CHAPTER 1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG NGUYỄN THỊ MỸ LIÊN LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF TEACHERS’ FEEDBACKS TO STUDENTS’ ANSWERS IN LECTURES FROM TOEFL iBT Field THE ENGLISH LA[.]
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG NGUYỄN THỊ MỸ LIÊN LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF TEACHERS’ FEEDBACKS TO STUDENTS’ ANSWERS IN LECTURES FROM TOEFL iBT Field : THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Code: 60220201 MASTER THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES (A SUMMARY) DANANG, 2014 The study has been completed at the College of Foreign Languages, The University of Danang Supervisor: NGŨ THIỆN HÙNG, Ph.D Examiner 1: NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN, Ph.D Examiner 2: LƯU QUÝ KHƯƠNG, Assoc.Prof.Dr The thesis will be orally defended at the Examining Committee Time : 04/ 01/ 2014 Venue : The University of Da Nang The origin of the thesis is accessible for the purpose of reference at: - The library of College of Foreign Languages, University of DaNang - Information Resources Centre, the University of Da Nang CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE From a lot of studies, we know that the teacher is the major in-school influence on student achievement In almost factors influencing student achievement, feedback is at or near the top of these factors which have greatest effect on student learning Therefore, it is important to realize that feedback is not only an outcome of student performance but an essential part of the learning process as well In reality, teacher’s feedbacks to students’ answers in lectures sometimes are not appropriate Strategic feedback is not used very often by teachers However, such feedback helps students to acquire skills which allow them to avoid errors in future by controlling and mastering their own performance The use of teachers’ feedback is helpful to create harmonious relationship between teachers and students and improve students’ interest in learning English and consciousness of politeness.That is the reason for which in this paper how teachers perform the speech act of feedback is about to be explored when responding to student’s answers In Vietnamese, however, the research of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in lecture is still untouched Especially, the study concerning syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features reveal many questions which need being examined For all the above reasons, a study with the title linguistic features of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in lectures from TOEFL iBT is carried out This paper is just an attempt to consider problematical aspects of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in lectures with syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1.2.1 Aims Through an investigation into linguistic features of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in lectures, this research aims to describe and analyze different types of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features Then it provides Vietnamese teachers and students of English with an insightful knowledge concerning the effective use for teachers and interpreting the meaning of feedbacks for students in lectures in English 1.2.2 Objectives In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, this research is designed: 1) To examine the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of teachers’ feedbacks to student’s answers 2) To find out how the students perceive the teachers’ feedbacks to their answers 3) To put forward some suggestions to the English language teaching and learning at Tay Nguyen University 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS With the above aims and objectives, the following questions could be put forward: 1) What are the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in lectures in English? 2) How did the students at Tay Nguyen University experience the teachers’ feedbacks to their answers in lectures in English? 3) What pedagogical suggestions should be put forward to the teaching and learning concerning teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in lectures in English? 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY In order to successfully fulfill objectives as mentioned above, such issues of syntax as clausal structures, syntactic functions of lexical items used in teacher’s feedbacks, issues of semantics like epistemic modality of the lexical items, the attitudinal meaning of the modal markers used in teacher’s feedbacks, and issues of pragmatics like the interpersonal functions of the teachers’ feedbacks and the speech fillers, hedges used in this kind of speech act are mentioned Though prosody and stress are two distinctive features of this kind of speech act in the conversational and interactive lectures, such phonetic phenomena will not be examined and thus, they are beyond the scope of this study 1.5 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The thesis consists of main chapters Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Background Chapter 3: Methodology and Procedures Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 PREVIOUS STUDIES Werts, et al (1995) found that instructive feedback was an effective instructional strategy Researchers, in this review of literature, found that students acquire