Communicative Functions of Classroom Language
As a medium for communication between the teacher and learners，classroom language—which is the target language—is not only the language used by the teacher，but also the language that learners often listen to and use to respond to the teacher.
From the teacher’s point of view，classroom language is used to set tasks for learners:(for example，“Jìdéhuíjiāwánchéng gōngkè.”[Don’t forget to complete your homework.]);to give instructions(for example，“Wǒmén xiànzài fēn xiǎozǔ.”[Now let’s divide into groups.]);to praise learner’s effort(for example，“Hěnhǎo，zàishuōyībiàn.”[Very good，say it again.]).From the learner’s perspective，they learn the target language when they listen to the teacher using the language in class and when they interact with the teacher using the language.In this sense，the use of classroom language offers natural communicative experiences for the learners.
This is imperative for second language learners at the beginner level as they have limited exposure and use of the target language outside the classroom.The classroom becomes the main，if not the only，context to learn and use the target language for communication from the exchange of information between the teacher and learners.By using the target language in class，beginners not only accomplish purposeful classroom tasks and activities，but also learn through practice，using a variety of learned words，phrases and sentences to express their needs.
The communicative use of classroom language is authentic and genuine in nature，unlike mechanical language drills.When beginner learners mastered high frequency classroom language in the process of language learning，this in turn enabled them to use it to address real and practical issues in the target language environment.Moreover，with more frequent use of classroom language，the mastery of language skills is further enhanced.With much confidence，beginners can extend the use of classroom language to contexts outside the classroom for genuine communicative purposes.This enriches their relatively limited repertoire of learned words，phrases and sentences when engaged in authentic use of target language in real-life communication and creates more production opportunities beyond the classroom setting.