论文总字数：52367字

摘 要

话轮是日常会话的基本单位，同时也是话轮转换中的重要组成部分。会话存在之处就有话轮转换的存在。话轮转换是由Sacks于1960年提出的，Schegloff和Jefferson等人对话轮转换理论做了深入的研究。在20世纪60年代早期Sacks等人提出话轮转换的基本模式以来，国外学者从比较广泛的领域对话轮转换现象进行了考察。话轮转换最初用于分析日常会话(H. Sacks, E.A. Schegloff amp; G. Jefferson, 1974)。随后到20世纪70年代末80年代初，部分学者将话轮转换用于分析课堂教学中教师话语对学生语言学习的影响(Sinclair amp; Coulhard, 1975; Sinclair amp; Brazil, 1982)。英语课堂是一个特殊的会话交流场所，师生之间有效的话轮转换可以促进课堂教学。国内外对于话轮转换在教学方面的研究主要是探究话轮转换在大学英语教学中的应用，主要研究方向是大学口语，阅读，听说等方面。但国内外对于中学课堂师生话轮转换的调查研究有限，尤其是全方位小班式英语教学方面的考察不具有全面性和针对性。

本文是基于国内外话轮转换研究的基础上，对中学英语课堂进行补充。将年级和性别作为自变量，对师生话轮转换展开研究和分析，以考察师生话轮转换在中学英语课堂中的具体情况。本文选取对象为长春外国语两个不同年级的学生，对于英语公开课视频资料进行分析，从而分析学生的年级和性别自变量与师生话轮转换的关系，也为提高教师课堂用语提出一些建议和参考。

通过研究发现：1. 教师话轮转换过程中,经常使用参考性问题并且发问数量多于学生的发问数量。参考性问题会让学生们更好地理解课堂学习并且激发师生之间的有效互动。2. 在性别方面，有一些差别。女生和男生在话轮的长度和类型方面是有所差别的。3. 高年级的学生在衔接过程中反映能力和语言使用能力比低年级学生强。4. 在课堂交流遇到困难时，老师更倾向于用简单同义词或者是更换表达方式来让学生理解，从而更好地进行下去。5. 同时也提出了一些改善教师提问效果的策略，提高学生在课堂话轮转换的技巧。

关键词：话轮转换；课堂互动；中学英语课堂。

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iv

Table of Contents v

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Significance of Research 1

1.3 Layout of the Thesis 3

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 Turn-taking Theory 4

2.2 Researches on Turn-taking in English Class 5

Chapter Three Research Methodology 7

3.1 Theoretical Framework 7

3.2 Research Questions 7

3.3 Participants 7

3.4 Instruments: Public Class Videos 7

3.5 Data Collection and Data Analysis 8

Chapter Four Results and Discussion 9

4.1 Initiation 9

4.1.1 Teachers’ Initiation 9

4.1.2 Students’ Initiation 11

4.1.2.1 Junior students and Senior Students 11

4.1.2.2 Boys and Girls 12

4.2 Response 12

4.2.1 Teachers’ Response 12

4.2.2 Students’ Response 13

4.2.2.1 Junior Students and Senior Students 14

4.2.2.2 Boys and Girls 15

4.3 Feedback 15

4.3.1 Teachers’ Feedback 16

4.3.2 Students’ Feedback 17

4.3.2.1 Junior Students and Senior Students 18

4.3.2.2 Boys and Girls 19

4.4 Strategies for Improving Teachers’ Questioning Skill 19

4.5 Strategies for Improving Students’ Turn-taking Skill 21

Chapter Five Conclusion 22

5.1 Major Findings and Implications for English Teaching 22

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 23

References 25

Chapter One Introduction

This chapter will introduce the background of this thesis, the significance of the research and the layout of the thesis.

