A Study On "Teacher Talk" Of The English Classroom At A Senior High School In Shenzhen

From 2018 to 2019,a new round of the reform of the Senior High English teaching has been launched by the Education Ministry of China.This research is based on the classic classroom discourse structure IRF:Initiation,a student Response and a teacher Feedback,which shows the basic formation of teacher talk.For a teacher,it is essential to cultivate their classroom discourse.In the previous study,there has been no research made in the Chinese EFL context on both of the initiation move and response move.On the basis of the theory of input hypothesis by Krashen,output hypothesis by Swain and interaction hypothesis from Michael Long,the researcher applies the method of recording,transcribing and interaction analysis.The researcher analyzes 5 lesson-recordings from Shenzhen Foreign Language School,these recordings are selected by Shenzhen Education Bureau and they can be the representatives of the best teaching recordings.The researcher collects the data from these recordings and transcribes the teacher talk into text.The research questions are:(1).What types of feedback and questioning can be applied by Senior High English teachers in their talk? What is the frequency and distribution of them?(2).What are the characteristics of these questioning and feedback generated by different teachers?How can English teachers improve the way of questionings and feedback under the IRF structure framework in high school?Within the IRF structure framework of Steve Walsh,the researcher make a general probe into the issues of Initiation and Feedback.The major findings are:Firstly,referential questions and thinking-provoking questions are not adequate in the Chinese EFL classroom,experienced teachers tend to ask more referential questions;Secondly,the length of teachers' wait-time can be a decisive factor to elicit the response from students;Thirdly,the modes of teachers' feedback can affect whether the turn-taking can be continuous.Chinese EFL class still lacks effective feedback.From the perspective of applied linguistics,teacher talk is the language input under the context of Chinese EFL,The corpus resource for learners(LL)in China EFL classroom is mainly from teacher talk.Questioning and feedback from EFL teachers are the decisive factors on the efficiency of theclassroom talk system construction.The response from students is the language output,which can be used as a role of measurement of the quality of the classroom talk.The proper feedback from teachers can make a negotiation meaning improvement via LL's responses and achieve the negotiating interaction.Through this research,some strategies on how to improve English teachers' discourse can be raised.It is applicable foe teachers to enhance their class effect by lengthening their wait-time,varying their questioning methods,that is the pedagogical implication of this research.