An Analysis Of Teacher Talk In English Comprehensive Class

Teacher talk refers to the language that teacher uses in classroom teaching. The research about teacher talk dated from 1970s. In recent years, more and more linguists and researchers at home and abroad pay much attention to it because they find that teacher talk has great influence on language teaching and learning.Teacher talk is very important for its organization of the classroom activities and its function as a medium to facilitate the processes of students’learning. What’s more, it is the main source of comprehensive target language input that the learner is likely to receive in the foreign language classroom, whether the learner is successful in foreign language learning may largely depend on the teacher talk used in the classroom. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the features of teacher talk in EFL classroom, with the purpose of giving some pedagogical suggestions to English teachers on what kind of teacher talk would be beneficial to students’language acquisition, and would be employed in classroom teaching.This research is conducted based on Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, Swain’s Output Hypothesis and Long’s Interaction Hypothesis. Krashen (1985) claims that learners can acquire the language when they comprehend the language input that is slightly more advanced than their current level. Krashen called this level of input "i+1", which is the most basic way to acquire language. Swain (1985) proposes that comprehensible input is really important, but output can make them master the language rules, and then adjusts the language, finally, the second language system can be established. Long (1983) also stresses the importance of comprehensible input, but he claims that the effectiveness of comprehensible input is greatly increased when learners have to negotiate for meaning. The communicative language input is more important than single language input.Based on these theories, this thesis analyzed the teacher talk from three aspects:the amount of teacher talk, teachers’questions and teachers’feedback. It aims to find how teacher talk influences students’language acquisition. The author chooses 11 teachers of Ningxia University. They are from Class A, Class B and Class C because of graded teaching. The data are collected from classroom observations, audio-recording, transcriptions and questionnaires.Based on data analysis, three results can be drawn in the following:1) As for the amount of teacher talk, teacher talk time surpasses the students talk time, which occupies 71.3%, teacher still dominates the class, students have little opportunities to speak. In terms of the amount of target language, Chinese is moderately used.2) As for teachers’questions, display questions are used more frequently than referential questions, but referential questions can increase students’target language output and therefore facilitate their language acquisition. For the way of answering question, answering in chorus and nominating are teachers’favorite choices. Students who answer questions voluntarily are rare. So students’learning independence and enthusiasm are weak. The way of questioning is lack of flexibility and pertinence. After teacher puts up a question, enough waiting time is provided for students, but teachers will give different waiting time according to different students and questions.3) For teachers’feedback, teachers are liable to provide positive feedback to students, which can improve students’learning interest and enhance students’motivation, but most of these positive feedback are simple praise, which are too mechanic and general. Students expect that teachers can tell them their merits and demerits of their answers, and then students can understand the questions better and participate in the classroom activity actively. For students’wrong answers, teachers will provide some clues to lead them have a self-repair. Teachers use negative feedback rarely, which can avoid threatening students’ face and discouraging their enthusiasm for study.