A Study Of Teacher Talk In Senior High School English Classroom: A Case Study

It is paramount important to do empirical and interpretive observation of teacher talk since it is the core activity of schooling and education. In recent years, some scholars have carried out a number of empirical studies on teacher talk in the English classroom. Their research on teacher talk has largely focused on college English language instruction in the local classroom contexts. Few studies have been conducted, however, to examine senior high school English classroom. In this paper, therefore, I investigate the features of teacher talk in senior high school English language classroom from a framework drawn upon Long's interaction hypothesis, and provide some implications for senior high school English language instructional practices.The classroom from which the data were taken was located in a city model senior high school senior one in Jilin City. The teacher was video-taped and audio-recorded in class for 40 minutes. The lesson was observed and then transcribed on the basis of one video-recording and one audio-recording. I analyze the initiation/response/follow-up (IRF) exchanges between a teacher and students in teacher-centered instruction by using transcribed classroom data. Specifically, I try to find out (1) the quantity and quality of teacher talk, the complexity of teacher talk, (2) the number and types of teacher's questions and (3) teacher's feedback.The present thesis revealed some findings. Firstly, there was a preference of teacher talk over student talk. The mean sentence length of teacher talk was 6.89 words, whereas that of student talk was 3.91 words. In this 40-minute lesson, the teacher said 506 sentences while the students said 125 ones. Meanwhile, there was a significant difference between teacher and students in terms of the complexity of sentences. Secondly, the teacher used a considerable number of display questions rather than referential questions. The teacher's display questions accounted for 99.30% of the total teacher's questions, while the teacher's referential ones comprised 0.70% of the total. Finally, the teacher, through frequently echoing and repeating, interrupted students' contributions and got students to have to end their turns prematurely.The present research also provides some suggestions for English instructional practices in senior high school. Above all, teachers must understand fully that teacher talk plays an important role in students' foreign language learning, and teachers' use of language and turn control strategies are consistent with teachers' pedagogical goals. Furthermore, teachers should provide more opportunities for students to participate in classroom interaction. Finally, through monitoring and reflecting their own instructional language, teachers should change certain language behavior more sensitively and improve the quality of teacher talk in order to create and provide more language learning opportunities for students.