• 1. Background

In current middle school class, interaction between teacher and students penetrates the whole teaching process. Teacher talk plays an important role both in teaching class and educational progress. There is a clear distinction between teacher talk in the class and our daily life. Teacher talk is to achieve teaching aims and goals, so teacher talk occupies the dominant position of the class conversation. Turn-taking between teacher and students becomes a main focus of Second Language Acquisition. However, nowadays, under all kinds of pressures, such as the entrance tests or course tasks, many middle school teachers are lack of practical experience, especially in distribution of turns in teacher talk. That will affect teaching effects and the interaction during the class. Effective interaction between teacher and students is an indispensable part in the middle school English class. This research chooses senior and junior students who are from Changchun Foreign Language School as participants. The author analyzes the current situation of turn-taking between teacher and students in the middle school English class.

In recent years, the domestic researches about turn-taking between teacher and students in middle school are limited, especially in small classes. Most domestic researches are about college English teaching, and researches focus on reading, listening, or speaking. So the investigations are not comprehensive and specific. This research mainly focuses on small class at middle school.

• 1. Significance of Research

Middle school is an important period for each student. Teachers’ teaching methods or ideas play a momentous role in students’ study. Sometimes, they even influence students’ characters or personalities. So interaction between teacher and students not only has development values, but also has educational values. The interaction has becoming more and more important in middle school class. Turn-taking is the communicative bridge between teacher and students. In the English class, turn-taking can convey so many meaningful things. For example, the way of teachers’ questioning is multiple, so different ways will convey different meanings. When teacher asks questions in different ways, students’ replies will be different. Therefore, the class interaction is an important factor to improve the teacher’s class. Effective interaction is more important. Thus the author found the situation of turn-taking in middle school and improved class teaching quality. This research selected teachers and students from Changchun Foreign Language School as participants. By observing English Public Class Videos, the author has analyzed the class interaction of students from different grades and of different genders. Then the author has analyzed the specific situation of turn-taking between teacher and students during the class and intended to work out some effective strategies to improve teachers’ questioning skills. What’s more, the author also intends to find some skills to improve students’ turn-taking skills by analyzing students’ three parts: initiation-response-follow-up. In addition, it is aimed to find some ways to make English class more active and more motivated in the classroom. In this way, the research intends to improve interactions between teachers and students. The teachers can take multiple measures to improve middle school students’ interactive abilities and promote their communicative skills.

With the development of the increasing communication among countries, those middle school students with different communicative competence, especially in the language of English, are becoming more popular. The need of society makes a direction for education, that is, to educate more excellent students with enough major knowledge as well as a communicative competence in English. So in today’s school, middle school English teaching adjusts its teaching directions. With the guidance of middle school English curriculum, middle school English teaching changes teaching direction to develop students’ abilities in using the language, but problems still exist. Sometimes, students cannot express their opinions efficiently in English and don’t know how to reply teachers’ questions. This phenomenon has a deep relationship with the ways teachers exert in English teaching class. If the students take part in turn-taking, the class will be more effective and active. Therefore, teachers can change teaching ways or strategies to make students have more effective methods to communicate with teachers. In this way, students cannot lose their interests of learning with the great pressure, which will not do harm to students’ learning creativity. Turn-taking, an effective way to improve the ability, has contributed to the development of students’ ability in language use. It can evoke students’ inner force of learning foreign language. So improving teachers’ turn-taking strategies and students’ communicative competence is important in middle school English class.

• 1. Layout of the Thesis

The thesis contains the following five parts:

Chapter One is an introduction, which introduces the background of this research, significance of this research and the layout of the thesis.

Chapter Two is the literature review. This part mainly introduces turn-taking theory and analyzes the current situation of turn-taking in English class.

Chapter Three is the research methodology. It includes four parts. They are research questions, participants, instruments and summary.

Chapter Four is the main part of the whole research. It is the analysis and discussion on the research. According to the three components of turn-taking, namely---initiation, response, and follow-up, the author analyzes the specific circumstances. From different aspects, including different genders and different grades, the author analyzes turn-taking between teacher and students in middle school English class. Finally, after the author analyzes the phenomenon, some strategies are offered to improve Teachers’ questioning and some effective skills for improving students’ turn-taking are also worked out.

