TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ……………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………….01 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ………………………………………………. 04 LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………… 05 LIST OF CHARTS ……………………………………………………………. Background of the research ………………………………………………. Significance of the research ……………………………………………….
Structure of the research ………………………………………………….13 CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW …………………………………. English language teaching in high schools in Vietnam ……………………15 2. The English Language ……………………………………………………. Approaches to analysing classroom discourse in EFL classes …………….
The discourse units of a classroom lesson …………………………………18 2. The hierarchy of discourse units of a classroom lesson ……………………. The definitions, classes, functions, and structures of moves ………………22 2. The definitions of moves ……………………………………………….
The definitions of teacher moves ……………………………………. The classes of moves ………………………………………………………. The functions and structures of moves ……………………………………. The review of some main research into classroom discourse …………….34 CHAPTER 4 : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION …………………………35 4.
The classes of teacher moves occurring most frequently in the high school EFL classes ………………………………………………. The dominant structures of the teacher moves …………. Teacher framing move ……………………………………………………. Teacher focusing move …………………………………………………….
Teacher opening move ……………………………………………………. Teacher answering move …………………………………………………. Teacher follow-up move …………………………………………………. Dominant teacher move structures …………………………………………48 4.
Speech acts performed in each kind of the teacher moves ………………. Teacher framing move ……………………………………………………. Teacher focusing move ……………………………………………………. Teacher opening move …………………………………………………….
Teacher answering move …………………………………………………. Teacher follow-up move …………………………………………………. Speech acts appearing in high frequencies in the teacher moves …………. Summary of the findings ………………………………………………….
Limitations of the study ……………………………………………………67 5.69 APPENDICES Appendix 1 : The classes of speech acts Appendix 2 : Classroom Observation Sheet Appendix 3 : Transcripts 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DA : Discourse Analysis EFL : English as a Foreign Language IRF : Initiation – Response – Feedback PTP : Pupil-Teacher-Pupil TPT : Teacher- Pupil- Teacher T : teacher S : student Ss : students q : qualifier pre-h : pre-head h : head post-h : post-head s : signal sel : select 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 : The hierarchy of discourse units of a classroom lesson Table 2 : The structure of a transaction Table 3 : The structure of a boundary exchange Table 4 : The structure of a teaching exchange Table 5 : The move classification, the move structures, and the speech acts that make up moves Table 6 : The structures of teacher focusing moves Table 7 : The structures of teacher opening moves Table 8 : The structures of teacher follow-up moves Table 9 : The percentage of the dominant structures of teacher moves Table 10 : The speech acts in teacher focusing moves Table 11 : The speech acts in teacher opening moves Table 12 : The speech acts in teacher answering moves Table 13 : The speech acts appearing in high frequencies in the teacher moves. 5 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1 : Frequency distribution of teacher move classes Chart 2 : The structures of teacher framing moves Chart 3 : The structures of teacher answering moves Chart 4 : The speech acts in teacher framing moves Chart 5 : The speech acts in teacher follow-up moves 6 ABSTRACT This study looks at the teacher move in EFL classroom discourse in Nguyen Sinh Cung High School, Thua Thien Hue Province. It focuses on teacher move classes, teacher move structures and speech acts performed in the teacher move. The subjects of this study are ten lessons of EFL classes performed by the teachers of English in Nguyen Sinh Cung High School.
The analysis of the data collected by a recorder and classroom observations are based on the analysis system of classroom discourse set out by Coulthard (1992). The results of this study indicate that : - There exist five teacher move classes in the ten EFL lessons, and most of the teacher moves are opening and follow-up ones. - Most of the teacher moves contain simple structures that are created by one or two elements only, and the element, head (h), occurs most frequently in the teacher move structures. - There are nineteen types of speech acts appearing in the teacher moves, and some of them are very dominant.
Through the research findings, some implications for teachers to improve their EFL teaching in high schools are drawn. 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In this chapter, firstly the background and the rationale of the research are mentioned. Secondly, the research aims and the research scope are presented. Thirdly, this chapter also tells you the research questions that will be answered in Chapter 4 of the research.
Finally, it provides us with some useful information about the significance and the structure of the research. BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH Interaction is regarded as being central to language acquisition, especially the interaction which occurs between teachers and learners ( Ellis, 1998). The quality of the interaction is largely determined by teachers in their face to face communication with learners (Walsh, 2006, p. According to Walsh (2006), maximizing interaction is not as important as optimizing it, and it is therefore the teacher‟s ability to manage learner contributions which will determine the success of a lesson rather than simply „handing over‟ to a group of learners by emphasizing pair- and group-work.
Therefore, successful teaching stems from successful management of the interaction (Allwright, 1984a, p.159) and the teacher, with his/her special role, understands, establishes and maintains patterns of communication that will foster classroom language learning ( Johnson, 1995 ). There is clearly considerable emphasis here on the role of the teacher, the more „competent interlocutor‟, who is crucial to ensuring that input is comprehensible and that learner output is shaped in some way so that it is productive (Walsh, 2006, p. Thus, there is a need to consider the interaction that occurs between teachers and learners. For this purpose, it is essential for EFL teachers to get an understanding of the features of classroom discourse, which help them to establish and maintain good language interaction with their students in EFL classes.
