The Discourse of English Reading Lessons in Chinese Middle Schools: A Sociocultural Perspective

Abstract

While the research agenda of classroom interaction has long been well established internationally, scholars in China have paid little empirical attention to these developments until recently. Furthermore, among the body of work on the local classroom discourse, very few studies have focused on the secondary sectors. From the perspective of the sociocultural theory (SCT), this article examines the classroom discourse of Chinese middle school English language teaching (ELT) by investigating teacher-student interaction. The transcribed classroom discourse of 8 teachers’ reading lessons is qualitatively coded and quantitatively measured. The study draws on a descriptive system focusing on the teacher-led three-part initiation-response-feedback (IRF) structure. The research findings reveal that quite similar discourse patterns are found in the lessons sampled, with the initiation-response-evaluation (IRE) sequence dominating the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom interaction investigated. Theoretically, the paper aims to place the SCT perspectives in the foreground. Pedagogically, it attempts to raise teacher-practitioners’ levels of awareness of the use of teacher talk in EFL classroom interaction.