Interpersonal Function Of Teacher Talk In Classroom Interaction

Teacher talk is of crucial importance,not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of acquisition.It is the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive in the foreign language classroom teaching. This paper is to describe and explicate teacher talk in the framework of classroom interaction,discourse analysis and functional grammar and tries to explore the potential that teachers of EFL may facilitate or increase opportunities for language learning and learner participation through their choice and use of language and the possibility that they may hinder or decrease these opportunities.The article consists of five chapters.The first introduces some definitions of the interpersonal function of teacher talk,some theories of the former researchers abroad and home and points out the signification of the present researches.The second introduces some principles about classroom interaction and teacher talk.The third explores the realization of interpersonal function of teacher talk.The forth describes an experiment to analyse the interpersonal function of teacher talk in classroom interaction.The last one makes a conclusion.The present article analyses four extracts from Jingmen Secondary Vocational School English classroom teaching,using a Conversation Analysis(CA)methodology. Most studies and surveys carried out on teacher talk are mainly focused on the amount and type of teacher talk,its effects on language comprehension,teacher questions, feedback and error correction.It not only discusses the forms of teacher talk and the realization of interpersonal function with the methods of the conversational description, But also discusses the relationship between the interpersonal function of teacher talk and the classroom interaction.The article suggests that teachers may create more opportunities for learning and classroom participation by monitoring and reflecting their use of language,by paying more attention to the quality of teacher talk and consequently promote second language acquisition.