The Effectiveness Of Interactional Modifications By Teachers Of Chinese As A Second Language: A Code-switching Perspective

This dissertation investigates the effectiveness of different types of interactional modifications (IM) from the perspective of code-switching (CS) in the natural classroom of teaching Chinese as a second language (TCSL). A great number of studies have been carried out to explore which type of IM is most beneficial to L2acquisition. Even so, research gaps still remain in this scope:1) It is a controversy over the most beneficial modification to language acquisition;2) The classifications and functions of interactional modifications are not fully studied;3) Most of the studies are experiments conducted in laboratory rather than qualitative studies in the natural classroom, and the effect of IM is mostly tested by post-test in which the linguistic items involved are mostly simple.Based on these, the present study focuses the following questions which explore the contributions of interactional modifications to teaching Chinese as a second language:1) What are the main different types of te interactional modifications when teachers code-switch in teaching Chinese as a second language?2) What is the distribution of IM and which type of IM is most beneficial to Chinese teaching? And what are the possible influencing factors?3) What roles do interactional modifications play in TCSL?An empirical study is therefore designed to explore these questions through a quantitative and qualitative mixing method in a three-teacher case study. Conversation analysis, a data-driven and bottom-up method, is employed. Classroom observation, statistic data and semi-structure interviews are triangulated to achieve the true findings.The results show that1) IM plays a critical role in comprehension and output;2) The amount of IM varies according to the different teachers and the effectiveness of different types of IM varies in the teaching of vocabulary, syntax and conversation; Repetition in two languages and code-switching paraphrase are two most beneficial interactional modifications in the teaching of vocabulary and conversation;3) The successful interactional modifications results from teachers’reformulating their discourse with simple metalanguage, i.e. code-alternation repetition, and code-mixing paraphrase;4) The findings also demonstrate that IM is sometime not effective in TCSL. Redundancy of modifications is not good way to move away learners’ non-understanding;5) The functions of IM are:metalanguage function, syntactic function, cognitive function, intercultural communication function, pragmatic function, cultural transmission function, organizing function, and metacognitive function.The present study provides a fine-grained picture of interactional modifications by code-switching within the framework of interaction theory in the natural multilingual and intercultural classroom setting. The major theoretical contribution of this study is the following:Firstly, it offers a new perspective on classifications of IM, namely, repetition in the other language, paraphrase, recast, elicitation, metalanguage expression. At the same time, the term’code-switching’is redefined both as the practice of shifting between the target language and the medium language back and forth, and as strategy for interactional modifications during the teacher-leaner interaction in the natural classroom of multilingual and intercultural setting, which broadens the research perspective of code-switching in pedagogical field. Secondly, it analyzes the roles of IM in different aspects, i.e. linguistic function, cognitive function, socio-cultural function, and managerial function.The pedagogical implication is that preemptive focus on form should be adopted by teachers of Chinese as a second language in the beginners’Chinese level especially when the international students are in the troubles of linguistic understanding in the negotiation of meaning.