| Abstract: | The present study aims to explore teachers' floor controls, topic controls, and time controls in senior high school English classrooms. Data were collected through classroom observation and interviews. The subjects were three senior-high-school English teachers and their students in each of the three classes taught by the teachers respectively. Classroom observations were conducted on two lesson units of the three teachers' instructions in three different classes, in total 35 classroom sessions, which were recorded by a Sony Recorder and a Sony Video Camera. Interviews with the teachers were also recorded, and were used to validate the classroom observation. The data were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. The major findings were presented as follows:
First, with regard to floor controls (i.e., self and other), the open-bidding controls were most frequently used in self controls. In other controls (i.e., improvisation controls), the accepting controls were most frequently used when students violated teachers' turn-allocation procedures or initiated their speaking turns.
Second, in regard to topic controls, the teachers used the material-related topic controls more frequently than the non-material-related topics. In the textbook material-related linguistic topic controls, topics on English grammar were used most frequently. However, in the supplementary material-related linguistic topic controls, semantic topic controls were used most frequently. Among the four non-linguistic topic controls of the material-related topics and non-material-related topic controls, the procedural topic controls were adopted most frequently. Among the topic continuity and the topic discontinuity controls, the topic initiation controls were most frequently employed.
Third, as to time controls, the teachers used a majority of time in the instructional phase compared with those in the pre- and post-instructional phases. The three EFL teachers fully controlled the timing of floor and topic on each student well below the average time limit. The priority sequence for time controls that the three EFL teachers follow for pedagogical consideration is predominantly based on topic first, floor second and then time. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future study were suggested. |
