An Investigation And Analysis On Teacher Talk In EFL Classroom Context

Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used. From early 1990s, some scholars and teachers brought discourse analysis into language teaching, publishing some course books, such as Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers written by M. McCarthy (1991), Discourse and Language Education written by E. Hatch(1992).Although there has been an increasing amount of studies on classroom teacher talk in western countries, little has been conducted in China to examine the features of teacher talk and classroom interaction in the Chinese context. Hence, nearly no research has been conducted in China to study the relationship between teacher talk, teachers' questions and students' irrelevant answers. There exists a shortage of empirical or case studies concerning the following aspects of teacher talk: the amount and type of teacher talk, frequency and types of teacher questions, teachers' feedback to learner's performance and ways of error treatment, teachers' responsibilities on student's irrelevant answers.As a result, it is necessary to explore the feature of teacher talk in EFL classroom in China, with the specific purpose to provide some practical suggestions to the Chinese English teachers on what types of teacher talk would be beneficial to learner's language acquisition and therefore would be employed in classroom teaching. It also aims to shed some light on teacher training and development. Meanwhile, in order to find out relationship between teacher talk in EFL classroom context and students' irrelevant answers, the current study aims to find (1)the amount of teacher talk and student talk in EFL classrooms, (2)the frequency of the use of display questions and referential questions, (3)the frequency of praises offered by teachers, (4)the frequency of error treatment, (5)the relationship between teacher's pronunciation, tempo of speech, ambiguity, question contents and context and student's irrelevant answers.Through the research, this thesis works out that the process of EFL acquisition in the classroom is very complicated. In EFL classroom, teacher's talk can serve as a tool of accomplishing teaching goals, a resource of students' acquiring language as well. At the same time, teacher's talk should also be able to create a positive atmosphere where students feel comfortable, friendly and relaxed. The quality and quantity of the teacher's talk will have a great impact on the failure or success of EFL learning as well. Both teachers and students should bear responsibilities on the phenomenon that students give irrelevant answers to teachers' questions. For students, their motivation, self-concept including self-image, self-esteem, self-confidence, creative thinking and anxiety are these factors which often cause students to misunderstand teachers' questions and then give the irrelevant answer. For teachers, their pronunciation, tempo of speech, diction have more than one meaning, namely, ambiguity, question contents and context are factors which often cause students to misunderstand teachers' questions and then give the irrelevant answers.