Teacher Talk And Classroom Interaction: A Comparative Research Of NS & NNS Teachers In EFL Classrooms

Among the various classroom researches, teacher talk and teacher-student classroominteraction have always been the central issue. Teacher talk, the speech made by teachersin classroom, is 'of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom butalso for the processes of L2 acquisition'(Nunan 1991). The amount and quality ofteacher talk in language classroom has a great effect on classroom teaching and is even adecisive factor of the success or failure of it (Hakansson 1986). Since teacher talk playssuch an important role in language teaching, a great number of scholars (e.g. Chaudron1983; Gaise 1977, 1979; Henzl 1979; Long 1981, 1983; etc.) have made a lot ofempirical researches on it. On the other hand, a large number of researches in SLA havebrought to light the significance of 'classroom interaction'since the 1980s (e.g. Allwright1984; Ellis 1990; Long 1983; Swain 1985; etc.). The results obtained from theseresearches show that teacher talk and classroom interaction have a close relationship tolearners'target language acquisition process.In China, the related researches on teacher talk and classroom interaction havebegun to catch the attention of a lot of people. However, only a few have been conductedto examine the features of teacher talk and classroom interaction in Chinese context (e.g.Zhao Xiaohong 1998; Wang Yinquan 1999; Zhou & Zhou 2002). Especially, there is littleresearch that empirically explores the differences in this aspect between NS teachers andNNS teachers in Chinese EFL classrooms. Therefore, it is significant to make acomparative research of NS and NNS teachers on the features of teacher talk andclassroom interaction (esp. at the teachers'part) in Chinese EFL classrooms.The present research is conducted with a purpose to investigate the characteristics ofteacher talk and classroom interaction in EFL classroom in the Chinese university, tocompare the similarities and differences between NS and NNS English teachers in thisaspect, and to explore the role teacher talk plays in improving the learning of ChineseEnglish students. And at the same time, this research attempts to discuss whether thecultural background has an effect on the teaching styles and roles of the two groups ofEnglish teachers.The subjects involved in this research are 5 randomly chosen NS and 5 randomlychosen NNS English teachers from UESTC (the University of Electronic Science andTechnology of China), who are in charge of the 'listening, speaking and writing'coursefor postgraduates. Also in this research, 318 postgraduates in various kinds of majors...