An Evolutionary Study of English Classroom Evaluative Feedback Models from the Perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Abstract

Classroom evaluative feedback, encompassing praise, criticism, rewards, and punishments, is a pivotal interpersonal and educational tool in English language teaching. It profoundly shapes the classroom atmosphere, directly influences student engagement, and significantly impacts learners' motivation and subsequent behavior. While existing research has extensively explored this topic, it largely does so from psychological or conversational analysis perspectives, often lacking a systematic, unified linguistic explanation for the underlying mechanisms. To address this gap, this paper employs a comprehensive literature review to systematically trace the evolution of English classroom evaluative feedback models, charting their development from early behaviorist and cognitive perspectives through to contemporary sociocultural and systemic functional linguistics (SFL) viewpoints. The central focus is on demonstrating how modern assessment theory can provide a robust and systematic analytical framework for understanding the complexity of classroom feedback. The analytical framework proposed herein supplements existing oral evaluative feedback models, offering a coherent theoretical reference that can effectively guide pedagogical practice and serve as a foundation for subsequent empirical research in the field of English language teaching.