Exploring College English Teacher Talk In Writing Classes Through Complex Dynamic Systems Theory

This study has selected Complex Dynamic Systems Theory(CDST)as the theoretical framework to further investigate about the teacher talk in college English writing classes.Three English teachers(a novice teacher,a mid-career teacher,and a veteran teacher)from a coastal university in China participated in this study.The three teachers’ teacher talks conducting teaching practices in actual classrooms were tracked and collected through a case study approach as the research corpus.In the process of analysis,this study has selected Walsh’s(2011)Self-Evaluation of Teacher Talk(SETT)framework as the analytical framework to categorize and investigate the modes and interactional features of teacher talk.At last,based on the CDST,an in-depth analysis is provided in terms of the teacher talk system composed of modes and interactional features.The results of this study are as follows:In terms of teacher talk modes,the managerial,materials,skills and systems modes were presented in all three teachers’ classrooms,with the materials mode accounting for the most considerable proportion of all three teachers’ talks and the classroom context mode accounting for the smallest;in addition to the commonality,the classroom context mode is only presented in the novice teacher’s discourse.In terms of the interactional features,the most frequentlyused features were teacher echo,display question,transitional marker,and confirmation check,and the least frequently-used features were extended learner turn,extended wait-time,direct repair,teacher interruption,and form-focused feedback.However,each teacher varied greatly in the frequency of content feedback,extended teacher turn,scaffolding,seeking clarification,and referential question.At last,based on the CDST,this study analyzed the three teacher talk systems,they exhibited features of complexity and dynamism;the complexity was reflected in the uncertainty of matching modes and interactional features,and the dynamism was reflected in the fact that the modes and features were constantly changing as the classes progressed.Based on the findings,this study suggests that teachers engaged in the teaching of foreign languages should create more language learning opportunities for their students by adjusting modes and interactional features through their teaching practices.