ABSTRACT
Sinlair and Coulthard (1975) made an early study to reveal the teacher-led three-part prototypical pattern of teacher-student talk: I (initiation)-R (response)-F (feedback), which is the central interaction between the teacher and students in classrooms and is still considered as the most common form of teacher-student exchange in all kinds of classrooms from L1 learning to L2 learning and from kindergarten to university now. In the three moves, a teacher first initiates a question (I), and then a student makes response by attempting to answer the question (R), which is followed by the teacher’s evaluation or comments on the student’s response (F). New questions can appear in the feedback, so IRF pattern is usually repeated circle after circle and questions are used to check students’ understanding, arouse their attention, and engage their participation (Mercer & Dawes, 2008).
