Study of Classroom Discourse of English-Major Interns from the Perspective of Functional Linguistics

Based on the qualitative analysis of classroom discourse of English-major interns, this study investigates the characteristics and causes of classroom discourse of English-major interns in underdeveloped areas in western China from the perspective of functional linguistics, and endeavors to explore the reasons for these characteristics from social context. The results show that the classroom discourse of English-major interns has the following three characteristics: 1) code-switching is common; 2) the types of clauses are mainly imperative sentences, declarative sentences with rising intonation; 3) teachers talk a lot and dominate the conversational turn. Code-switching reflects the shortage of target language input and outdated teaching methods in English class; and the second characteristic just echoes with existing research; teacher’s dominance over conversational turn indicates interns’ imitation of their instructors’ teaching mode, hoping to construct their teacher identity. This paper puts forward relevant suggestions to the above-mentioned problems, including adopting a research-guided teaching in elementary education, reinforcing the supervision of college internship instructors, diversifying the way interns constructing their teacher identities.