The features of EFL classroom discourse may be easy to identify, and they present a 8 very clear structure where the teachers control both the topic of conversation and turn-taking and the students receive their cues from the teachers through whom they direct most of their responses (Walsh, 2006). Furthermore, in response to the communication tendency in language teaching, there has been an increasing interest in studying the language interaction inside the classroom since the late 1940‟s. As said above, the classroom language is one of the very important factors helping teachers to be successful in their lectures, especially foreign language teachers. Therefore, there has been a lot of research into classroom language evaluating the output of the teachers and the students, the procedures in classrooms, and types of teacher-student relationship in order to raise the quality of teaching.
Classroom discourse analysis is a beneficial tool to evaluate approaches to language classrooms and explore new application in language teaching ( Jaworski & Coupland, 1999; Schiffrin, 1999). According to Sinclair and Coulthard ( 1975, 1992 ), there is a model for the analysis of spoken interaction which is very useful for describing talk in the classroom. It consists of five units arranged from the largest to the smallest : Lesson Transaction Exchange Move Act This model is a hierarchical structure where smaller units combine to form larger ones. Sinclair and Coulthard ( 1975, 1992 ) and Mehan (1979) identified a basic structure of classroom discourse, the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) exchange structure which often consists of three moves.
The teacher begins with an initiation (opening move), the learner responds (answering move), the teacher gives feedback to the learner‟s response (follow-up move). However, in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes today students may often ask teachers questions (opening move) and teachers give them answers (answering move). It means that an answering move may be produced by teachers. The fourth unit MOVE, a functional unit in classroom discourse, may be produced by teachers or students.
This research focuses mainly on the moves produced by teachers, the teacher moves. RATIONALE According to Brown (1994), the current communication tendency in teaching and learning languages requires that the teachers only take roles as guides and learners have to try their best to deal with the problems in a lesson, not that learners only listen to their teachers and little interaction appears in the class. As a result, the interaction between teachers and learners in classes is increasing. In addition, teachers control most of the patterns of communication primarily through the ways in which they restrict or allow learners‟ interaction, take control of the topic, and facilitate or hinder learning opportunities (Walsh, 2006, p.
For example, in the extract below, the teacher selects who may talk (turn 1), controls the topic of conversation (turn 1), evaluates the learner‟s performance (turns 3,5,7), manages both the language form and the message (turn 5), and selects another speaker (turn 7). Teacher (T), Student (S) 1 T ok Erica could you explain something about law and order in Japan what happens if you commit a crime ? 2 S1 almost same as Britain policeman come to take somebody to police station 3 T yes 4 S1 and prisoner questioned and if he is ( 5 seconds unintelligible) 5 T yes what‟s the verb Eric Erica … if she or he yes [ commits a crime ] they go to 6 S1 they go to court yes but if they he they didn‟t do that they can go home 7 T they can go home (…) very good indeed right what happens in Brazil (Walsh, 2006, p.7) As a result, there is really a challenge for EFL teachers in how they take part in the classroom discourse, establish and maintain the patterns of communication in order to gain positive influences on their teaching. For instance, the communicative approach of teaching shows that teachers should help students to take long turns and take part in conversations in classroom, especially students who need interactive 10 discourse. It is very clear that a lesson will be more engaging and easy for students to understand if teachers use these words now, then, right, all right, thanks, good, excellent, and so on in classroom discourse.
Therefore, it is very necessary for teachers to be aware of the language they use in their classroom, their classroom discourse. And the most important thing they have to do to gain the awareness is to obtain a reflective understanding of the structure of their classroom language in order to increase the teaching quality, especially for the EFL teachers. This research topic has been chosen with the hope that it will supply some useful information about the teacher moves in the EFL classes in high school through which we will be able to draw some implications for English language teaching in high school. As a result, this research paper will partially help to improve the English teaching quality in high school.
RESEARCH AIMS The aim of this research is to help English teachers understand the structure of their classroom language in order to evaluate their language output to improve their English language teaching. As mentioned above, most of the language interaction in EFL classes is initiated, managed and sustained by teachers who have prime responsibility for the positive influences of the language interaction between teachers and students on language teaching and learning. According to Rymes (2008), when teachers analyze the classroom discourse and understand its features, academic achievement improves. This research is especially useful for the teachers who use the communicative approach in teaching English.
It focuses on the teacher moves in EFL class. The findings on the classes of teacher moves frequently occurring in EFL classes, the dominant structures of teacher moves and the speech acts performed in each kind of teacher moves will be a source of reference for teachers‟ reflection on their own teaching. First of all, this research focuses specifically on classes of teacher moves to help teachers to learn which initiates and obtains more teacher-student interaction.