A Study On English Teachers' Classroom Instructions In Elementary Schools

In China, English is taught as a foreign language, and for foreign language learners, classroom is the place where they are frequently exposed to the target language. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the quality and effectiveness of teacher talk. Teacher instruction is the language that teachers adopt to organize classroom teaching and explain the contents and procedures of an activity. In task-based English classroom of young learners, teacher instructions are particularly important. The present study is an empirical study on teacher instruction, which is an important component of teacher talk, in elementary classrooms of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The results from previous studies have demonstrated that giving instructions in English is definitely a chance to encourage the use of the target language in the real classroom context. If teachers issue adequate and appropriate classroom instructions, students can involve themselves more actively in the activities. However, in EFL classrooms of young learners, there are many invalid teacher instructions, which make students confused in the process of completing the tasks. So how to combine language with various realia as well as body language to make teacher instructions effective is an issue worthy of study.Three questions are raised in the present study: (1) What are the linguistic features of teacher instructions in terms of lexis, syntax and discourse in the EFL classrooms of elementary schools? (2) What measures should be taken by teachers of young learners to give effective instructions? (3) Which factors lead to teachers' ineffective instructions?Observation and interview are used in the present study to collect data. By observation and note-taking, the author has made an analysis of 16 EFL classes in elementary schools.It has been found that at the level of lexis, teachers of young learners always use some imperative verbs and fixed sentence structures to direct the students' behavior; at the level of syntax, simple sentences are frequently adopted by teachers; at the level of discourse, teachers use a lot of discourse markers to give instructions. After giving instructions, some fixed terms are used to check the students' understanding.In addition, factors that contribute to ineffective instructions and measures to give effective instructions are discussed. At the end of the thesis, implications and limitations of the research and suggestions for future studies are presented.