A Study Of College English Teacher Talk In Classrooms From The Perspective Of Input Hypothesis

Teacher Talk is of great importance, not only for its organization function of the classroom but also for its function as a medium to facilitate the processes of student learning. More importantly, it is the main source of comprehensible target language input that the learner is likely to receive in the foreign language classroom teaching. At the same time, whether the learner is successful in foreign language learning may largely depend on what language is used by the teacher and what interactions are constructed in the classroom. More specifically, the teacher talk can have a positive or negative effect on learner's output and to a great extent determine whether the learner can develop their communication ability. Therefore, Teacher Talk has been one of the foci in research of foreign language education because of its vital role in foreign language teaching.However, in practice, teachers are not aware of the importance of their language use (teacher talk) in the classroom and the relation between teacher talk and the learner's output. The teacher talk occupied most of the time in the classroom. Based on linguistic input theory, many studies conclude with the implication that traditional English teaching habits should be modified, input qualities be improved and both input and output be balanced in order to upgrade the teaching efficiency. Classroom input, interaction and output have intimate relations with pedagogy. Therefore, it is important for teachers to understand classroom input, interaction and output in order to improve classroom pedagogy.In this paper, I report a study of the relationship between classroom input, interaction and output in college English classrooms by using real-time classroom observation techniques and conversation analysis approach. The research findings show: 1) The amount of teacher talk is more than that of student talk in college English class. 2) The dominant pattern is IRF structure. 3) There are more display questions than referential questions in college English class. Most college English teachers now realize that they should minimize Teacher Talk time and achieve some good effects but fail to pay sufficient attention to the quality of teacher talk.Based on the research findings, this paper suggests: 1) teachers need to create more opportunities for learning and classroom participation by monitoring and reflecting their use of language; 2) teachers should pay more attention to the quality of teacher talk and make comprehensible language input driven output; 3) Teachers should make full use of network information resources to improve language input with the help of multimedia tools.