Intonation and feedback in the EFL classroom 185herself or by prompting another student to produce a response, than by
presenting in English a formal explanation of the nature of the error,
which students may not be able to understand. Consequently, much of the
feedback with which I am concerned here is realized linguistically by a
small set of items including ‘Good’, ‘Fine’, ‘Right’, ‘OK’ and ‘That’s
right’ (Sinclair and Brazil’s ‘Closed items’ (1982:28)) and/or a repetition
of all or a part of the student’s response.
CLASSROOM EXCHANGES
Before examining the categories of information conveyed through intonation
in feedback, it will be useful to establish precisely what is the purpose of
this type of three-part exchange in the L2 classroom. Consider first:
3* T: Where did I put the blackboard duster?
S: In the cupboard.
T: Thanks.
4* T: Where did I put the blackboard duster?
S: In the cupboard.
T: Good.
Exchange (3) is intended as an example of an act of ‘genuine communication’,
the teacher cannot remember where he has put the blackboard duster, whereas
(4) is an exchange from a drill where the teacher places the blackboard
duster in various places around the classroom and instructs students to tell
him where he has put it. Here the information sought by the teacher is not
in reality the location of the blackboard duster, but whether the student can
produce an utterance of a form within the standards of acceptability he has
himself, implicitly or explicitly (by, for example, providing a ‘model’ utterance)
laid down. In this second type of exchange two expectations need to be
fulfilled:
(a) the student is expected to respond to the teacher’s initiation;
(b) the teacher is required to give an assessment of the student’s response,
the purpose or business of the feedback being to ‘inform everyone
whether (the student’s) contribution is acceptable to the teacher or not’
(Brazil 1981:181).
Consequently, once (b) has been achieved, the exchange is at an end: the
business is complete. Only informationally ‘empty’ items, such as a repetition
of the assessment, can occur subsequently within the same exchange. Anything
else is considered as functioning in a new exchange.
The notion of ‘acceptability’ in the L2 classroom needs further clarification
at this point. Consider the exchanges: