On Teacher Talk In College English Teaching In China

In basic English teaching for Chinese students, the functions of English teachers are developed mainly by teacher talk. Now, the student-centred approach has become more popular than the traditional teacher-centred approach. In the past, the teachers have only paid attention to the teaching content which could help the students get good results in the examinations, but never observed what the students really wanted or needed. The student-centred approach requires the teacher to adjust his/her pedagogy and teacher talk according to the students?reaction and need. Teachers should pay attention to the forms and techniques of their teacher talk. So a claim for improvement of teachers?language in English class is put forward. Teachers who only depend on their English proficiency and experience, but lack the study and practice of teacher talk can not meet the needs for teaching and learning. The research on teacher talk, especially English as teacher talk in English class, is important for English teaching practice and studies of pedagogy. At present, the foreign researches on teacher talk have only dealt with the analysis or comparison of all kinds of phenomena about teacher talk, but have not considered the different environment of mother language and second language. In China, only few aspects of the research on teacher talk appeared in some concerned articles. Systematic research for teacher talk for English teaching and learning in China is needed. This dissertation tries to analyse the characteristics, forms and factors affecting teacher talk in English class for Chinese students, and discuss how to make it more effective. The analysis of characteristics and forms of teacher talk is presented on the basis of Krashen抯 theory of comprehensible input. The nature of teacher talk is found by the comparison of teacher talk and some related concepts (eg. foreigner talk, motherese and interlanguage). According to English teaching and learning condition in China and main findings in teacher talk, seven characteristics of teacher talk (a model for students, acceptability, generation, redundancy, select and control, lack of information, attractiveness) and ten forms of teacher talk ( standardization, repetition, question, instruction, simplification, expansion, annotation, evasion, non-verbal language, mixture) are presented. Factors affecting teacher talk are analysed. In order to make teacher talk serve teaching and learning more effectively, according to the above characteristics, forms and affecting factors, some specific and practical suggestions are made to solve the problems on teacher talk which teachers often face in their teaching. According to Krashen's theory, the best input should have some essential requirements. (I) Input should be rich. (2)Input should be comprehensible. (3) Input should be interesting and relevant. As far as English classes in China are concerned, the following problems should be paid attention to: Pronunciation should be as standard as possible. Teachers should make sure that the usage of words, phrases and sentence patterns is correct. And teacher talk should accord with the western culture and custom. Besides students?proficiency and the need of teaching, different language forms for the same content should be considered when teachers choose words for teacher talk. Repetition should be properly used when teachers explain the same content in different forms Considering our actual teaching and learning condition in China, it is not practical to take only English as teacher talk So on the following occasions...