A Contrastive Study Of Teacher Talks Between Novice And Expert Teachers In College English Classrooms

This thesis aims at finding differences in teacher talk between novice and expert teachers in terms of interactional features in college English classrooms. The subjects under investigation are two expert and two novice teachers from Yanbian University, following a random sampling. The present study draws on the methodology of Lian's (2001) and Wu's (2005) in which a naturalistic inquiry and three instruments have been adopted: classroom audio recording, questionnaire and stimulated-recall interview. The researcher follows a four-step process, namely recording– listening– transcribing– analyzing.Relating to the three research questions, it has yielded several findings. Firstly, over two-thirds of the whole lesson's discourse is occupied by the novice teachers'talk time, in comparison to the expert teachers'talk time, which nearly occupies two-thirds of the whole duration of the class. The amount of the novice teachers'talk time noticeably exceeds that of the expert teachers, which is similar to the previous studies. Secondly, both groups of teachers have a tendency to ask more referential questions than display questions, which is a divergence from the previous studies. Thirdly, novice teachers are fond of giving more simple positive feedbacks, while expert teachers'trend is to give more positive feedbacks with a follow-up question to elicit more responses. Fourthly, the explicit corrections are adopted frequently in the novice teachers'classes in order to save time. In reverse, expert teachers would use a way of rising-tone to stir up the awareness of learners, in order to allow a chance for the students to correct the errors by themselves, a heuristic approach which is advocated by Lyster and Ranta(1997). Lastly, novice teachers employ more comprehension checks, merely the smallest amount of clarification requests, whereas expert teachers pay more attention to confirmation checks using comprehension checks as a supplement in the class. This finding corresponds with the results of Ellis (1990) and Zhou &Zhou (2002).The present study has shed lights on teachers'awareness of the actual quantity and quality of their own language in terms of interactional features. Teachers oblige to know very well about a series of comprehensive and professional achievements. Consequently, they get a chance to appreciate the superficial value of their meanings, while incorporating them into their pedagogical repertoire; thus testing their validity in a practical manner. Theoretically, language teachers should engage in reflective practices in order to know how to teach. Teaching is a cyclical practice– i.e. knowing what learners do and know comes from teaching experience, and thus increases teachers'experience through practice. In addition, teachers should equip themselves with good senses or judgements so as to get close to students'learning desires. It ends with pedagogical implications and suggestions for further study.