Abstract

Teachers’ verbal feedback is regarded as an important aspect of the research field of SLA. It not only focuses on reflecting students’ level of master, but also is recognized as a major source for students’ language input.

Domestic studies about feedback started from 1980s. Most of them focus on university and high school English classroom. And comparative studies of experienced and pre-service teacher in the aspect of teachers’ verbal feedback are rare. By observing and recording 24 lessons given by the six teachers (including three pre-service teachers and three experienced teachers), their classroom verbal feedback were recorded for analysis. At the end of the study, the teachers were interviewed to give their points of view on classroom feedback.

Findings are as follows. Firstly, teachers have already paid more attention to feedback, especially to complex feedback. Simple feedback still dominates the English classroom. Secondly, all of the teachers try making their feedback various. Simple positive feedback, repetition are used more frequently than others. Encouragement with elicitation and encouragement are not paid enough attention. Thirdly, the amounts of single feedback are similar among six teachers; while the amounts of complex feedback are different (pre-service teachers use less complex feedback than experienced teachers).

According to these findings, there are also some useful suggestions to improve feedback of pre-service teachers：Firstly, teachers should improve their styles of feedback and use them flexibly. Secondly, teachers should pay more attention to learners’ learning psychology and try to use encouragement plus elicitation feedback more. Thirdly, teachers should reflect on their own verbal feedback.

Key words: verbal feedback; experienced teacher; pre-service teacher

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1.-Introduction-1

1.1-Research Background-1

1.2-Research Purpose and Significance-1

1.3-Structure of the Thesis-2

2.-Literature Review-3

2.1-Researches on Teacher Talk in China and Abroad-3

2.2-Types of Teacher Verbal Feedback-3

2.3-Researches on Teacher verbal feedback in China and Abroad-6

2.3.1 Researches on Teacher Verbal Feedback Abroad-6

2.3.2 Researches on Teacher Verbal Feedback in China-7

2.4 Comparative Studies on Experienced and Pre-service teacher-8

3.-Research Design-10

3.1-Research Questions-10

3.2-Subjects-10

3.3-Instruments-10

4.-The Result and Discussion of the Research-12

4.1-Analysis on Classroom Observation and Recording-12

4.2-Analysis on Teacher Interview-19

4.3-Major Findings-20

5.-Conclusion-22

References-23

Appendix-25