A Study On Teacher Talk In EFL Classrooms Of An Art Vocational School

Teacher talk, one of the crucial parts of teacher behaviors, is the language teachers use to organize and manage the L2/FL classrooms and implement their teaching plans (Nunan, 1991). It is one of the major ways that teachers convey information to learners, and is also one of the primary means of controlling learner behavior. As Nunan (1991: 189) points out:"Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the process of acquisition."It is important for the organization and management of the classroom because it is through language that teachers either succeed or fail to implement their teaching plans. In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive. The amount and type of teacher talk is even regarded as a decisive factor of success or failure in classroom teaching (Hakansson, 1986).From 1950s to 1960s, western scholars and educators conducted systematic studies of classroom activities through observations and surveys. Till the late 1980s, research had been concentrated on the analysis of the types of teacher talk in language classes (Long, 1981; Long & Sato, 1983; Chaudron, 1983). Focus of studies has been on the features of teacher talk for language input purpose, namely, instructional purpose, such as tempo of speech, intonation, adjustments on the level of vocabulary, syntactic structure and text (Chaudron, 1988). In recent years, research on teacher talk has caught the attention of many scholars in China; studies have analyzed teacher talk from the perspectives of its functions, input features, types of questions and teacher feedback, etc.Although there has been an increasing number of studies on classroom teacher talk in China, little has been conducted in specialized schools to examine the features of teacher talk and classroom interaction. Therefore, taking teachers and learners in an art vocational school as the subjects, the present study intends to explore answers to the following research questions:(1) What is the amount of teacher talk and student talk in the art vocational school EFL classrooms investigated and the influence on teaching?(2)What kinds of questions are raised by teachers in teaching? What is the frequency of display questions and referential questions, and why?(3)What is the ratio of teacher talk in using L1 and FL? In what situation do teachers prefer L1 to FL?(4)What are features of teacher feedback to student responses in terms of giving praise and dealing with student errors?The investigation involved five teachers and 265 students from Heilongjiang Art Vocational School. The instruments adopted in this study include: audio recording and questionnaires. The student questionnaire is based on Zhou & Zhou (2002) and composed of twelve items. The teacher questionnaire includes ten items. The teachers'teaching processes were audio-recorded and the recorded materials were transcribed into written record for analysis.The results of the present study are as follows: (1) Concerning the amount of teacher talk under investigation, the study indicates that there are 292 minutes for teacher talk while there are only 91 minutes for student talk. As a result, students have little opportunity to practice English in class. (2) There is a priority of display questions (59.3%) over referential questions (40.7%) in the teacher talk under investigation. According to student questionnaire, one reason is that display question is an indicator of the teacher control and power, the other reason is that the teachers haven't enough confidence in their students, for referential questions are considered more complex and difficult to answer. (3) In terms of L1 used by the teachers, the percentage is up to 45%, which is nearly as much as the percentage of TL used by the teacher. (4) As to the feedback of teacher talk, all the teachers prefer using"simple praises"and"repetition of responses followed by praises", though"praises followed by appraisal"is deemed to be the most effective method. The results verify Nunan's findings.On the basis of the above findings, suggestions are made for both researchers and teachers in further research and practical teaching.