and maintain most of the instructive feed-back information Griffin, et al (1998) also investigated the effectiveness of instructive feedback and found that students with mild disabilities and students with moderate disabilities learned the supplemental information that was provided Kline, et al (1991) investigated the effectiveness of elaborated feedback routines in a study involving 27 teachers and 54 students with learning disabilities For Vietnamese authors, the latest study of the matters of lecture discourse should be mentioned here is M.A Thesis Trần Thị Thanh Thanh (2012) It only described and analyzed imperative sentences used in lectures in English Nguyễn Thị Trà My (2010) made an investigation into representatives in English lecture discourse In this study, the author exposed their internal structures, their syntactic realization and their semantic functions beside their ultimate function of imparting or communicating information in English lecture discourse In conclusion, some English linguists and Vietnamese authors have mentioned to the teachers’ feedbacks in general and found out how to use these feedbacks in lectures However, the linguistic features of teachers’ feedbacks to students’ answers in detail have not been dealt with so far in these above studies 2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.2.1 Lecture styles 2.2.2 Definition of Teachers’ Feedbacks 2.2.3 Teacher's Feedback and Functional Grammar 2.2.4 Epistemic Modality and Attitudinal Meaning 2.2.5 Speech Acts and Lecture Discourse 2.2.6 Teachers’ Feedbacks and Politeness Theory 2.2.7 Teachers’ Feedbacks and Ellipsis 2.3 SUMMARY This chapter is a review of the literature dealing with lecture styles, teachers’ feedbacks, epistemic modality, speech acts, and politeness theory In this chapter, aspects of grammar are presented in view of functional grammar Factive and non-factive are also referred to Especially, the distinction of content hedges has been made to guide the seeking of analysis of politeness strategie in teachers’ feedbacks All these theories serve as a background of the study and will be further discussed in the following chapters CHAPTER RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This chapter describes the research design and research methods carried out in the study It firstly presents the research design indicating how the paper is done Secondly, it describes the steps which are taken during the process of researching, including choosing data Next, this is followed by the description of samples The chapter also describes how data are collected and analyzed 3.1 RESEARCH METHOD This study is based on the descriptive and qualitative methods The purpose of using the descriptive research method is to acquire accurate, factual, systematic data that can provide me with an actual picture of the data set that I am reviewing so that I can select valid and reliable data The study was aimed to look for qualitative information about linguistic features of teachers’ feedbacks to student’s answers The qualitative method is used to analyze and describe teachers’ feedbacks in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features 3.2 DATA COLLECTION 3.2.1 Sampling of Study 3.2.2 Population of Study 3.2.3 Research Instruments 3.2.4 Research Procedures 3.3 DATA ANALYSIS In this study, the reviewed existing theories serve as a basis of the data analysis Particular is paid to analyzing and categorizing the data syntactically, semantically and pragmatically 3.4 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY Reliability and validity are two most important criteria to guarantee the quality of the data collection procedures 3.5 SUMMARY This chapter presents research methodology and the ways to collect data including how to get samples, instrumentation and procedure of data collection In addition, the ways to analyse data and reliability and validity of the thesis are also mentioned in chapter This chapter shows in detail necessary preparations for further findings and discussion in chapter CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 THE SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF TEACHERS’ FEEDBACKS IN THE VIEW OF FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR 4.1.1 Teacher’s Feedback as the Clause of Exchange To begin the syntactic analysis, first, we cop down teachers’ feedbacks into the clauses considered as clauses of exchange These feedbacks are analyzed into Mood and Residue Then we identify the Subject and the Finite of each feedback As stated in the previous chapter, the Subject and the Finite are the elements of Mood Subjects normally precede the Finite in declarative clauses and determine the person and number of the Finite Subjects are typically realized by nominal groups On the other hand, the Finites are normally marked for tense and may be marked for number agreement (i.e., agreeing with the person and number of the Subject) They are parts of verb group and they usually realized with auxiliary verbs Then the analysis falls into the rest of the clause called Residue As mentioned above that there are three elements of the Residue, which are Predicators, complements and Adjuncts of the teachers’ feedbacks We collected more than 400 teachers’ feedbacks and classified as follows: a Teachers’ Feedbacks in form of Complete Sentences b Teachers’ Feedbacks with Inversion c Teachers’ Feedbacks in form of Truncated