The Analysis Of English Student Teachers’ Use Of Discourse Markers In English Language Teaching

Teachers’ discourse plays an important role in students’ learning of English.As an inevitable element of teachers’ discourse,discourse markers have some influences on students’ learning and teachers’ teaching.There is a large amount of research on teachers’ discourse markers.However,there is little research on the student teachers’ use of discourse markers,especially those who are not from normal universities or colleges.This research selects five students from Shanghai International Studies University as research participants.The analysis includes their features and beliefs of using discourse markers in student teaching.In addition,the main factors which influence their use of discourse markers are also analyzed in this research.This is a qualitative research and makes use of classroom observation and interview as the major research methods,while questionnaire as the auxiliary tool to collect data.During the process of organizing and analyzing data,the author makes use of Microsoft Office Word 2013.There are three major findings in this research.First,the distribution of student teachers’ use of Chinese and English discourse markers are generally balanced.Student teachers’ most frequently-used discourse markers are textual markers,which are used to express the relations of transition,conclusion and so on.Then,the second frequently-used ones are silence filers,such as “eh”,which do not have definite meanings.They are just used to make student teachers’ expressions more fluent.The least frequently-used markers are interpersonal markers.They are used in communication between student teachers and their students.Second,this research gives a detailed analysis of student teachers’ beliefs or understanding of using discourse markers in teaching.There exists a gap between student teachers’ awareness of the importance of discourse markers and their students’ opinions.Student teachers have underestimated the importance of using discourse markers in teaching to their students.Finally,the author analyzes the factors influencing student teachers’ use of discourse markers from three aspects,the personal factors,their awareness of the importance of discourse markers and the teaching purposes.Despite the limitations of this research,the research provides some implications and recommendations for further study.