Review

Ivy Zhang, Journal Summary 1, August 26,

Weizheng, Z. (2019). Teacher-Student Interaction in EFL Classroom in China: Communication Accommodation Theory Perspective. English Language Teaching, 12(12), 99–111.

· Lit Review

This research investigats the real interactions that were made in EFL classes from the perspective of Communication theory. The author explained how important it is of improving classroom interactions by applying communication accommodation strategies. He explained how the strategies can be used to help students by avoiding the lack of communication in a class. The researcher believes that interactions in a class can improve efficiency for learning.

The previous research focused on effectiveness of communication accommodation in English teaching. In the previous researches, five strategies were found that can be used to improve effective interactions: approximation, interpretability, discourse management, emotional expression and interpersonal control.

The study was focused on the real interactions in EFL classes. And the study was done at a university in Central China. They tried to find out if the teachers used communication accommodation strategies to develop interactions when there is any challenges during an EFL class. They also asked how teachers could use communication strategies during the interaction with students. Another research question was what strategies were commonly used during EFL classes.

Method

Observation and discourse analysis method was used for this research. For this study there is a total of 540 minutes log video of EFL classes was watched and analyzed. The participants were three English teachers at a university in China. They are referred as Teacher A, B and C in the analysis.

Results

According to the 540 minutes video lectures they found that in order to promote communicative efficiency in EFL classes, the teachers should try to create an atmosphere of harmony an equality. Each teacher used a different convergent linguistic strategy.

Discussion

The authors point was to explore the real interaction in EFL classroom from the perspective of communication theory. The important finding here is a lack of interaction in class and the researcher suggested teachers should be trained on how to use these strategies to improve class room interaction with students.