Teacher Talk In Integrated English Class And Its Influence On Learners' English Learning

The process of English language teaching and learning in the classroom is very complicated. Teachers played decisive roles in the process. Teacher talk(TT),as the main aspect of teachers'behavior, serves not only as a tool of accomplishing teaching goals, but also as a resource of students'acquiring language. The quality and quantity of TT have a great impact on the failure or success of students'language learning. A systematic study on it will contribute to the practice of English teaching and learning. Therefore, TT has attracted more and more attention. At present, the researches on TT have only dealt with the analysis and description of all kinds of phenomena about TT without considering the students'needs. Neither have they focused on a specific English course. So this research will choose the major course of English learners---Integrated English---to investigate how TT in Integrated English classes in China affects English language learning from a different perspective---comparing the students'preferences toward the ideal TT with the real TT.According to some scholars (Hu Xuewen, 2003), TT has two features: the formal features and the functional features. The later one refers to the features of the language that teachers use to organize and control classrooms, which includes the following aspects: the quality and quantity of teacher talk; the questions teachers use; interactional modifications and teachers'feedback. So this research just focuses on four aspects of the functional features: the amount of teacher talk; teachers'questioning, interactional modifications and teachers'feedback. The amount and type of TT is regarded as a decisive factor of success or failure in classroom teaching. The amount of TT has been a controversial issue. Many scholars insist on decreasing teacher talk time (TTT) in language classrooms. However, Fillmore argued that teacher talk time should not be decreased blindly and suggested two conditions to decrease TTT. Teachers'question serves as the principal way in which teachers control the classroom interaction. Referential questions can facilitate language learning better than display questions. In order to facilitate the negotiations with learners, teachers always use three kinds of interactional modifications: comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification request. Teachers'feedback is an important aspect of teaching and it has two components: correction and assessment (Ur, 2000).The way to correct students'errors and to assess students'performance will influence students'learning process.Although there has been an increasing number of studies on classroom teacher talk, there exists a shortage of empirical studies concerning the four aspects of TT mentioned above in China, especially the comparison between the actual TT and students'preference. What are the functional features of TT in Integrated English classes in universities? Do they satisfy the students'expectation? Do they prompt the students'English learning? In order to investigate such questions and at the same time to provide empirical evidence to teachers what types of TT would be beneficial to learner's language learning and therefore would be employed in classroom teaching, an investigation was made in Guangxi Normal University. Three teachers teaching English majors the Integrated English courses and 180 students are involved in this study. The teachers'teaching processes were tape-recorded and transcribed into written materials to be used for analysis. Meanwhile, the students were asked to respond to the questionnaire on their English teachers'talk. The findings are summarized as follows: The teachers talk is too much and have a tendency to ask more display questions than referential questions, which is in contrast with the students'expectations.The students show a strong desire for participation and referential questions. Teachers prefer to use more comprehension checks than clarification requests, while students have desire to be given more clarification requests. As for teachers'assessment and error correction, positive assessment is used frequently and no negative assessment can be found, which is in consistent with the students'preference. The strategy of "explicit corrections" is used very frequently. However, most of the students expect self-repair.According to the results, it can be found that the classes under this investigation are still teacher-dominated and the students'needs are less considered. Based on the problems of TT in Integrated English classes, some suggestions are put forward. 1) Shifting the teacher-centered classroom into student-centered classroom; 2) Controlling TT and focusing on the quality of teacher talk; 3) Improving questioning techniques and ask more referential questions; 4)Using proper feedback techniques.At last, limitations and suggestions for the future research are discussed in Chapter Six. Due to the practical difficulties in this study, only three teachers and 180 students were chosen in Guangxi Normal University. It is too small a figure in relation to the whole population of some thousands of the staff and students. Therefore case studies on a large-scale are needed to carry out and overall and more accurate results would be obtained in the future research. In addition, only four aspects of the features of TT are observed in this research, the further research on the other aspects of TT is needed to be carried out.