Discourse markers in efl classrooms : A corpus-driven research

This study is comprised of two phases in nature. In the first phase, we aim at exploring Turkish teachers' opinions about the use of discourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms. In the second phase, we aim at determining discourse markers used by Turkish teachers and native teachers in EFL classrooms and comparing these items in terms of variety and frequency. To reach the objectives of the present study, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with two Turkish EFL teachers. Also, we compiled two separate corpora based on the transcriptions of audio-recordings collected from two Turkish and two native EFL teachers' lectures. We analyzed semi-structured interviews through content analysis and we analyzed corpus data through AntConc (2014), a specific concordance program designed for text analysis. Content analysis results revealed Turkish teachers' opinions about the use of discourse markers in foreign language classrooms under four main themes: necessity of discourse markers in language teaching materials, the use of discourse markers in EFL classrooms, teaching of discourse markers and pragmatic value of discourse markers. Corpus-driven research results indicated that Turkish teachers used 29 different discourse markers and native teachers used 37 different discourse markers in their classroom discourse. It was also seen that Turkish teachers underused most of the discourse markers when compared to native teachers in EFL classrooms. In the light of these findings, we suggested notable implications for English language teaching.