A Functional Analysis of the Nature of Classroom Discourse: The Case of Experience

Normal schooling is established in the form of lessons and lessons necessitate talk between teachers and students. Investigating the nature of this talk may illuminate the relationships among teaching, interaction and learning. The researchers in this study used theme/rheme distinction as an analytical tool to investigate the nature of EFL classroom discourse. Four female language teachers including two experienced and two inexperienced teachers taught some grammar lessons to their intact classes. Their talks were videotaped and transcribed by the researchers. A model was constructed based on the Halliday’s textual metafunction and data were analyzed based on the model. Results of the study showed significant differences in the discourse of experienced and inexperienced teachers regarding the use of simple themes, multiple themes, marked themes and theme patterning. The researchers concluded that the experienced teachers’ discourse was more cohesive and elaborate. Based on the results, they argued that experience can play an important role in teaching language skills and theme/rheme distinction can be used as an effective tool to investigate the nature of teacher’s talk.