engleski

Native and Non-native Teachers´ Use of English Discourse Markers

Although interest in discourse markers (DMs) has been on the increase in the last few decades, it has mostly focused on the theoretical description of their formal features, and there is still ample room for research of these units in the area of second language acquisition. DMs are recognized as central to the speakers’ communicative competence, and their inadequate use may reduce communication effectiveness and cause failure in interpersonal and intercultural interaction (Wierzbicka, 1994 ; Martinez, 2004). Existing research comparing native (NS) and nonnative speakers (NNS) indicates that NNS have a rather poor command of DMs (e.g. Fung and Carter, 2007 ; Iglesias Moreno, 2001), or use them differently than their native counterparts (e.g. Müller, 2005 ; Aijmer, 2004 ; Buysse, 2012). Some authors point to the teachers’ input in the classroom as a possible factor influencing FL students' acquisition of DMs (e.g. Müller, 2005). The findings of the scarce research in the area seem contradictory, with some studies pointing to both NS and NNS teachers´ low level of DM use (Hellermann and Vergun, 2007 ; Amador Moreno, 2006) and others describing the NNS teachers' effective use of DMs in classroom settings (Chapeton Castro, 2009). As this issue has not been extensively and elaborately investigated to date, and given that teacher talk represents a key source of language input in the classroom (Ellis, 2008), the present paper aims to shed additional light on the role of teachers in L2 DM acquisition, particularly relating to EFL teachers in Croatia whose DM use has not been researched yet. The paper focuses on a study carried out on a sample of ten EFL teachers, five native and five non-native speakers of English currently working in Croatia with adult advanced students (levels B2 and higher). The results obtained from quantitative and qualitative analyses of the transcriptions of the recorded classroom talk along with the data collected in a questionnaire are used to identify the main characteristics of the use of DMs by native and non-native teachers in Croatia, and allow for a comparison between the two groups. The results are further discussed in terms of the possible impact of native and non-native teachers’ input on EFL students’ acquisition of DMs.

English discourse markers ; native ; non-native teachers ; classroom talk

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