Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1Background 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 Yongbing.al, 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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1.2Purpose 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 implications.Nevertheless, 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 directives.With 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
2.1 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 something.Richards (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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2.2 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
3.1 Research Questions.....28
3.2 Data Source.......29
3.3 Subjects and Setting....30
3.4 Procedures....31
3.5 Data Collection and Analysis.....32
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion....32
4.1 Results.......33
4.2 Discussion......42
4.2.1 Analysis of Teacher Directive in Linguistic Perspective........42
4.2.2 Realization of Giving Effective Directives........46
4.3 Summary........52
Chapter 5 Conclusion.........53
5.1 Major Findings.........53
5.2 Pedagogical Implications........55
5.3 Limitations of the Study.....56
5.4 Suggestions for Further Researches.......57
Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 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 ofdirectives.Firstly, more samples should be collected after more scientific evaluation.Cross-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 followed-up.Secondly, to make the further research more accurate, comparison amongdifferent grades and relative analysis on class types should be made.Thirdly, it is better if corpus and text analysis are combined, in order to makethe classifications of directives more delicate.Lastly, more analysis on representative excerpts that contain enlightenmentshould be provided.
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References (omitted)