An analysis of teaching practices and classroom interaction of native and non-native teachers of English

The purpose of the study is to shed light on the differences and similarities of native and non-native teachers of English in their classroom interaction. The study aims to put forward the keys to the successful classroom instructions. Together with qualitative approach, a discourse analysis approach were carried out to collect data from three native and three non-native speaking teachers working at a private university's language preparatory school in Turkey. Classroom observations, conversation analysis, teacher and student interviews, questionnaire were the main data sources. As regard with the analysis of the data, three main frameworks were employed to analyze the data. Sinclair and Coulthard's IRF (initiation-response-feedback) pattern (1975), four different question types, i.e., open, closed, display and referential first provided by Barnes (1969), Long and Sato (1983), and Walsh's SETT (self-evaluation teacher talk) framework (2006) helped the researcher analyse the native and non-native teachers' questioning habits. The results of the study revealed that the NS and NNS teachers had similar patterns of IRF sequence going on with a regular teacher initiation, student response and teachers' corrective feedback especially during materials and form-focused activities. Additionally, it was found out that both group of teachers utilized a lot more closed and open display questions to extend the classroom interaction which was also supported by the teacher interviews. The findings also show that, the NS teachers used more open-referential questions compared to the NNS teachers. This type of teacher questions also produced more extended output from the learners. Besides, the data show that the NS teachers have longer wait time following teacher questions for the student turn and this caused a positive effect on students' comprehensible output. Lastly, both groups of teachers were compared for the use of different types of questions with several purposes in the light of Walsh's SETT framework. Being in line with the interview results of teachers, the findings of the discourse analysis showed that each group of teachers attempted to use more scaffolding, form-focused feedback, and teacher echo and clarification questions. As another important difference between the teachers, the NS teachers were observed to use more content feedback, direct repair and turn completion questions. It can be concluded that the teachers are not just transferring knowledge, but they can also support, facilitate and negotiate the meaningful input and output in teacher – student interaction. The results of this study suggest that foreign language teachers should have awareness of the use of language in classroom to improve teaching and learning. Keywords: teacher – student interaction, discourse analysis, questioning, native speaker teachers, non-native speaker teachers