Promoting communication in the classroom through the teacher's feedback

ABSTRACT This thesis will examine the feedback a teacher provides to a pupil during a regular daily interaction in English language teaching. This interaction has traditionally a three-phase structure called IRE (initiation, response and evaluation) or IRF, where F is a general follow-up, originally feedback. Traditionally, the third phase had evaluation function, but as it turns out, during the natural interaction between the teacher and the pupils in the classroom when the teacher focuses on the development of communication skills and when such interaction is more like an everyday conversation, this third stage has a different function, which is called discoursal by some authors. Such a feedback is very similar to the reaction heard by the speakers in everyday interaction outside classroom. The purpose is that the teacher tries to include pupils' responses to the discourse and not only correct and evaluate them. The teacher responds to students' answers with interest, some personal note, etc. This thesis will explore techniques that teachers in selected schools use to provide feedback in spoken language, it will examine whether the feedback is of evaluative or discoursal nature and what each type of feedback depends on. The aim of this thesis is to determine which type of feedback or which techniques are showing to be most beneficial for the development of effective communication for students