A Comparative Study Of Teacher Talk Between Novice Teachers And Experienced Teachers In English Classes In A Junior High School

Research on teacher talk is one essential portion in the research of EFLclassroom. Many scholars have done much research on this topic both in China and inother countries. A lot of research presents that teacher talk is very important, not onlyfor the organization of the classroom but also for learners to acquire foreign language.Many researchers began to study teacher talk in a very thorough and systematic wayin language classroom. A great deal of research methodologies that well describedand analyzed classroom teacher talk appeared, and many encouraging results cameout. In China, researchers have also concentrated teacher talk research and have madesome achievements. Zhao’s research (1998) found that teacher talk takes up70%,even90%of class time. There are few opportunities for students to participate in theclassroom activities and express their opinions. However, empirical studies on teachertalk in EFL classroom in Chinese environment are still not too much, particularlycomparative studies between novice English teachers and experienced Englishteachers.In this study, the author attempted to conduct a small scale comparative study ina junior high school, analyzing the characteristics and differences of teacher talkamong three novice English teachers and three experienced English teachers. Throughclassroom observation, audio-recording and interviews, the author analyzes the datafrom the following aspects: the amount of teacher talk, the use of mother tongue, thefrequency of code-switching, classroom interaction and learner involvement, theauthenticity of teacher talk and the normativity of teacher talk. Based on theories suchas the input hypothesis, the output hypothesis, the interaction hypothesis, discourseanalysis and code-switching, this author aims to find out the characteristics of teachertalk of the novice English teachers and experienced English teachers.The results indicate that the amount of Teacher Talk occupies a large proportionin the total talk; the students don’t have many opportunities to use the target languagein the classroom, and the overuse of mother tongue commonly exists in the classroom which was investigated; it is not helpful for students to acquire second language; thereare too much code-switching in the language classroom, this is not good for studentsto learn English. In addition, comparing novice English teachers with experiencedEnglish teachers, it was investigated that novice English teachers’ classroom has moreinteraction than experienced English teachers’ classroom; teacher talk of noviceEnglish teachers and experienced English teachers are lack of situational authenticityto some extent; lastly, teacher talk of novice English teachers and experienced Englishteachers are not all the time standard English which will affect students’ secondlanguage acquisition, sometimes experienced English teachers do not concernlinguistic normativity.Some pedagogical suggestions are proposed for both the novice English teachersand experienced English teachers. Firstly, proper amount of teacher talk should beprovided so that students may have more chances to speak and communicate witheach other in English. Secondly, appropriate mother tongue can help students toacquire second language easily. Thirdly, English teachers should make their teachertalk more authentic, especially situational authenticity. Lastly, English teachers shouldconsider the normativity of their teacher talk and practice their oral English well;ensure students to have input of Standard English.