© 2010 ACADEMY PUBLISHER An Investigation of Students ‟ Face Wants in Chinese English Teachers ‟ Classroom Feedback*

Abstract—In order to create a new teacher-student relationship and raise students ’ politeness awareness and pragmatic competence in cross-cultural communication, this paper investigated and analyzed students ’ face wants and English teachers ’ awareness of students ’ face want in their classroom feedback. The main data-gathering instruments are MP3-recording, non-participant observation, follow-up structured-interviews and closed- questionnaires. The results reveal that 60.6 % of the teacher participants are frequently aware of their students ’ face wants, and 27.2 % of them are sometimes, while the other teachers seldom or never consider the students ’ face want. Because of being influenced by the Chinese traditional culture in which teachers are superiors, not thoroughly understanding English Curriculum Standard which calls for human concern, and knowing a little about pragmatic theories, some Chinese English teachers ignore students ’ face want. Suggestions on how to save students ’ face want are put forward. Index Terms—face wants, classroom feedback, student