Abstract:With the reform of college English teaching in China deepens, more and more English teachers and researchers realize that students should be trained to have communicative competence as well as linguistic knowledge. How to improve the communicative competence of English learners has become a focus of linguists and teachers. In China, college students learn English as foreign language or the second language, teacher talk is still a main access for them to the target language. Teacher talk is not only a tool to implement the teaching plans, but also a major source of learner’s target language input. Meanwhile, it is shown that learner’s successful target language output is correlated significantly to teacher talk and classroom interaction. Therefore, teacher talk has aroused much interest of language researchers and teachers and come into a hot issue among them due to its vital role in developing learner’s linguistic competence, especially, their communicative competence.
The research on teacher talk dates from the 1970s. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines teacher talk as “that variety of language sometimes used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching. In trying to communicate with learners, teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and other simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners”(Richards, 1992: 471). Teacher talk can be characterized in terms of not only linguistics and but interaction as well. The interactional characteristics of teacher talk include the following main aspects: the amount of teacher talk, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and teacher’s feedback.
Although there has been an increasing amount of studies on teacher talk both in China and abroad, little attention has been paid to the interactional characteristics of it. Then, what are the interactional characteristics of teacher talk in college English classroom in China? What kind of teacher talk would be more beneficial to classroom interaction and learner’s language acquisition? So it is of great theoretical value and practical meaning to study the interactional characteristics of teacher talk in Chinese college English classroom.
This research aims at making a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis of the interactional characteristics of teacher talk through an investigation. The teaching processes of five teachers from Henan Mechanical and Electrical Engineering College were audio-recorded and the recorded materials were transcribed into written records to be used for analysis. Meanwhile, 163 non-English major students from Henan Mechanical and Electrical Engineering College were asked to respond the questionnaire and ten teachers were interviewed on teacher talk. The results of research are summarized as follows:
There is a preference for teacher talk to student talk with the percentages of 77.6% and 13.2%, and a certain amount of the first language is used by teachers when addressing. The research also shows that display questions are used more frequently (77.8%) than referential questions (22.2%), and the questions are asked to the whole class but a restricted few might be selected by teachers to present their answers. The research indicates comprehension checks (75%) are used the most frequently, followed by confirmation checks (21.4%), and clarification crequests (3.6%). When repetition is needed, translation repetition (53.5%) is preferable to paraphrase repetition (38.6%), and mechanical repetition (0.8%). The research also demonstrates that teachers hold a sheer preference for positive feedback. Moreover, “simple praise” is the-most-frequent means of praising (38.5%), whereas not enough emphasis is attached to “praise followed by comment” (3.8%).
The interactional characteristics of teacher talk obtained from this research account for some problems in college English teaching, namely, the one-way information flow in class from teacher to students, and the adoption of traditional teacher-centered teaching method. These problems are not beneficial to classroom interaction and learners’ language acquisition. However, the reasons for these problems can be summarized as follows: the limitation of classroom as a setting for instruction purpose, the large size of classes, the different levels of students’ proficiency in English, and some teachers’ lack of theoretical knowledge about teacher talk, esp. the importance of interactional function of it.
Besides, some suggestions are provided to improve teacher talk such as developing the optimum teacher talk, changing the roles of teacher and students and the communication mode in college English classroom, and creating a more positive and relaxed classroom atmosphere for students.
This thesis is divided into five chapters: introduction, literature review, research design, results and data analysis, and conclusion.
KEY WORDS: teacher talk, college English classroom, interactional characteristics, classroom interaction, language acquisition
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