A Study On Teacher Talk In Intensive Reading Class Of English Majors

In EFL (English as a foreign language), teacher talk refers to the use of the language, the target language of the learner, adopted by the teacher. It is treated as a register, with its own specific formal and interactive properties. Teacher talk (TT) is of crucial significance, because in the language teaching classroom, both the organization of the classroom and the process of acquisition are achieved through TT. Whether a language teaching class is successful or not depends to a large degree on the effectiveness of TT. What is skilful and notable is the teacher's deployment of his language to get things done in the classroom. Teacher talk is different from doctor talk and preacher talk and all the many other kinds of talk. This is because the circumstances are different. The social relations are different, the physical setting is different, and the jobs to be done are different.This paper is about the way in which teachers use their language in order to get things done. It aims to find out how communicative TT is in intensive reading class of University English Majors and search for a model to give a reasonable explanation. Thus the author tries to explain what could a language teacher, namely, an English teacher in China classrooms do through TT to cultivate students and make contributions to curriculum innovation on the one hand, and on the other hand to develop himself/herself, to go beyond the bound of discourse and to have their say, that is, to achieve harmony and unity of teachers' life world, vision of curriculum and classroom activities. On the basis of the ethnographic study, by means of on spot observation and a close examination of recphone records of interaction, the author tries to make a scientific and objective analysis of the classroom interaction, which covers many processes, from transcription to coding (transcripts) and quantification to more qualitative interpretations so as to describe and expound the teaching process in reality.To start with, this paper locates its research field, that is, the classroom research, borrowing some theories from conversation analysis and second language acquisition. For a long time the teaching method was treated as the most important thing. But enough research has been done to make sure that method does matter, of course, but only to the extent that it makes a real difference to what actually happens in the classroom. Over the years, decades and even centuries according to Kelly (1969) and Howatt (1984), the second language teaching literature has examined the question of teaching methods. With the lack of results in determining the approach or method which produces success in language learning, the field turned its focus to the learner, learner language and the processes of second language acquisition (SLA) in order to shed light on the essential factors. A recent developing focus of language teaching research put more emphasis on what is happening in classroom. It mainly has two branches. One is to further develop and expand the research area and the category of second language acquisition; the other derives from conversation analysis (CA), of which teacher talk becomes one significant area. However, not many professionals in China have realized the importance of TT. Little research has been carried out on TT, especially that of English majors, let aside the research describing the structure of classroom language teaching in pedagogical items, i.e. in the context of the larger units of course type, the underlying objectives and teacher development. This paper just wants to have a try on exploratory teaching. As a curriculum and teachers are put together, the former is regarded as a form of social discourse with the latter being understood as a product of this discourse. The development of teachers is to go beyond the bound of such discourse and to have their say, viewing teacher learning as the nourishment of life rather than stopping at the mastery of expertise.The research, is done on the basis of the ethnographic study of teachers and by inductive method with a detailed analysis of typical language data taken down by recphone, so as to summarize the typical characteristics. It is not only an answer to the question "what matters?", but also one of explorations, about how teachers might go about continuing the explorations in their own classrooms. One major claim underlies the whole paper: it is not the latest method that is needed, but rather a fuller understanding of the language classroom and what goes on there. A teacher understands the world through social practices. Their experiential world cannot be reduced to the manifestation of social practice. Rather it is teacher's dwellings in a sequence of events that give them experiences to know who they are.Based on some theories, namely, Conversation analysis, Sinclair and Coulthard model, Krashen's input theory, and EngestrOm's activity theory, the author made a detailed description and analysis of the data collected. Those aspects include structure of teacher talk in class, amount of teacher talk, proportion of components of teacher talk, teacher question, interactional modification, and teacher feedback. The study will answer the following questions: How to define communicative in classroom research? What are those typical characteristics of TT in intensive classroom for English majors? Is there any model which could be adopted to explain such phenomenon reasonably? What might be the implications of teacher talk findings and procedures for the actual practice of language teaching? How can this study encourage and help teachers to develop themselves in their own teaching?In most cases, the criteria for communicativeness are taken from what is felt to constitute communicative behavior in the world outside the classroom. Thus, communicative classrooms are held to be those in which features of genuine communication are evident, and, by exclusion, classes where they are not present are considered to be uncommunicative. In the case of teacher talk, similar criteria, like Thornbury's, might be used to assess such aspects of classroom language use as the kind of questions teachers ask their students, or the way they respond to student contributions. This study argues that this analysis of teacher talk is oversimplistic. It did not take pedagogical aims, course types and other relevant factors into consideration. First a quantitative analysis is made, and then from these statistics, the typical features of TT in intensive reading class are summed up. "Communicative" is reinterpreted and explanation based on activity theory is given in great detail. It is found that many communicative aspects of the discourse are illustrated in intensive reading class, and activity theory can serve as a model to give a reasonable explanation. Based on the findings, some suggestions are proposes.The paper is closed with the limitations of the study, its usefulness for other types of lesson and classroom research, and the idea about exploratory teaching, an attitude, a stance that teachers can take to utilize these ideas about TT in their own settings to get teacher development. The author proposes that for better understanding of what is going on in classroom, besides teaching, teachers must be researchers themselves, which may develop reflective practice, gain insight and improve lives.