Sentence 10 4.1.2 Teacher's Feedback as Clause of Message In this section, we analyzed teacher’s feedback as clause of message The teacher’s feedback is thus organized in theme and rheme Theme is the part that comes first in teacher’s feedback and rheme remains the following part In general, theme carries the old information while the rheme carries the new Table 4.2 Summary of Teachers’ Feedbacks as Complete & Truncated Sentence in view of Clause as Message Teachers’ Feedbacks as Clause as Message SENTENCE SIMPLE Well, that is Theme (unmarked) COMPLEX Great! that true Rheme was the just answer (that) I was looking COMPLETE for COMPOUND Comment theme adjunct theme Not really rheme (theme) rheme rheme the but you are Theme Rheme close kitchen Theme Rheme Theme Rheme Right INVERSION you Theme(marked) TRUNCATED MOD+HEAD are Rheme (Your answer is) (Suppressed (Suppressed (Suppressed subject) verb) determiner) Subject Finite Theme pretty close Modifier Head Complement Rheme PRED+HEA (Your answer/It D Theme is) great Rheme 11 a Teachers’ Feedbacks in form of Complete Sentences b Teachers’ Feedbacks with Inversion c Teachers’ Feedbacks in form of Truncated Sentence 4.2 THE EPISTEMIC MEANING OF TEACHERS’ FEEDBACKS 4.2.1 The Factive meaning of Teacher's Feedbacks The analysis of instances of teachers’ feedbacks in this study reveals that in most cases these feedbacks were used mainly as epistemic markers that function as to signal the teacher’s attitude towards the truth of the proposition of the feedback As a feedback functions as to convey the teacher’s comment to the students’ answers and to the students, teachers’ feedbacks in lectures as encouragements, praises are specialised in manifesting the comment as a fact or something like that On this semantic basis, the teacher wishes to express his/her feeling and confidence into giving a comment and wishes to show that he/she has evidence to present the state-of-affair mentioned in the feedback as a fact 4.2.2 The Non-factive meaning of Teacher's Feedbacks In giving feedbacks, the teacher sometimes can show his/her high or low commitment to what he/she believes to be true with his own knowledge In case the teacher lacks adequate evidence, he/she has to show that what he/ she says is his/ her judgement or relative commitment in using non-factive verbs 12 Table 4.3 Summary of the epistemic factive meaning of Teachers’ Feedbacks Epistemic Linguistic markers Examples of Teachers’ Feedbacks with epistemic meaning Adverbs: - Naturally But the most difficult process exactly, absolutely, was punch cutting precisely, obviously, - Exactly Here’s how you get hailstones naturally is graded on the top scale of correctness; student’s asnwer is highly appreciated requirement of the question; Student’s asnwer is considered as desirable as expected; student’ s answer FACTIVE P of the student’s feedback is true or actual to Teacher’s knowledge; P is judged as right to the categories Adjectives: - Correct Lactation is the production of milk Obvious, right, in the mother correct, sure - Right It takes an enormous rocket full of fuel just to lift one of the shuttles into Earth orbit Adjectives: - Very good, you must have taken a great, philosophy class or two interesting, excellent, very good - Well, that's interesting Nouns:As a matter - As a matter of fact, yeah, there are teams of of fact, (good/great/ some cutting-edge physicists interesting - Absolutely Great job excellent) answer Lexcial verbs: - It was believed that wolves could transform (be) sure, know, see, themselves into medecine men understand, - Sure, I understand your skepticism, and learn, find, believe that’s becoming a big problem in this field Others: - Well done, Sam I’m glad somebody was Well-done; You hit listening (laughs) it on the nose - You hit it on the nose That’s exactly what a genericized trademark is 13 Table 4.4 Summary of the non factive epistemic meaning of Teachers’ Feedbacks Epistemic Linguistic Examples of Teachers’ categories markers Feedbacks with epistemic middle scale scale of correctness; student’s asnwer is moderately appreciated considered as less desirable as expected; student’ s answer is graded on the P is judged as nearly close to the requirement of the question; Student’s asnwer is P of the student’s feedback is potentially true or not true to Teacher’s knowledge; NON-FACTIVE meaning Adverbs: - That’s probably true for most of possibly; you probably; - Yeah, and maybe even more maybe than that Adjectives: - It’s possible, but you’ll have to Good, work for it interesting, - Okay, good And can you possible explain a little more about heavy metals? Nouns: - Ah Good point Let’s go Good ahead and address this guess/answer/ - Good guess, but I’m afraid not question; Anyone else? interesting answer; good point Auxiliaries: - And you would be right May/might; - It could be departure could; 14 Lexcial verbs: - Well you raise an interesting I doubt; I think; point And I guess it shows the I guess; I don’t interpretation problem think, I - Not completely It seems every suppose/suspec time it’s about ready to be t; It seems accepted, someone else comes up with an opposing idea Others: - I’m afraid that’s not enough Something like - M:You’re getting closer He that; You’re didn’t specifically write getting closer; children’s books That’s a pretty - M: Well, that’s what many accurate people believe, but it’s hard to description, I prove It’s