A Turn-Taking Analysis Of Teacher Talk In Tertiary English Class In Chinese Mainland

Teacher talk plays a very significant part during the process of L2 classroom instruction in Chinese mainland. In the tertiary English classrooms, English is not only the object of the learning activity, but also the medium for teaching process. Besides being the target language model and part of the comprehensible input for the students, teacher's speech is supposed to fulfill some more meaningful procedural and organizational functions simultaneously. The most important objective is to create opportunities for the students to participate in the teacher-student and student-student interaction flow. Therefore, it is worthwhile for the in-service teachers to be fully aware of their discourse features in classrooms. However, the research in this area has been quite limited.This study has conducted a preliminary quantitative and qualitative analysis of teacher talk by employing both conversation analysis and discourse analysis methodologies. The aim is to identify the discourse features of teacher talk in maintaining turn-taking, exchange structures and doing repairs. More specifically, the study is to find out how teacher talk can influence the students'participatory opportunities for contribution, meaning negotiation and interaction, and how the L2 teachers provide corrective feedback to facilitate L2 learning process.The analysis shows that the turn-taking behaviors in L2 classrooms are quite different from the mundane conversations. In L2 classrooms, the teachers usually yield the floor to the students by nominations and inviting biddings for floor. Students have very few opportunities to self-select themselves as the next speakers. The repetition of the IRF structures restrict the students'participation. Due to the specific and different identities and roles of the teacher and students in classrooms, the teachers maintain the rights and obligation to select the next speakers. It is also found that in the follow-up move, the teachers initiate repair and complete the repair if the trouble-source is identified in students'utterances.