A Contrastive Study Of Teacher Talk Between Expert And Novice Teachers In English Classroom Of Senior High School

Teacher talk is one of essential elements of classroom teaching.Nunan(1991)points out that teacher talk plays an extremely significant role in organizinga class andacquiring a second language.Moreover,Hakansson(1986)states that the quantity and quality of teacher talk in language classroom is a decisive factor of classroom teaching’ success.Therefore,it is necessary to have research on teacher talkin English classroom.In order to provide experienced and inexperienced teachers suggestions and pedagogical implication,the author carried out a research on teacher talk by contrasting two groups of teachers,expert teachers and novice teachers,and each group has two teachers.This study mainly discusses the similarities and differences of teacher talk between expert teachers and novice teachers in three aspects: the amounts of teacher talk,teacher’s questioning in terms of questioning types and the way of answering questions,and teacher’s feedback after students answering questions,based on Long’s Interaction Hypothesis,Krashen’s Input Hypothesis,and Swain’s Output Hypothesis.Through classroom observation,tape-recording and transcription,students’ questionnaire and teachers’ interview,the major findings are concluded as follows:By using T-test,significant differences have been found in the quantity of student talk time and the way of answering questions.Although both expert and novice teachers’ amounts of teacher talk have a large proportion of the whole classroom teaching,expert teachers provide more opportunities of speaking English for students.Besides,expert teachers prefer the way of whole class answering questions together while novice teachers preferthe way of calling students’ names to answer questions.On the other hand,the similarities of them are that their talk all account for a large proportion of whole teaching process.Moreover,both of themprefer asking questions with correct answers than referential questions.Lastly,both expert and novice teachers all prefer to repeat students’ answers rather than give simple and short comments and expand students’ knowledge with extra input.There are some pedagogical implications for novice and expert teachers.Both kinds of teachers need to increase students’ talk time,instead of only focusing on their own talk.Moreover,it is advisable for novice teachers to prepare for asking more referential questions to promote classroom interaction and cultivate students’ thinking from different angles.Besides,both expert teachers and novice teachers need to encourage learners to answerquestions actively and voluntarily more often.Finally,when novice teachers give students’ feedback,they should give more comments with extra input,instead of simple praise like “good”,“OK”,etc.