An Empirical Study On Teacher Talk In EFL Reading Classroom Of Chinese Senior High School-from The Perspective Of Metaphor

In recent years, more and more senior high schools in China begin to pursuethe implementation of full English Teaching in English classes. Teacher Talk, as oneof the most important sources of comprehensible input in EFL teaching, has attractedmore and more concerns of scholars and educators. During their studies, it is foundthat the low quality of Teacher Talk and the boring classroom atmosphere inconsequence remain major headaches in Chinese EFL teaching. As one way toimprove the quality of Teacher Talk and to activate classroom atmosphere, theapplication of metaphors to Teacher Talk is suggested. The thesis is designed tostudy how metaphors are inserted into Teacher Talk to improve its quality and itseffects on EFL teaching. Therefore, five specific questions related to the aims are putup.In order to investigate the influences metaphors have on Teacher Talk andEFL teaching, qualitative and quantitative researches were employed in the study,with data collected from the observations of video materials and class teaching. Inaddition, a questionnaire and an interview are also used to confirm the relatedresults.The analysis of these collected data leads to five main findings in thefollowing:(1) Structural metaphor is used much more than orientational metaphorand ontological metaphor. And the MDs in the Teacher Talk of First Prize Teachersare much higher than those in inexperienced English teachers.(2) Generally, MDs inclassroom talks and instruction talks are much higher than those in questions andfeedbacks, which is in accordance for both First Prize Teachers and inexperiencedEnglish teachers. And most of the teachers choose not to use any metaphor infeedbacks.(3) MDs in Teacher Talk of text and vocabulary surpass those of grammarsections and exercise explanation sections a lot.(4) Metaphorical Teacher Talkinfluences EFL teaching effect of reading classes dramatically by improving themetaphorical competence of both teachers and students; enhancing the quality ofTeacher Talk; promoting the teaching atmosphere and activating students.(5) The factors impeding the use of metaphors to Teacher Talk mainly result from three mainaspects: EFL teachers themselves, students and the education situation.Based on these results, it is suggested that EFL teachers in high schools shouldinsert more metaphors, as the main sources of comprehensible input, to their talks soas to improve the quality of Teacher Talk and thus enhance the EFL teaching effectof reading classes in Chinese senior high schools.