Short Teacher Responses in the EFL Classroom: A Corpus-Approach Assessment

Abstract

Teacher’s positive feedback in the form of immediate succinct response is an indispensable motivational factor crucial to students’ oral production and classroom participation. The present study was intended to assess the range and authenticity of teacher responses used by a number of Russian teachers of English in everyday classroom interactions. The study adopted theCorpus Approachas a reference tool to verify the research data against a Corpus-driven evidence that isto examine and assess the authenticity of the most frequent responses given by the study participants (21 practising EFL teachers working in Orel, Russia, most of whom are graduates of Orel State University, andwhose teaching experience ranges from 11 to 25 years). The results indicated that the phrases the teachers used in the classroom differed from those native speakers use in similar authentic environment. The analysis revealed that the teachers did not resort to clear and concise positive reinforcement often enough to stimulate the students’ engagement. In addition, a finite list of highly authentic TRs was recommended for more frequent use in ordinary EFL classrooms and among would-be English teachers. Overall, both teachers in the field and trainee teachers need to be more informed on how and in what particular way to encourage their students’ classroom participation.