A Comparative Analysis On Teacher Discourse Between Expert And Novice Teachers In The English Classroom

As an essential way and medium of teachers' classroom teaching,teacher discourse has always been an important entry point of study on teachers' teaching ideas and methods for us researchers in education.Teachers' discourse plays a role that can not be ignored in disseminating knowledge and cultivating students' good learning habits.In China,the position of teacher discourse in the English class is particularly special.After all,teacher discourse is also a demonstration of target language.At present,there have been some comparative studies on the discourse of expert teachers and novice teachers in China.Most of these studies have focused on university or high school stage,while less attention has been paid to the study of compulsory stage.When comparing the discourse quantity of the two kinds of teachers,they have not taken into account the possible impact of different types of classes as well.There is less qualitative exploration of teacher discourse.Therefore,based on the teaching cases,the author has a comparative research on the discourse of expert teachers and novice teachers in English classes at junior middle schools.This thesis makes a comparative research on the discourse of the two kinds of English teachers from six dimensions.These dimensions include the quantity of teacher discourse in different types of lessons,the quantity of teacher discourse in the same type of lessons,the function distribution of teacher discourse,questioning in class,the standard level of teacher discourse and the use of mother tongue in class.Through the comparisons above,the author expects to learn about the discourse distinctions between the two kinds of English teachers,and attempts to give some teaching suggestions for novice teachers so that they can accelerate towards the ranks of expert teachers.By means of recording and transcription,classroom observation and interviews,the main findings are as follows:1.No matter expert teachers or novice teachers,they both have an idea on different types of English lessons and both of them try to adjust their own quantity of discourse according to different types of lessons.2.In the same type of lessons,there are still obvious differences on discourse quantity between the two kinds of teachers.On the whole,expert teachers have less discourse.3.In the same type of lessons,the ratios on the distribution of discourse functions between the two kinds of teachers are different as well.Expert teachers tend to interact with students,while novice teachers are more focused on explaining language knowledge.4.In the same type of lessons,there are differences on the frequency of questions and the choice of questioning types between the two kinds of teachers.The question frequency of expert teachers is lower,but the questions raised are more likely to lead students to use target language and take the initiative to think.5.No matter which kind of teachers,their standard level of discourse needs to be improved.Generally speaking,the standard level of the expert teacher is higher.6.For both kinds of teachers,there are differences on the quantity and occasions of the use of mother tongue.By comparison,expert teachers use less mother tongue.Novice teachers often use their mother tongue when they interpret vocabulary meanings and give classroom instructions.Expert teachers tend to use the mother tongue to ease the classroom atmosphere.Most of the previous studies are based on the relevant language teaching theory as the starting point,and lack the combination of specific teaching practice.The innovation of this thesis is rightly combining relative teaching theories with the actual situation of English teaching,that is,based on the different types of English lessons,comparatively analyzing the discourse distinctions between the two kinds of teachers.What's more,by means of data and examples,the classroom discourse differences on the qualitative level between the two kinds of teachers are shown clearly.Therefore,for novice teachers,the teaching suggestions that are finally given are more operational and easier to translate into teaching practice.