A Study Of English Teachers' Talk In Senior High School Based On SLA Theories

Teacher talk is not only the medium language that English teachers organize classroom teaching and impart language knowledge,but also the main input source of target language in students' second language acquisition(SLA).Teacher talk plays a crucial part in the SLA of learners.The relevant theories of SLA reveal the importance of teacher talk in the process of learners' language acquisition from different angles.This paper,based on Comprehensible Input Hypothesis of Krashen and Interaction Hypothesis of Long,has conducted the investigation of current situation of use in the authenticity,interactivity and normality of English teachers' talk in senior high school and analyzed the existing problems.The author has adopted the natural researching methodology,combined with questionnaires of the teachers and students,teacher interviewing and classroom observation and recording,and randomly selected six English teachers and their students from Affiliated Senior High School of Huaibei Normal University as research subjects,to probe the factors that influence teacher talk and provide some teaching implications to better instruct the latter English teaching.According to the study,the author has found out that there are some problems in the authenticity,interactivity and normality of the English teachers' talk in senior high school.The problems are mainly embodied as: the teachers have ignored the authenticity and interactivity of teacher talk in communication and the normality of language use in the daily teaching practice.Aiming at the problems of teacher talk,the author proposes that teachers,on one hand,should be fully aware of the importance of teacher talk and make efforts to create real and natural classroom situation;and on the other hand,they should enrich and consolidate their professional knowledge to ensure the normality and appropriateness of their talk.The author also hopes that the research could provide some helpful reference for improving the quality of teacher talk and classroom teaching in a certain degree,to achieve the aim of cultivating students' communicative competence and facilitating students to acquire the second language smoothly ultimately.This paper consists of five chapters.Chapter one is a brief introducing part,including the background,purpose and significance of the study.Chapter two is the literature review,firstly,the author has elaborated the theoretical foundations of the study: Comprehensible Input Hypothesis of Krashen and Interaction Hypothesis of Long,and then the author has reviewed the relevant research achievements related with teacher talk at home and abroad respectively.Chapter three is the study design of English teachers' talk in senior high school,including the questions,subjects and methods of the study.Chapter four is the results and discussion of the study.Chapter five is the concluding part,the major findings,the teaching implications and the limitations of the study are expounded here.Meanwhile,the author has given a succinct conclusion of the study.