A Study Of The Influence Of Teacher Talk On Students’ English Learning Motivation In Junior High School

In China, English is a compulsory course in junior high school. Teacher talk plays a significant role in English classroom. It is not only a tool for English teachers to manage and organize the classroom, implement the teaching plans, but also an important source of the target language input to the students. In the Psychology for Language Teachers, Williams and Burden(1997) state that “Motivation has been widely accepted as one of the key factors that influence the success of L2 learning. Most people agree that learning is most likely to occur when people are motivated to learn”(p. 104). A number of scholars have investigated both fields in recent years. However, few studies stress the influence of teacher talk on junior high school students’ learning motivation. This study intends to fill in this gap.The research subjects of this study were thirty students and their English teacher in Grade Two in junior high school. Research methods involve class observation, questionnaire, and interview for both the teacher and five students. Then the data were collected and the results from the three research instruments were analyzed in terms of the amount of teacher talk, types of questioning and teacher’s feedback. This study mainly intends to explore the two issues: the influence of teacher talk on students’ English learning motivation in junior high school and the junior high school students’ attitudes towards teacher talk.Research findings show that an effective and appropriate teacher talk can be beneficial to inspire and maintain students’ English learning motivation, and the students prefer to accept the appropriate, positive and energetic teacher talk in English class. This study finally suggests that English teachers should arouse students’ English learning motivation by using appropriate and effective teacher talk as much as possible in the English classroom.