熟练教师与新晋教师在初中英语课堂指令上的对比研究(2)
In the Junior English classroom, many elements influence students’ learning effects. Students, the knowledge receivers, are the principal part in second language classroom, as stated in the New English Curriculum Standard (Ministry of Education of PRC, 2011). When participating in the language context, the mind and behavior of learners directly affect their learning. Teachers, who work to impart information and knowledge to the students, play the leading role in the classroom. Their teaching and instruction not only decide the learning content, but also a contributory factor to students’ action. To be more specific, teachers’ effective instruction in some way raises students’ attention and enhances the knowledge understanding, which could avoid behavior problems and improve academic achievement. Yao Renhuan and Hong Wei (2011) state that teachers’ classroom instruction has a direct bearing on the success of classroom language teaching. They deem effective classroom instruction as a guarantee of a productive English class.
Advocating quality-oriented and all-round learning in the stage of compulsory education, the New English Curriculum Standard emphasizes the learning process and lays stress on the language practice and application among the statements of basic principles of English curriculum (Ministry of Education of PRC, 2011). That is to say, teachers should try to create a real context for students to experience, to practice, to participate in, to investigate and to cooperate with each other in the classroom setting. In order to create such context, teachers should guide learners by proper and effective instruction and help them comprehend and apply the language usage. The objective of the current study is to investigate how can classroom instruction be effective in Junior English class. The different way of giving instruction between a proficient teacher and a novice teacher is highlighted in the research to find out what English teachers can learn from each other in instruction-giving. By such comparison, suggestions can be given for teachers to improve their instruction and reach the goal of effective classroom teaching. Therefore, the study on classroom instruction has its significance both theoretically and practically.
The major research questions are as follows:
1) What are the differences on classroom instruction between the proficiency teacher and the novice teacher?
2) What’s the students’ response and acceptability for the classroom instruction given by the two teachers?
The research described below begins by defining classroom instruction, and providing some background information about the issue through the literature review of some previous studies. By both quantitative and qualitative research, during which the classification of classroom instruction would be mentioned, teachers’ instruction and students’ response in the junior English class (for the chosen lessons observed) should be clarified. In the result part, the differences of two teachers’ instruction and students’ acceptability would be pointed out. Then the discussion would focus on the reference signification of the teachers in different teaching age and how to improve English teacher’s classroom instruction.
2. Literature Review on Classroom Instruction
In the past years, many researches focus on classroom instruction. As an important part in the teaching procedure, teachers’ classroom instruction (hereinafter CI) affects the language learning effectiveness and the students’ academic performance. This part displays some related researches and studies on CI.
2.1 The Definition of Instruction
Previous researchers have given different viewpoints on the definition of CI. Some researchers define instruction as everything that goes on in the classroom (Ausdemore, Martella, & Marchand-Martella, 2005). More specific definitions can be seen in other papers. According to Searle (1979)’s Theory of Speech Acts, the directives, which means the instructional language behavior, is implemented by the speaker to try to dictate the listener to do something or not to do something. As Ur (1996) states, teachers’ explanation to the activities in the learning procedure and the instruction on guiding students to do the activities can be concluded as classroom instruction, which would carry a big weight in the whole class, thus should be highly concerned. Excellent instruction pays attention to the transition during the whole lesson, a good command of lesson pacing, and an appropriate control in the activities (Hofmeister & Lubke, 1990; March and Martella, Blakely, & Schaefer, 2004; Martella et al., 2012).