Investigating Successful Teachers' Talk In College English Classroom-a Case Study

The traditional studies tend to focus more on the features of teacher talk for language input purpose.However,little has been conducted to examine the features of classroom interaction especially in Chinese context.Based on the new revised College English Syllabus which is communication-oriented,English teaching presses for reform.So it is urgent for English teachers to improve their in-class talk in order to halp students acquire the target language.But the current studies only pay attention to traditional classrooms.For the reasons mentioned above,the present study aims at exploring the features of the successful teachers' talk,in order to give some pedagogical suggestions to the Chinese English teacher on what type of teacher talk would be beneficial to learner's language acquisition and therefore would be employed in classroom teaching.The subjects involved are five teachers who have earned agreeable comments among their colleagues and students.They have won prizes for their high quality teaching several times.And the marks of their students in the final exams are much higher.The five teachers' teaching processes are video-recorded and the recorded materials are transcribed into written record which can be used for analysis. Meanwhile,also involved in this study are the college students attending the lectures offered by these five teachers.They are asked to respond to the questionnaires on English classroom teacher talk.This questionnaire attempts to lend some support to the result of the transcription analysis.The findings are summarized as follows:(1)As to the amount of teacher talk in the classes investigated,the study reveals thai student talk,instead of teacher talk,is in dominant position in class.(2)In terms of the frequency of the use of different types of questions,it can be found there is a preference for referential questions over display questions.(3)About the three types of interactional modifications,the research indicates that confirmation checks are most frequently used,followed by comprehension checks.The teachers investigated seldom use clarification requests.(4)With regard to teachers' feedbacks,praises followed by comments are more used by the teachers.When errors occur,teachers prefer to give students clues to help them repair by themselves.The findings of the study provide us with some useful insights into EFL teaching. The pedagogical implications are given in the following five aspects:(1)Shift the classroom from "teacher-centered" to "learner-centered".And vary the role of the teachers in classrooms;(2)Increase teachers' sensitivity to teacher talk;Have a good plan of the use of teacher talk;(3)Raise questions properly in order to encourage students to use the target language;(4)Encourage negotiation of meaning;(5)Give feedback properly.