A Comparative Analysis Of The Teacher Talk In Vocational College

A teacher’s classroom discourse is significant to the teaching organization and students’ second language acquisition in that good classroom discourse not only produces satisfactory teaching effects but also gives excellent examples to students as to the way to use the target language as linguistic information input. Research on teachers’classroom discourse can effectively reflect the real effects of discourse on classroom teaching and contribute to the improvement of classroom teaching.The large amount of current professional studies from home and abroad on teachers’ discourse is evident enough that teachers’discourse plays a decisive role in the quality of classroom teaching by influencing students’second language acquisition. A review and analysis of abundant related literature finds that there is little related research done on the English classroom teaching in vocational colleges. This thesis thus aims to analyze the features of teachers’ classroom discourse in Lanzhou University of Arts and Science in order to help teachers select the types of classroom discourse beneficial to students’second language acquisition and provide certain theoretical bases for the English classroom teaching in higher vocational colleges.In this study, the following questions will be analyzed and discussed:(1) teacher talk time; (2) teacher’s question; (3) interactional modification;(4) feedback manners.The research objects of this research are 3 English teachers-the expert, proficient and novice, and 166 college students from Lanzhou University of Arts and Science. The researcher observed, participated in and recorded the classroom teaching of the 3 teachers, made after-class interviews, analyzed the audios and notes and analyzed the 4 research questions. Questionnaire surveys were conducted on the 166 students and the data of their answers to the questions were analyzed to support audio analysis. The questionnaire is adapted from that designed by Zhou Xing and Zhou Yun (2002), including 15 questions that basically reflect the aforementioned features of teachers’ discourse.Results show that the discourse time length of the novice teacher falls into the section (65%-90%) found by expert Zhao Xiaohong, which indicates that the classroom teaching of this teacher is teacher-centered, and his time length of using native language is consistent with students’expectation. The 3 teachers adopted more display questions than referential ones and mostly initiated such types of questions as "nominating" and "chorus." Ways of interactional modification are mainly comprehension checks, followed by clarification requests, and the proficient teacher did not use confirmation checks. The three teachers all gave positive feedbacks with simple praises. As for negative feedbacks, the expert and proficient teachers guided students to do self-repair while the novice often turned to another student.After the survey and data analysis, there are some implications as follows:(1) Teachers’ concept, role and status should be changed; (2) teacher talk and curriculum design should be paid great attention so as to improve the quality of teacher talk; (3) teachers should focus on classroom interaction and stimulate students to participate in classroom activities; (4) teachers should make timely and appropriate feedbacks.