A Study On Gender Differences Of Teacher Talk In College English Classrooms

Teacher talk plays an important role in the process of English teaching and learning. It is both an instrument for knowledge impartation and a crucial source of comprehensible input that the learners receive in the classrooms. To great extent, the success or failure of students’ English acquisition depends upon the quantity and quality of teacher talk in the classrooms. With the development of theories concerning language teaching, teacher talk has already attracted great attention from scholars and teachers. However, few researches have been conducted to explore gender differences of teacher talk.On the basis of input hypothesis, output hypothesis and negotiated interaction hypothesis, the present study is aimed to make a comparison on male and female teachers’ talk in college English classrooms. Six teachers(including three male teachers and three female teachers) and their non-English major students from China University of Petroleum(East China) are chosen as participants in the present study. Through classroom observation and tape-recording, questionnaire and interview, the author analyzes the gender differences of teacher talk from four aspects, i.e. the amount of teacher talk, teacher’s questions, teacher’s feedback and teacher-students’ interactional modification. Besides, students’ opinions and expectations about teacher talk are gained.The results obtained from the experimental research show that female teachers tend to talk more than male teachers. As a result, student talk time in their classrooms is comparatively short and insufficient. More questions, especially referential questions, are employed by male teachers rather than female teachers in college English classrooms, whereas male teachers are less patient to wait for students’ responses than female teachers. As to teacher’s feedback, female teachers adopt more positive feedbacks but fewer negative feedbacks than male teachers. With regard to teacher-students’ interactional modification, male teachers employ it less frequently in comparison with female teachers. As far as students are concerned, they hope to have more opportunities to interact with their teachers in English. Besides, students have a preference for referential questions and positive feedbacks over display questions and negative feedbacks.Some pedagogical implications for both male and female teachers are put forward based on the gender differences of teacher talk in college English classrooms. It is hoped that they can neutralize their talk to the better gender side so as to improve the quality of teaching and facilitate students’ language acquisition.