3.2 Study methods 4

    3.3 Data analysis 4

  4. Results and discussions 5

    4.1 Teachers' attribution to students’ problems 5

    4.2 Teachers' attribution to their own problems 11

  5. Conclusion 13

5.1 Major findings 13

    5.2 Suggestions 13

    5.3 Limitations 13

References 14

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

After 2 years of an experimental period and 8 years of a revision stage, Chinese Education Department has made a fundamental revision in elementary school curriculum that made English a compulsory subject for third to sixth graders.

In terms of New English Curriculum for Chinese primary school of 2011, the main aim of English classes is to develop students’ comprehensive language competence, which is achieved through five general objectives: Language Skills, Language Knowledge, Attitudes towards Learning, Cultural Awareness and Learning Strategies. Consequently, explicit instruction in learning reading, writing and grammar is supposed to be avoided. However, activity-based methods, experiential and participatory learning are promoted. Another obvious characteristic is that teachers are recommended to encourage students to learn English by using formative assessment in order to improve students’ confidence and interest in learning which benefits their autonomous learning and development in the long run. Consequently, teachers are supposed to avoid excessive rejection of students’ answers, which may bruise their initiatives in English learning, instead, teachers tend to praise students overtly as they produce the right answers.

    Task-based activities and compeer communication are highly recommended so as to develop students’ communicative competence in English. In comparison to mundane interaction, classroom interaction is the kind of interaction invented recently and changes greatly. (Heritage&Clayman, 2010). Influenced by Chomsky’s linguistic competence (Chomsky, 1965) and Hymes’s communicative competence (Hymes. 1972), communicative language teaching, as one type of new language teaching methods, has been designed to improve English learners’ communicative abilities during 1970s to 1980s. However, influenced by various teaching conditions, teacher-centered teaching mode is still popular. Three sections form the interactive pattern of these traditional classes: initiation-response-feedback(IRF)(Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975). “Known-answer”questions are widely used by teachers in traditional classrooms to initiate the three-part structure, which are designed to discover whether the students have had command of the certain language structures and expressions.

1.2 Significance and aims of the study

    This study focuses on teacher initiation and student response, the first two parts of the IRF, especially the instances in which the students’ responses to teachers are missing. Teachers’ reaction to the missing response and orientation in pursuing response are scrutinized. Through scrutinizing teachers’ instant decision and reaction during the process of pursuing missing response, it presents how teachers analyze and interpret students’ missing response. So the main point we discuss here is teachers’ interpretation of missing response. And this paper is designed to discover whether teachers’ interpretations be correct or not, as some cases demonstrate. This study hints the significant effects of instantaneous interactive decisions teachers make in classrooms.