levels;(2)teachers should be proactive in understanding students’ needs for classroom verbal feedback;(3)teachers should enrich forms of classroom feedback;(4)teachers should choose the right time for verbal feedback;(5)teachers should test the effectiveness of classroom verbal feedback.