Teacher Talk In The Language Classroom

Teacher talk is the speech that teachers use to organize and manage the classroom. It is not only a means for teachers to organize the classroom but also the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner encounters in the process of L2 acquisition. Therefore, it is of crucial importance in language teaching.In this paper, teacher talk of two Chinese EFL teachers and two British teachers is analysed and contrasted. The aim of the study is to get to know the classroom discourses teachers in different cultures use to promote interaction in their classrooms. Similarities and differences of teachers'classroom discourse have been explicated so that EFL teachers may be informed objectively about their language output in the classroom and their lessons evaluated more effectively. This may be beneficial for English language teachers to learn from each other and improve their teaching. The contrastive analysis is based on Sinclair and Coulthard's IRF structure, i.e. Initiation-Response-Feedback and their Speech Act categories (1992). Some interaction hypothesises and Speech Act theories are used in the discussion of the research results. The analysis includes: discourse structures of Chinese and British teachers'classes; features of teachers'information input; distribution of teachers'acts and teachers'feedback to students'responses.The study shows: (1) there exist IRF structures in both Chinese teachers'and British teachers'classes. Contrastively, British teachers'classroom structures are more complex and interactive. (2) Both Chinese and British teachers provide sufficient and appropriate information. However, the British teacher gives information through two-way interaction by"negotiation of meaning"while the Chinese teacher uses one-way information input. (3) Interaction in British teachers'classes is natural and spontaneous, whereas the interaction in Chinese teachers'classes is planned and sometimes monotonous. (4) All the teachers use effective feedback to students'responses.Based on the results, some implications on the improvement of English language teaching are given at the end of the paper.