Chapter Five is the last part of the research, in which the major findings are stated and some limitations and suggestions for the further study are discussed.

Chapter Two Literature Review

This chapter will review turn-taking theory, IRF model, and some researches on turn-taking in English class.

2.1 Turn-taking Theory

Turn is a basic unit of conversation, which was proposed by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson in 1974. According to them, turn has two levels of meaning: one refers to the right to speak; the other refers to the discourse uttered by the addresser from the beginning to the end. So turn-taking is one of the most important characteristics of conversation. Turn-taking theory was also proposed by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974). The paper, “A simplest systematics for the Organization of turn-taking for conversation” was an indispensable and foundational study in conversation analysis. From this paper, a model for describing how speakers make turn-taking in conversation is proposed, which is turn-taking model.

Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) claimed that a typical classroom exchange was made up of three moves: an initiating move, a responding move and a follow-up move（IRF）Model, which is popular in teacher-centered classrooms. What’s more, the follow-up move can be divided into feedback and evaluation. There is no great difference between two parts, as their functions are the same, which is to provide feedback. Although there are some researchers who don't use the terms proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard in their studies, the researchers do agree that these three parts are necessary in classroom conversation.

Based on Sinclair and Coulthard’s the observation and analysis of the classroom discourse, Barnes (1976) also put forward the theory of IRF: initiation-response-feedback. In this IRF structure, the teacher initiates a question, the student gives a response, and then the teacher provides his or her feedback. If the students’ response is correct, the teacher gives a positive feedback; if the students’ response is wrong, the teacher may give a negative feedback (Richards, 1996).

Lyster and Ranta (1997) identified six different types of feedback. The six different types of feedback that Lyster and Ranta (1997) identified are used to categorize teachers’ feedback in the current study. They are explicit correction, recast, clarification requests, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition. These six types are the corrective feedback. If the student’s utterance is wrong, teacher should give them the corrective feedback.

2.2 Researches on Turn-taking in English Class

Turn-taking between teacher and students plays an important part in the second language classroom. However, the majority of the teachers, especially English teachers pay more attention to their teaching plan and tasks, rather than the students’ understandings or interactions in the class.

The modes of teacher-student interaction in the process of first language have been studied by lots of scholars. Button concluded: it is generally thought that teaching process is a process in which information is transmitted from the teacher to the students, and this transmission happens only in a certain mode in which teacher has a dominant function while the students have a cooperative function, the students have little chance to grasp the opportunity of turn-taking in classroom discourse.

One of the key characteristics of classroom interaction is the exchange of turns, roles and talks between the teacher and students and between learners themselves (Claire, 1981). Turn-taking as a pedagogical approach is at the center of teaching and learning in any classroom. The most frequently used turn-taking pattern in social pattern and social interaction is the selection of the next speaker by the current speaker (eg: by asking a question, by gazing towards a particular person, by addressing him or her by name) and self-selection (Edmonson, 1981). Equally, in English classroom interaction, turn-taking is usually started by the teacher through asking questions or giving instructions, while learners accept or receive turns by responding to the teachers’ questions or instructions (eg: by raising hands, by answering questions). Sometimes Learner self-selection may occur, depending on the confidence of the learners showed in the classroom interaction (Flanders, 1970).

In the process of conversation, there is having the place where another speaker seeks the turn of talking from the speaker, which makes the exchange of information realized (Psathas, 1995). And in traditional classrooms, the situation is always the teacher dominates the next speaker and automatically selects one student for the next turn (Brown, 2001). The students have little motivation t listen to one another, and they are afraid that they will picked up by the teacher to give an answer. Therefore, teachers should tell students how to take turns and teach them some turn-taking skills that will not automatically be transferred from the native language. This requires the teachers should have better turn-taking strategies and students should have turn-taking skills.

