It's long been noted that a serious discrepancy exists between elementary school English classes and middle school English classes. This study explores the differences in the teacher talks of elementary and middle school classrooms. To this end, three elementary school English classes and three middle school English classes are tape-recorded, and their teacher utterances are analyzed according to forms of utterances, functions of utterances and language types. The result shows that elementary school English teachers use significantly more command forms and feedback than middle school English teachers while they use significantly more non-class related utterances more than elementary school teachers. They utter class-related managerial and disciplinary categories significantly more than middle school English teachers while they do miscellaneous categories significantly more than elementary school teachers. In terms of languages teachers use in the classroom, elementary school teachers speaks English significantly more than middle school English teachers. Elementary school teachers tend to use plain Korean to individual students while using formal Korean to the whole class. Middle school teachers tend to use formal Korean irrespective of whole group, small group and individual students.

The aim of this study was to help elementary English teachers in Korea be more effective English teachers. This study discussed the concept of sociolinguistic features (face, address terms, and interjections) from an interactional sociolinguistics perspective. For this study, a native teacher’s English art classes (2nd grade) were recorded three times and carefully transcribed with the help of three native students in the University of Mississippi; informal interviews were done for checking some matters. Many differences between the native teacher’s utterances and the sentences in Classroom English published by the government of Korea were found. In terms of face, four patterns were found: from indirect to direct face threat, using ‘we’, using ‘if’, and changing to questioning. In the notion of address terms, two unique patterns were found: using titles such as ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ for politeness, and using nicknames such as ‘honey’ and ‘missy’ for solidarity or politeness. In the notion of interjections, three patterns were found: ‘OK’, ‘Now’, and ‘Howdy.’ On the basis of this study, it could be implied that, first, Classroom English should focus on contextual meanings as well as conventional meanings in instruct stages or teaching language skills, second, classroom English should make other categories for dealing with interjections such as ‘OK’, ‘Now’, and ‘Howdy’, and last, Classroom English should deal with some cultural knowledge for teachers.