初中优秀英语教师课堂有效指令语的特征研究
Chapter 1 Introduction
Background of the Present Study
Classroom talk has been gradually attached great importance
to foreignlanguage teaching in our country. Classroom talk is a
very broad concept, whichcontains teacher talk, student talk,
interactive talk between teacher and student, andeven classroom
chat (Liu , 2009). Therefore, the research on
classroomtalk is not only one of the most important area of
educational research, but alsoimportant in the area of
linguistics and SLA study. In SLA study, classroom talkprocesses
three pragmatic functions (Hall & Walsh, 2002): linguistic,
intermediateand procedural and regulative features. There are
the most studies in our country onthe first function of
classroom talk, mainly on the comprehensible language input
andoutput. However, these analyses basically stay on the amount
of talk, but it is difficultto judge whether the talk output is
comprehensible or not. Besides, there are fewstudies on the
specific linguistic features (phonetic, lexical, grammatical,
etc.).Meanwhile, domestic studies also pay full attention to the
second function—meaningnegotiation and knowledge construction—
of classroom talk, but seem uninterested inthe procedural and
regulative functions of classroom talk, which is, however, to a
large extent, the precondition for the construction and study on
subject knowledge,and the development of language skills.
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Purpose of the Study
On the basis of the above background, this study tries to
probe the commonfeatures of effective directives given by
distinguished junior meddle school Englishteachers. A special
group—distinguished teachers will be selected to see whether
thedirectives of the teacher from this group will have some
special , this will not become a
comparative research, for the focus is put ondirectives’ common
features. Moreover, some effective suggestions which are
inaccordance with teaching and communicative rules will be
provided for teachers onselecting and using their own
the aid of video transcription, the general
survey of actual use ofdistinguished teachers’ directives will
be done and the following points will be discussed in this
thesis:
(1) The common linguistic features of these teachers’
directives which include:phonetic, lexical, syntax and
discourse.
(2) The factors which contribute to some
teachers’ineffective directives.
(3) The way in which these teachers guarantee their
effective directives.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
Directives
This part is concerning about definitions and explanations
on teacher directives,including its definitions, forms and
functions. Before teacher directive is furtherresearched, what
exactly it is and how to identify it should be understood. In
this way,teacher directives can be accurately spotted from the
video provided. When defining the term directive, some
substitutions can be found in differentliterature reviews. In
addition to directive, researchers will use terms like
instruction,direction, or instructional directives as the same
reference. Before the definitions aregiven, one point should be
put forward. —There are two expressing channels ofdirective:
written directive and oral directive, but this thesis will focus
on the latterone, which emphasizes the action that directs
someone to do (1992) in Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching & AppliedLinguistics, defines directive as “a
speech act that has the function of getting the listener to do
something, such as a suggestion, a request and a command”. From
theperspective of Speech Act Theory, Austin (2002) and Searle
(2002) defines directiveas the speaker’s speech act asking the
listener to do something. Directives usuallyrepresent commands,
requests, and suggestions with forms as statements
andimperatives, etc. Similar to Austin and Searle, Bussman
(1996) proposes that adirective is a speech act with the purpose
for causing the listener to undertake aspecific activity.
Besides, with regard to Tsui’s (1994) research, “A directive
is usuallygiven by a person who has the right to get the
addressee to complete. This right isusually due to the power or
authority that he has over the latter, but not the
necessarilyso.” This could mean that teacher directive is from
a person who has the right to getthe listener to do some
activity, and this person is just the teacher who has
superiorpower over the students.
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Related Theories
This section gives a brief introduction on the theoretical
perspectives of thestudy on teacher directives. In this section,
three main related theories are involved—Speech Act Theory,
Mediation, and Comprehensible Input. Speech Act Theory is
thebasis on which sentences of directive will be described and
analyzed, and the othertwo theories provide theoretical support
on the significance of teacher directive itselfand imply the
necessity of the study in this paper. Speech act theory
originates from Austin’s (2002) observation that language
isalso “performing” some certain actions. According to speech
act theory, a speaker canperform three related acts when he is
producing an utterance: a locutionary, anillocutionary and a
perlocutionary act. Locutionary act is “the act of
sayingsomething”, and “perform a locutionary act is
general…to perform an illocutionaryact”, such as “asking or
answering a question”. A perlocutionary act can be describedas
“the bringing about of effects by means of uttering the
sentence, such effects beingspecial to the circumstances of
utterance.” However, when classifies three kinds ofspeech acts,
Austin shows a little self-contradiction. For example, he thinks
thatillocutionary act is the most important and regards it as
the central part ofunderstanding and grasping speech acts, while
comparably, the other two kinds seemsnot so important.
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Chapter 3 Methodology.....27
Research Questions.....28
Data Source.......29
Subjects and Setting....30
Procedures....31
Data Collection and Analysis.....32
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion....32
Results.......33
Discussion......42
Analysis of Teacher Directive in Linguistic
Perspective........42
Realization of Giving Effective Directives........46
Summary........52
Chapter 5 Conclusion.........53
Major Findings.........53
Pedagogical Implications........55
Limitations of the Study.....56
Suggestions for Further Researches.......57
Chapter 5 Conclusion
Major Findings
This study has made an attempt to describe and explore the
characteristics ofeffective directives of distinguished teachers
in junior middle school Englishclassroom. Through the
investigation, a general picture of the usage of
teacherdirectives has been clearly presented. This research has
talked about the definitions,forms and functions, and effective
directives, and in the process of data analysis, aqualitative
study approach has been adopted. Besides the language features
ofdirectives, measures to give effective directives have been
given out by analyzingsome typical cases. From data analysis and
discussion, the characteristics aresummarized in the following.
On phonetic features, teachers incline to speak slower and
emphasize keywords when giving directives for specific tasks, in
order to follow up students’reaction. These directives are
often long, complex, and not easy to understand. In aword, their
pronunciation, intonation and speech rate are adjusted according
to the teaching contents and the students’reaction.
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Conclusion
In terms of the limitations of this study that has been
stated above, somesuggestions are given for further researchers
who will study in this area and teacherswho need to optimize
their directives by doing research on their own or others’ use
, more samples should be collected after
more scientific -sectional studies and
longitudinal studies should be both adopted which meansnot only
many teachers should be involved, large amount of class samples
of eachteacher should be , to make the
further research more accurate, comparison amongdifferent grades
and relative analysis on class types should be , it
is better if corpus and text analysis are combined, in order to
makethe classifications of directives more , more
analysis on representative excerpts that contain
enlightenmentshould be provided.
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References (omitted)
