A Study On Gender Differences Of Teacher Talk In Middle School EFL Classrooms

Teacher talk is the main method and medium of teaching.Meanwhile,it reflects the process and procedures of teaching.To some extent,teacher talk gives an index to teachers' quality,reflects teachers' educational concept,and mirrors the process of teachers' professional development.Teacher talk is well-formed,coherent and predictable.Numerous studies have shown that teacher talk has gender differences.However,most of the studies take college teachers' teacher talk and high school teachers' teacher talk as object of study,and seldom studies do research on middle school teachers' teacher talk.Based on second language acquisition theories,this study makes a research on six English video classes that are from the exhibition of English innovative class of Guangxi middle school which is also known as the national exchange meeting of excellent middle school English teachers in 2016.Through the study of the demonstration classes' observations,questionnaires and interviews of three middle schools in Nanning,gender differences of different dimensions of teacher talk will be presented.Suggestions to middle school English teachers will be given according to the amount of teacher talk,teachers' interactional modifications,teachers' questions and wait time,and teachers' feedback.The research questions are as follows:(1)What are the differences between the amount of male teacher talk and the amount of female teacher talk?(2)What are the differences between male and female teachers' interactional modifications?(3)What are the differences between male and female teachers' questions? Are there any differences between male and female teachers' question methods? What are the differences between male and female teachers' wait time?(4)What kind of teacher's feedback do male and female teachers often use in class? Are there any differences?The findings are as follows:(1)This thesis finds that teaching model of middle school English is teacher-centered model.There is no distinct difference between the amount of male and female teacher talk in middle school.The differences between the amount of male and female teacher talk are due to individuals but not gender differences.(2)For teachers' interactional modifications,comprehension checks are used the most by both male and female teachers.Compared with female teachers,male teachers like confirmation checks and clarification requests better.(3)For teachers' questions,display questions are used more often by male and female teachers than referential questions,which has unobvious difference.For the methods of teachers' questioning,female teachers like nominating better than male teachers.Compared with female teachers,male teachers adopt more self-answering in class.As for gender differences of wait time,there is not distinct difference between male teachers and female teachers.(4)For teachers' feedback,both male teachers and female teachers prefer positive feedback than negative feedback.Female teachers use more positive feedback than male teachers.Male teachers use more neglect and female teachers use more interruption and correction.Accordingly,the suggestions of this thesis are proposed based on second language acquisition theories in order to optimize teacher talk and improve teaching efficiency.They are:(1)Simplifying teacher talk and classroom instructions and trying to increase comprehensible output of students.(2)Increasing meaningful interactional modifications.Both male and female teachers are suggested to reduce comprehension checks.For male teachers,clarification requests should be decreased.(3)Raising more meaningful referential questions and providing enough wait time for students.Teachers are suggested to adjust wait time in accordance with different questions and students' language competence.Female teachers are suggested to reduce the frequency of nominating and chorus-answering.(4)Advocating more effective positive feedback.The abuse of simple praise should be avoided by teachers.Male teachers should not neglect students' mistakes and female teachers should not interrupt and then correct students' answers.Female teachers can employ confirmation checks or self-repair instead of interruption and correction.