A Research On English Teachers’ Classroom Corrective Feedback In Senior High School Based On Initiation-Response-Feedback(IRF) Model

In recent years,teachers’ discourse in the English classroom has received extensive attention.Teachers’ questions,feedback and other teaching discourse in class have an important impact on learners’ language learning.As a kind of teacher’s classroom discourse,corrective feedback has been studied a lot at home and abroad in terms of type,function and influence.However,based on the Initiation-Response-Feedback(also named IRF discourse analysis model),the investigation on the current situation of teacher’s classroom corrective feedback is not comprehensive enough.As an effective tool of teacher’s discourse analysis,IRF discourse analysis model is of great significance for analyzing the effectiveness of classroom dialogue.It divides classroom discourse into teacher’s initiation,student’s response and teacher’s feedback,also known as ternary discourse move.The research on teacher’s feedback in this framework is of great practical significance for promoting teachers’ teaching.Therefore this study is based on the IRF model,adopts the method of combining quantitative and qualitative.Taking a middle school in Chengdu of Sichuan province as an example,three months’ classroom teaching of three English teachers in grade one was observed and transcribed.The three teachers were interviewed,and 10 students were randomly selected for interviews to know their attitudes towards teachers’ corrective feedback in class.The differences between teachers and students’ attitudes towards corrective feedback in class were further compared by questionnaires.The following issues are mainly studied:1.What is the current situation of teachers’ corrective feedback in different English proficiency classes?2.What types of corrective feedback can students effectively accept under IRF model?3.What are the differences between teachers and students’ attitudes towards corrective feedback?Based on the IRF model,the purpose of this study is to analyze teachers’ classroom corrective feedback through the study of students’ errors and students’ uptake,and put forward some suggestions to provide references for English teachers’ classroom corrective feedback and promote teaching.The results of this study are as follows:(1)Through the data analysis of classroom observation,it can be seen that teachers in the class with high English proficiency tend to use the forms of meaning negotiation,such as elicitation and meta-linguistic feedback.But in the low English proficiency class,teachers tend to use explicit correction.(2)Under the IRF model,the classroom interactions between students and teachers are mainly based on the continuous IRF model.For teachers’ different forms of corrective feedback,the forms with the highest acceptance rate are recast and explicit correction.The highest correction rate occurred during the fourth round of moves,and most students can correct their errors after six moves.(3)There are some differences between teachers’ attitudes towards corrective feedback and students’.For example,teachers may not give corrective feedback on errors that do not hinder language communication in class,while students think it is necessary to give feedback to these errors.The teachers think that the peer and class should be the main subjects to correct errors,while students think that the errors in the class should be mainly corrected by the teacher.Thus,this study provides the following suggestions based on the results:(1)Teachers are supposed to diversify their corrective feedback techniques based on the real situation of the class they teach.(2)Teachers are supposed to adjust their teaching strategies by surveying students’ need.(3)Teachers should give more time and opportunities for students’ final error repair.