like the whole “if a like your tree falls in the forest and nobody reasoning on is there to hear it, does it make a that, but no, sound” conundrum I’m afraid - M: OK, that’s a pretty accurate you’re not description, but let me just exactly correct; tighten up your definition a little Well, that’s A system is defined as a process what many that is a result of its parts and people believe, their interactions but it’s hard to prove; I’m sorry 15 4.3 TEACHERS’ FEEDBACKS AS HEDGES 4.3.1 Teacher’s Feedback with hedges in boosting the illocutionary force In terms of illocutionary force, hedges can be understood as “the most important linguistic means of satisfying the speaker’ want” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 146) In feedbacks teachers’politeness on strategies students’right include: answers, the Congratulating S’s performance, Confirming the validity of S’s answer, Boosting the assertion of the validity of P, Expressing T’s postive emotion to S’s answer, Evaluating S’s responses, Asserting S’s competence in specific field, Maximizing agreement between T & S and Asserting S’s cognitive competence (see table 4.5) 4.3.2 Teacher's Feedback with hedges in mitigating the illocutionary force In authentic conversation, the need for sharing and avoidance of conflict play a crucial role in the consequent modification of the illocutionary force of individual speech acts Therefore, it is necessary for the teacher to modify his feedback further by using hedges in teaching In mitigating the illocutionary force, teachers’ feedbacks as: Distancing from assertion of the incompleteness of S’s answer, Disclaiming T’s assertion of the incompleteness of S’s answer by sharing part of the truth in S’s answer and Acknowledging part of S’s answer but asking for modification.(see table 4.5) 16 Table Function of Teacher’s Feedback as hedges Function of T’s Feedback Linguistic Examples of T’s feedback as hedges markers performance Very - W 1: Excellent good/Grea - Very good! Movies and video games, the t/ ones you guys always play after school, are Excellent fiction - M: Great! You should have no trouble answer Confirming the validity of S’s with the Great Lakes on the exam Correct/ - Correct The animals are mostly bison, Yes, horses, and deer exactly/ - Right, very good Or a whistle Right/ - Absolutely Great job Yes, after the ground Absolutely compound is removed, ink is poured into the parts that have been eaten away - Exactly Many desert plants like cacti and some animals like desert toads can bear a huge validity of P water loss Boosting the assertion of the HEDGE BY BOOSTING ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE Congratulating S’s as hedges You're - Very good, Miss Andrews That’s exactly absolutely right right/ - Perfectly true And so we can go on and That's say that the reasons for opposing the Eiffel exactly Tower back then are no longer valid today right/ - Very good! You're absolutely right Now Perfectly it's very important to understand what these true/ different zones are 17 Great - Well done, Sam I’m glad job/ Well somebody was listening (laughs) done You’re absolutely right Ice is a mineral - Absolutely Great job Yes, after the ground compound is removed, ink is poured into the parts that have been eaten away you must - Very good, you must have taken a have PP philosophy class or two Thank you So, metaphysical cosmology stands in between religious and physical cosmology I agree - I agree that it’s odd to think of it as a mineral That’s because most of the minerals around us seem like metals or rocks Good Excellent Good reasoning there! reasonin So, in a service business, the g there! business model itself is not as important as the business owner’s knowledge and ability Asserting S’s cognitive competence Maximizin g agreement between T &S Asserting S’s competence in specific field Evaluating S’s responses Expressing T’s postive emotion to S’s answer I’m glad - I’m glad you brought that up, you Ellen Twins can tell us a lot about brought our genes that up Not quite - Not quite It was the British reaction to the Tea Party When the colonists refused to pay for the destroyed tea, the British of S’s answer passed the so-called Intolerable Act - Very funny Not quite No, actually, I was thinking of a couple of chemicals Well, kind - Well, kind of It's certainly a lot of ice, but of it's a little more than just that- A glacier is like a river of ice that moves slowly Pretty Pretty close It's called "The Woman with close the Arrow." Rembrandt created this etching in, hmm, 1661 I think Yes, it was 1661 by sharing part of the truth in S’s answer Distancing from assertion of the incompleteness Disclaim T’s assertion of the incompleteness of S’s answer HEDGE BY MITIGATING ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE 18 Close, but -Close, but incorrect The artists were believed to be respected elders or shamans - Close, but not exactly Good - Good guess You have the four names answer/ right, but there are five lakes, not four Can guess, anyone recall the name of the fifth Great but Lake? - Good answer, but who were the artists? What were their positions? Okay, - Okay, maybe But what if I told you that maybe ice cream consumption is also positively But correlated with boating accidents I like your - I like your reasoning on that, but no, I’m reasoning afraid on Cosmology is, in fact, quite similar to that, you’re not exactly correct