In recent years, the researches about turn-taking between teacher and students in middle school are limited. They mainly analyze the college English teaching class and focus on different aspects of English teaching, such as reading, listening, speaking and so on. This research mainly focuses on small English classes, which are from foreign language school. By observing the public videos, the author will study the relationship between turn-taking and different grade, and the relationship between turn-taking and different gender.

Chapter Three Research Methodology

This chapter will introduce theoretical framework, research questions, participants, instruments and data analysis.

3.1 Theoretical Framework

In 1976, Barnes put forward the theory of IRF. It includes three parts: initiation, response and feedback. In the middle school English class, it exactly contains these three components. Both teacher and students use this model frequently. So the author selects this theory as the basic theoretic framework of the research. Meanwhile, the author testifies this theory in this research.

3.2 Research Questions

This study aims to answer three questions:

(1) What is the current situation of turn-taking between teacher and students in the middle school English class?

(2) What is the relationship between grade and turn-taking?

(3) What is the relationship between gender and turn-taking?

3.3 Participants

Two different grade teachers and 60 middle school students who come from Changchun Foreign Language School have joined in this empirical study. The two teachers all teach English majors middle school English class with teaching experiences of three to five years. The 60 students from different grade, different gender, and different English level are in two classes.

3.4 Instruments: Public Class Videos

The author will select two different public class videos. These are the public activities videos for the parents’ meeting. The length of the first video is about 40 minutes, and the second one is about 47 minutes. The students are from different grades and different genders. There are two English female teachers who are from senior grade one and junior grade one. The content of the first video is about the school clubs. And the second video is about friendship.

3.5 Data Collection and Data Analysis

During the teaching process, so as to find the influences of turn-taking between teacher and students in middle school teaching, the author observes these two videos. By observing and analyzing, the author will find the relationship between grade and turn-taking, the relationship between gender and turn-taking. In order to get more explicit data, the author records the initiation, response and feedback of the two teachers. The author will observe the length of the sentences, the quantities of the initiations, the situation of students’ response and teachers’ effective feedbacks.

Chapter Four Results and Discussion

The author will discuss the results by dividing into five parts. They are initiation, response, feedback, strategies for improving teachers’ questioning skill and skills for improving students’ turn-taking skill.

4.1 Initiation

According to the theory of IRF, initiation means that teachers or students initiate the question. The classroom questioning might be regarded as an interactive process, which can bring students into the English learning process and point out comprehensive responses. In this way, teachers can stimulate the students to express their own opinions and feelings into the class through their replies.

4.1.1 Teachers’ Initiation

According to the video, it is found that the most commonly used method to initiate a turn by teachers was questioning. And it was the main way for teachers to control the classroom interaction. The word “question” firstly came from the Latin word “quaerere” that refers to search information. In general, a question is the sentence that someone wants to know an expression of fact, view, idea, etc. Teachers usually selected simple questions at the beginning of the turn. In this way, teachers could make students understand the meaning of the question and check the comprehension of the context of the class learning. The questioning for teachers occupied 20% to 40% in interactional activities. To some extent, teacher’s questions had effect on the students’ responses. More than half of class was occupied by question-and–answer model.

Example 1 (senior students; 00:00:13-00:00:17):

T: Did you have a wonderful weekend?

S: Yes.

T: Great!

In this example, the teacher began with the conversation by questioning, the students answered the question, and then the teacher gave the feedback.

Different kinds of questions have different effects and influences. Closed question and open question were divided by Barnes (1969). Specific question and general information question were divided by Chaudron (1988). What’s more, based on the interactions in the classroom, display question and referential question were separated by Long and Sato (1983). In other words, the referential question was intended to seek the information and the display question was intended to check the information.

In the middle school English class, display question was more often used than the referential question. The aim of the teacher’s questioning was to make students answer the question effectively and actively, so they used more display questions. But most of the display questions were closed questions. It implied that teachers had the implicit answers.

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