The Effects of Teachers' Interactional Moves on Learners' Uptake in EFL Classrooms

Obviously, learning environment plays a crucial role in how second language or a foreign language is learned. In this regard, the importance of interaction for L2 learning has been emphasized. The current study investigated teachers' interactional moves (IM) and learners' uptake in EFL classrooms systematically. To meet this end, four EFL contexts of speaking and listening courses for English majors were selected to determine the effects of IMs on learners' uptake. The data were drawn from the transcripts of audio recorded classroom interactions made in four EFL classrooms at the intermediate level, totaling 64 hours and including 856 error sequences in the experimental group and 1220 error sequences in the control group. The 2076 error sequences were then coded in accordance with the categories identified by Lyster & Ranta’s (1997) model of IM in response to the students’ erroneous utterances. Twelve weeks of listening and speaking classroom interactions data with 64 participants during a whole semester were analyzed. The statistical analyses performed on the data were a number of non-parametric correlation analyses to check the correlation between IMs and learners’ uptake, and then a profile analysis was performed to compare the performance of the learners in two groups in terms of receiving or not receiving the systematic IM during a whole semester. Later, a one-way ANOVA was run to establish the differences between students’ scores on the three progress tests, and finally, t-test procedures were used to compare the performance of learners in both groups. The results showed that IM significantly improved learners’ performance in EFL classrooms. The findings of the current study offer certain implications for EFL teachers, learners, teacher training programs, syllabus designers and materials developers.