The Analysis Of Teacher Talk In College English Classroom

Classroom language teaching has its distinctive features. First of all, the organization and control of the classroom take place through language; second, language is the actual subject matter that is being taught. Through language, teacher implements teaching tasks, starts conversation with students and imparts language knowledge. The quality and quantity of teacher talk (TT) immensely influence the students'learning and acquisition of foreign language. This is especially true in the case of China where teacher-fronted teaching still dominates the teaching practice; besides, students can hardly gain an access to other forms of comprehensible input outside of the classroom since English is foreign language. This thesis aims at finding the current situation of TT in college English classroom, and improving college English teachers'awareness of the importance of TT as well as their skills to use TT with purpose.The thesis begins with the review of related theories and researches elaborating on the important aspects of TT. The research, conducted among five universities in Nanjing, adopted two research methods: case study and survey study. In the case study, five college English teachers'classes were recorded; then the recording was transcripted. The transcription was processed later by teacher-students interaction model―"IRF"proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard for further analysis. In the survey study, the author designed a questionnaire, in which 180 students took part in the research. Finally, 175 copies of questionnaire were collected. After the analysis of the data, it is found through the study that (1) teachers should improve their awareness of the importance of TT, paying special attention to the use of their language in the classroom and (2) their TT skills need polishing. Concrete suggestions are given in chapter five.The thesis ends by pointing out limitations of the study and putting forward suggestions for further research.