As the 7th Revision of Korean Education Curriculum emphasizes, this thesis mainly focused on finding out factors which activate interaction between teacher and students in English conversation class taking students' current level of English speaking c...
As the 7th Revision of Korean Education Curriculum emphasizes, this thesis mainly focused on finding out factors which activate interaction between teacher and students in English conversation class taking students' current level of English speaking competence into account.
In particular, this study aimed at observing native speaker's questioning strategies for communication with learners in the beginner's level of English speaking class and at analysing students' reactions to their teacher. Although they are in the beginner's level of speaking English, considering students' high academic careers, who already graduated from their universities or are still college students, they are well exposed to the overall background knowledge of governing rules in English. That aspect differentiated the learners from other language learners who start from scratch, and thus facilitated their speaking abilities relatively quickly. This study tried to observe ongoing teacher-learner interactions in class in detail and suggest some facilitative factors through the teacher's various questions for the students. Looking into the results of observing teacher-learner communications and transcribing the entire process of class by recording, the teacher's questions were dominating throughout the class. Taking the students' current level into consideration, the roles of the teacher's questions were outstandingly divided into two major types, that are, 'Display-Question type' and 'Referential-Question type'. The overall procedure of class was mainly led by the teacher, considering also the students' current level, who are not used to speaking even some simple English in daily life. Teacher's Initiation- Students' Response- Teacher's Feedback pattern(IRF) played a major role during the entire class in light of the well described theories of Cazden(1988), Mehan(1979), and Bachman( 1990, p.119). By the result of the observation, it was noticed that IRF pattern created a more friendly atmosphere in class and gradually activated lively communications between the teacher and the students from the beginning stage of learning, compared with the pattern, Teacher's Offer-Reasoning by interaction between teacher and students-Students' Response (ORR)(Leung & Mohan, 2004, in press). That is because it was beginner's class in the context of speaking English as a Foreign Language(EFL) and the teacher chiefly tried to initiate speaking with simple questions among the mostly passive and shy students, in an attempt to break the ice. More specifically speaking, whenever the teacher tried, in the beginning stage of class, to ask students to answer his question which requires a littler deeper process of reasoning to respond, that attempt ended up with breakdowns in communication and brought about unbearable silence among them. That is, even though the class setting is teacher-led structure, when the characteristics of students and their present competence in speaking English are counted, it is also highly recommendable for both teachers and learners to carry on their interactions in class without wasting time nor gaining students' inhibitions about learning foreign language. During a month-long observation and transcription-based analysis of learning process in this beginner's class, the native teacher's considerable amount of knowledge of Korean culture, language, and his four years' experience living in Korea played an important role to close the gap existing between the students and him, thus facilitated more friendly atmosphere in class leading a dynamic learning among the students. In conclusion, IRF pattern got along well with the teacher's questioning strategies though it was a mainly teacher-led setting. Also the additional information of his experience in Korea, after all, encouraged students' motivations to speak English more fluently in a friendlier context.