A Study Of Teacher Talk In College English Classroom Within The Framework Of SLA Theories

Teacher talk is of crucial importance, especially in a foreign language classroom, not only for it is a tool language teachers use to impart knowledge, organize and manage the classroom, and implement their teaching plans, but also for it probably serves as the major source of comprehensible input the learner is likely to receive and an example to imitate. In China, teacher talk plays a significant role because the English classroom is the main place for Chinese students to get access to exposure to the target language. However, in China, for many years, focus on EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching has been widely put on the teaching methods and content but not the practical process of the classroom, much less the teacher talk. Therefore, it is of great theoretical value and practical meaning to study teacher talk in EFL classrooms in the Chinese context.The present study attempts to make an exploration on teacher talk in EFL classrooms in Chinese college from the perspective of second language acquisition (SLA) based on the theories including Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, Swain’s Output Hypothesis and Long’s Interaction Hypothesis. The study chose four teachers and their students from Zhongbei College of Nanjing Normal University as the subjects. Through the ways of classroom observation, audio-recording, and doing a questionnaire, the data is collected and then transcribed and analyzed. The research questions of the current study mainly consist of four parts, namely, the amount of teacher talk, the frequency and types of teachers’questions, the frequency of interactional modifications of teacher talk, and teachers’feedback.The results of these research questions are as follows:in the classes observed, teachers take up most of the talking time in class; teachers ask far more display questions than referential questions; of the three types of interactional modification, comprehension checks are most frequently used, followed by confirmation checks, while clarification checks are the least; in terms of teachers’feedback, positive feedbacks are much preferred to negative ones, and of the praising forms, simple praise is used most frequently, while praise plus comments, one of the effective ways of praising, is seldom used. Thus, it can be seen that the classes observed are still teacher-fronted, which is not so favorable for students’language acquisition. Therefore, based on the findings, the present study provides some implications for EFL teaching. Firstly, teachers are expected to create optimum teacher talk of good linguistic quality for students. Secondly, teachers should shift their dominating role in relation to students and classroom activities and try to elicit more student talk. Thirdly, Chinese should be used timely and appropriately. Fourthly, teachers should encourage more opportunities for classroom interaction. Fifthly, teachers should offer more appropriate positive feedbacks to learners’performances in classroom so as to create a relaxing environment for language learning. Finally, teachers should enrich their knowledge of SLA theories, and in teacher education, teachers’ability of providing appropriate teacher talk should be strengthened.