Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

With the development of applied linguistics, many researchers start to studyteacher talk in the language classroom. Teacher talk, which refers to the languagethat the teacher uses in the classroom, plays a crucial role in the process of languageteaching and learning. Nunan (1991) points out that teacher talk is not only aninstrument of implementing teaching plans，but also the main source of languageinput for language learners in the language classroom. Recently，languageresearchers have shifted their attention from investigating different teaching methodsto observing what really happens in the language classroom. This phenomenon hasbeen attracting a growing number of applied linguists conducting researches onteacher talk, and teacher talk is becoming a hot issue in the field of second languageacquisition.Since the 1970s, a great number of scholars and language educators (Allwright1983; Chaudron 1988; Ellis 1990; Gaise 1979; Hakanssonl986; Swain 1985; Nunan1991) have made lots of empirical researches on teacher talk. Previous researchersmainly focused on the linguistic features of teacher talk, that is, on tempo of speech, intonation, adjustments on the level of vocabulary, syntactic structure and text(Chaudron, 1988). By the 1980s，scholars began to focus their attention on thefunctional features of teacher talk, which includes the amount and type of teachertalk, its effects on language comprehension, teacher questions, teacher feedback anderror correction. No matter what kind of studies on teacher talk they have conducted,it has really made a contribution to the field of teacher talk and second languageacquisition research.

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1.2 Purpose of the Study

In China, students begin to leam English as a foreign language in the primaryschool，the classroom is the main place for them to leam and practice their English,and they seldom have opportunities to practice or communicate in English in a realsituation. Therefore, teacher talk becomes the main source of students\\\' languageacquisition. The amount and quality of teacher talk in the language classroom has agreat effect on and is even a decisive factor of the success or failure of classroomteaching (Hakansson 1986). According to He (2001), appropriate teacher talk can notonly promote communication of teacher-student and student-student, but alsostimulate students\\\' participation and communicative motivation, optimize students\\\'contribution and facilitate their second language acquisition.In recent years, a growing number of scholars and language teachers havebecome aware of the importance of teacher talk, and they have conducted a greatmany of studies in China concerning the teaching and learning process in the Englishclassroom. However, most of the researches are focused on the features and functionsof teacher talk in the university English classroom. As senior high school is animportant phase in which students develop their English competence of listening,speaking, reading and writing, there is no reason to neglect the study of teacher talkin the high school English classroom.

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Teacher Talk

Teacher talk, also called teacher\\\'s language, teacher\\\'s speech，teacher\\\'sdiscourse or teacher\\\'s utterance, refers to the language that teachers use in theprocess of classroom language teaching. According to Longman Dictionary ofLanguage Teaching & Applied Linguistics, teacher talk is defined as the variety oflanguage that teachers speak to students when the teachers are in the process ofteaching. Many scholars define teacher talk from different perspectives. Ellis (1994: 726) defines teacher talk as following: Teachers address classroom languagelearners differently from the way they address other kinds of classroom learners.They make adjustments to both language form and language function in order tofacilitate communication. These adjustments are referred to as teacher talk. Sinclair& Brazil (1982) point out that teacher talk is the language in the classroom that takesup a major portion of class time employed to give directions, explain activities andcheck students\\\' understanding. Cook (1996) defines teacher talk as the quantity ofspeech employed by the teachers rather than the students in foreign or secondlanguage classroom. Furthermore, Bassmain (2000) defines teacher talk morecomprehensively. According to him, teacher talk is styled or artificial languagespoken by the foreign or second language teachers with the purpose of transmittingmeaningful knowledge and information to language learners. It is usuallycharacterized by reduced vocabulary and grammar, shorter sentences, andsometimes slow speech tempo, careful articulation and continual comprehensionchecks (Bassmain 2000: 477).

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2.2 Relevant Research on Teacher Talk in China and Abroad

Teacher talk is very important for both classroom teaching organization andstudents\\\' language learning in the process of foreign language learning, since teachertalk is an instrument of implementing teaching plan, and also the main source oflanguage input for language learners in the language classroom. Since the 1970s, agreat number of scholars have made researches on teacher talk. The earlier studies ofclassroom discourse (Flanders，1970; Sinclair&Coulthaxd, 1975; Moskowitz，1976;Fanselow, 1977a) tended to focus on the features of teacher talk only for languageinput purpose, and few researches investigated the quality of teacher talk.Furthermore, these studies were limited in the context of the traditionalteacher-centered classroom, in which teachers predominated the whole teachingprocess and there was little interaction and communication between teachers andstudents.Ellis (1985) holds that the researchers\\\' interests in teacher talk are mainly in twoaspects; (1) the analysis of the types of teacher talk used in the language classroom,such as Gaise (1977,1979)，Henzl (1979), Long and Sato (1983); (2) the research onteacher talk in the university subject classroom, e.g. Chaudron (1983)，Wesche and Ready (1985). These studies show that the teaching language used by teachers in theclassroom is similar to the speech between NS (native speaker) and NNS (non-nativespeaker), for both of the two have the features of being simplified, standardized, anddetailed.

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Chapter 3 Methodology ......  27

3.1 Research Design......  27

3.2 Research Questions......  27

3.3 Subjects......  28

3.4 Instruments......  29

3.5 Data Collection...... 30

3.6 Data Analysis......  31

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion......  33

4.1 Amount of Teacher Talk of Novice and Expert Teachers......  33

4.2 Questioning Types of Novice and Expert Teachers.......  35

4.3 Feedback Manners of Novice and Expert Teachers ...... 37

4.4 Features of Interactional Modification of Novice and Expert Teachers......  39

Chapter 5 Conclusion ...... 42

5.1 Major Findings ...... 42

5.2 Pedagogical Implications......  44

5.3 Limitations of the Present Study......  46

5.4 Suggestions for Further Study......  47

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Amount of Teacher Talk of Novice and Expert Teachers

Based on the input, output and interaction hypothesis mentioned above, theamount of teacher talk in the classroom is crucial to the interaction between teachersand students. Teacher talk time is of great significance and has direct correlation withstudent talk time. The more teachers talk, the less students talk and feweropportunities students have to give output.In accordance with the data from the transcripts and observation, the authorfigures up the amount and percentage of the four teachers\\\' talk time，students\\\' talktime and the time for other activities in the four lessons of the two groups of teachers.The results are presented as the following table.

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Conclusion

The last chapter provides a detailed description and analysis of two kinds ofteacher talk, novice teacher talk and expert teacher talk in terms of the amount ofteacher talk, questioning types, feedback manner and features of interactionalmodification. Therefore, the summary of the research findings are generalized inthese four aspects below. The study shows that teacher talk time is significantly more than student talktime in both novice and expert teachers’ classes. Therefore, we can conclude that atpresent teachers still adopt traditional teacher-centered classroom teaching. Althoughthe two groups of teachers tend to talk more in the classroom, we find that the expertteachers\\\' talk time is less than novice teachers\\\' talk time. Thus we can conclude thatexpert teachers are trying to change the traditional teacher-centered class intostudent-centered class gradually. They tend to provide more time for students toexpress themselves and communicate with others.

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Reference (omitted)