Analysis Of Teacher Talk In Language Classrooms

Education is playing more and more vital role in nation building and development. And teachers are viewed as one of the crucial factors in the success or failure of the educational development. Without good teachers, all educational innovations are doomed to failure. However, for many years,focus of research on teachers has been on the teaching methods, not on the teacher talk. It was not until in 1970s that the research on teacher talk has been carried out and extended.The purpose of this thesis is trying to give some suggestions on how to improve the teacher talk in foreign language teaching. Based on the speech act theory, the thesis describes the language forms and their pragmatic functions of teacher talk in foreign language classrooms. In the study of this thesis, with the teacher talk of college English teaching of 2005 Grade in CUGB as research object, the writer discusses and analyzes the stating, questioning and evaluating part of teacher talk by class observation and questionnaires designed both for teachers and students. What is more, the voice of the teacher is also put into the research.The findings of the study suggest that many teachers have an inaccurate perception to their own classes. They are advised to make self-observation, find their problems, which exist in their teaching while they are not aware, and get self-development. And according to attitudes and responses of the students, teachers should make flexible use of stating, questioning and evaluating part of teacher talk and place enough emphasis on their voices.Teacher talk is regarded as of crucial importance in the teaching, organization and management of the class. In foreign language teaching, teacher talk plays more important role because it is the major source of comprehensible target language input students receive. Therefore, making the teacher talk in language classrooms as the research object, the significance of this thesis is clear and evident.