A Study On Teacher Talk In Junior Middle School English Classrooms

Teacher talk serves as the tool for organizing teaching activities,the method of controlling classroom behavior and the source of students' input of the target language.English teachers should pay attention to the quantity and quality of teacher talk output.Teacher talk should reflect difference and pertinence and meet the requirements of all students' development.The study of teacher talk has not developed into a comprehensively theoretical system in China and there has not been much study on teacher talk in junior middle school English classrooms.So this thesis studies the current situation at home and abroad through literature review.Based on Krashen's input hypothesis,Swain's output hypothesis,Long's interaction hypothesis,this study takes 5 English teachers and 220 students in Grade Seven of the Experimental Middle School of Yantai Development Zone as research participants and studies the status quo of teacher talk in junior middle school English classroom teaching including the quantity of teacher talk,the quality of teacher talk,the type of teachers' questioning,the type of interaction modification and the type of teachers' feedback through classroom observation,questionnaires and interviews.There are some findings from the study: Teachers have realized that class should be student-centered gradually,but the proportion of teacher talk is still larger than that of student talk.The author tries to find an effective way to perfect teacher talk in junior middle school English classroom and improve the quality of English teaching.There are some problems of speed,pronunciation and the use of mother tongue.The quality of teacher talk needs to be improved.Teachers raise more display questions to check students' grasp of knowledge,while they raise less referential questions that help broaden students' mind.For interaction modification,teachers emphasize comprehension checks and use less confirmation checks and clarification requests.Teachers usually use positive feedback to encourage students to answer questions.The author brings up some suggestions on teacher talk for middle school English teachers according to the findings and hopes to improve the quality of teacher talk so as to improve the quality of English teaching.