A Case Study Of English Classroom Interaction In Chinese Senior High School

With the deep reform of foreign language education,the college entrance examination emphasizes the practical application of language,which demands teachers to create a good learning environment and increase the chances for practicing English.What's more,teachers are required to change the traditional teacher-centered classroom into student-centered in order to improve the students' overall English level.In 1950 s,classroom interaction aroused western scholars' attention.And in China the English Teaching circle is doing more researches in the field of classroom interaction for recent decades.Many studies have shown that classroom interaction is good for improving the effectiveness of English teaching.Besides,classroom interaction can provide learners for the chances of independent communication,as well as language knowledge,so teachers should pay attention to design appropriate classroom interaction in class.(Allwright 1984: 156)Furthermore,effective classroom interaction is the inevitable requirement for realizing the effective teaching.However,in the real English class,the interactive teaching still exists some deficiencies which need further research and resolution.Consequently,the author conducts a case study in one middle school in Zhangzhou.This research chooses three English teachers and 133 students from senior grade as subjects,collecting date of classroom videos and questionnaires,aiming to know the current situation of classroom interaction of senior high school.By comparing teachers' opinions and design concepts of classroom interaction with real class,the research aims at inspecting if teachers' interaction concepts are consistent with their real classes.The research also compares students' expectation of classroom interaction and classroom interaction effect with real classes.Combining class videos with teachers' and students' questionnaires,the author tries to find out the influential factors on classroom interaction,including teacher factors and student factors in order to encourage English teachers to realize the importance of classroom interaction,so that they can improve their teaching method and the quality of classroom interaction in senior high school,and to some extent enrich the field of studying classroom interaction.After studying,this paper finds out that:(i)Classroom interaction focuses on asking inferential questions,and the whole class give answers or the roll call.(ii)Classroom interaction is frequent,but single in form.Teachers mainly use question-answer mode to interact with the whole class or individual student,so that students' participation is limited.(iii)Teachers' opinions for classroom interaction are reflected in their real classes,but their design concepts are not totally seen in the interactions.Students hope to increase their test scores but not cultivate the ability of using English by classroom interaction,so they are not so active to take part in classroom interaction activity,they only receive a better understanding of the texts through interaction.(iv)There are mainly three factors which influence classroom interaction,namely,teachers' cognition of students' diversity,teachers' ability of designing classroom interaction and their personality.(v)Three major factors from students have great impact on classroom interaction,namely,the relationship between the teacher and students,students' interest in interaction and their traditional concept of increasing grades.