A Comparative Study Of Teacher Talk In Junior High School English Classroom

Teacher talk, which occupies an important position in English classroom language teaching, has gained far more attention due to the transformation of teaching notion from teacher-centered method to the student-centered method. It is not only an important means in which teachers impart knowledge to students, but also the main source for students to learn the target language. However, relevant researches on teacher talk mainly focus on the senior high schools and universities, only a few refer to junior high school and comparative study. Therefore, the comparative study of teacher talk in junior high school English classrooms has its practical significance.Based on the Input Hypothesis, Output Hypothesis and Interaction Hypothesis, the study tries to explore the following questions.Question 1: What are the similarities and differences in classroom teacher talk for the expert and novice junior high school English teachers in the aspects of lead in, teacher questioning, interactional modification and teacher feedback?Question 2: What are the similarities and differences for the expert and novice teachers in the attitude and expectation to the use of teacher talk in junior high school English classroom?Classroom observation and tape recording are done and analyzed to describe the similarities and differences between the expert and novice teachers on teacher talk in Jincheng Training School. And the questionnaire on teachers’ attitude and expectation works as the effective supplement to the conclusion of the classroom observation and tape recording.The study shows the following results:The similarities show that expert and novice English teachers present more display questions and use more comprehension checks to control the teaching process and fulfill the teaching tasks smoothly. They both tend to adopt positive feedback to foster interactional modification.Differences are discussed as follows: Compared with novice teachers, expert teachers show more acceptance and expectation to the felicitous lead-in. The expert teachers tend to apply various interaction patterns in their classes. They tend to use more clarification requests and referential questions to proceed negotiations of meaning with students. As for the students’ answers, expert teachers can adopt more specific positive feedback by taking advantage of teacher talk in order to arouse students’ learning motivation, improve their learning behavior and make sure the communication between teachers and students goes fluently. However, the novice teachers lack the flexibility in using their teacher talk; they fail to adjust their teacher talk to students’ practical situations, leaving little chance for students to participate in the classroom language learning, which affects students’ language acquisition.On the basis of the findings, the thesis puts forward the following suggestions for teacher talk: The teacher should adopt interesting lead-in to advance interaction, and stimulate students to think actively by using questioning strategies. Through interaction modification strategies, teachers maintain interaction, and improve the way of feedback and quality of teaching.