A Comparative Study Of Native & Non-Native Speaker Teacher Talk In EFL Classroom Teaching

In recent years, classroom discourse has become a hot studying field for researchers both at home and abroad. Classroom discourse has been either studied for itself, or from the perspectives of language acquisition. Consequently various findings have contributed to make classroom discourse research more and more fruitful.In the present study, focus is laid on comparing similarities and differences between native and non-native English speaker teachers in three aspects: teacher questions, wait-time, and teacher feedback. And by comparing and contrasting the effects of these similarities and differences on learners'acquisition, features better facilitating foreign language learning are recognized and discussed. To begin with two fields of research are reviewed: one is on teacher talk, centering around studies of teacher questions, teacher wait-time, and teacher feedback; the other review is on relevant theories or hypothesis in language acquisition.Based on the literature review and the proposed research questions in this study, five native English teachers and five non-native (Chinese) English teachers are chosen as the subjects of the study. A 90-minute lesson of each of these 10 teachers are observed and recorded, resulting in a recorded data of 900 minutes which are then transcribed and used in the analysis and discussion of the study. In addition, twenty students from the two teacher groups are randomly selected as the interviewees.Results from data analysis and student interview bring forth three major findings: Firstly, both groups of teachers have a preference of display questions over referential questions. Non-native teachers tend to explain or even translate their questions directly into Chinese while the native teachers simply raise the questions and only restate when students indicate difficulties in understanding. Besides this, comparatively, the native teachers asked more referential questions than non-native teachers, leaving opportunities for students to speak out their minds. Students generally prefer referential questions, taking them as more beneficial to their language development than display questions are. And students are discontented with the non-native English teachers'overuse of explanation and translation of the questions raised. Secondly, the non-native English teachers tend to be more patient after a question is asked, especially when they raise referential questions. They normally allow students more time to think before answering the questions. This is found to be appreciated by students and may attribute to the fact that as non-native English speakers themselves, these teachers have better understanding of the students'difficulties in learning English. Last but not least, in consideration of the positive feedback, the Chinese teachers tend to affirm students'right answers, either in content or form first, and then provide more information or lead students into further discussion. This kind of feedback is welcomed by students. In terms of corrective feedback, both groups of teachers tend to center their concentration on the content or information conveyed by students and neglect students'errors in grammar or language form. The non-native English teachers tend to correct students errors more frequently than their native counterparts. However, students show a preference for self-correction. The last part was about the implication and suggestion.In summary, the study shows that there are both similarities and differences between native and non-native English speaker teacher talk in classroom teaching, but it is na?ve to judge one as better than the other. There are actually both merits and demerits in teacher talk of both groups. To better facilitate language learning, it seems necessary for the two groups of teachers to learn from each other's merits and get rid of the demerits. It is clear that comparative studies like this are in consistency with the need of practical teaching while remaining as an important are in classroom discourse research. The deficiencies of the present are self-evident, and hopefully, they are to be addressed in further research.