A Study On Teacher Talk In Junior Middle School English Class

Teacher talk is the language that teachers use in the teaching process,which has an important impact on the organization of classroom teaching and students’ language acquisition.For English learners in China,the English classroom is their main place to contact and use English,and the classroom discourse of English teachers is an important source of their comprehensible language input.The quantity and quality of English teachers’ classroom discourse not only affect the effectiveness of classroom teaching,but also play an important role in students’ psychological,emotional and language acquisition.Therefore,more and more researchers pay attention to the classroom discourse of English teachers.Abundant researches have been conducted on English teacher talk in the field of linguistics and pedagogy,but most of them focus on higher education.There is less research on the talk of middle school teachers,and the research method is relatively simple.Therefore,through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research,there is still much room for further research and expansion of English teacher talk.Under the guidance of input hypothesis theory,output hypothesis theory,interaction hypothesis theory,and constructivist theory,taking 5 English teachers from Grade Seven in Hequ No.2 Middle School and the 200 students they teach as the research subjects,this thesis investigated and analyzed the current situation of the 5 English teachers’ classroom talk through classroom observations,students’ questionnaires,and teachers’ interviews.It mainly includes four aspects of teacher talk: the quantity of teacher talk,teacher questioning,interaction modification and teachers’ feedback.The four issues are as follows:(1)What is the quantity of teacher talk in English classes at junior middle school?(2)What is the current situation of teachers questioning in terms of question types,distribution of questions and waiting time in English classes at junior middle school?(3)What kind of interaction modifications is frequently adopted by English teachers at junior middle school?(4)Which kind of feedback is often used by English teachers at junior middle school?Research results show that:(1)Teachers speak much more in class than students;teachers spend more time in Chinese than in English.(2)Teachers generally ask more display questions and less reference questions.Teachers tend to adopt the way of designated student answers and student collective answers after asking questions.The waiting time after the teacher asks a question is shorter.(3)When communication difficulties arise in teacher-student interactions,most teachers adopt the method of comprehension check to enable the interaction to continue,and fewer use confirmation check and clarification request methods to resolve interaction difficulties.(4)Teachers mainly give positive feedback to students,but most teachers just give simple praise to students,and rarely make specific comments or queries after praise;When a student’s answer is wrong or the question is not answered,the teacher would often point out the mistake directly or ask other students to answer instead,and seldom guide the student to correct the mistake by himself.Based on the above research results,the author puts forward several suggestions to junior middle school English teachers:(1)Change the teaching concept and construct a "student-centered" classroom teaching model.(2)Control the amount of teacher talk and use English for teaching.(3)Reasonably use questioning strategies to guide students to think positively.Teachers should ask more reference questions;when teachers ask questions,try to consider the whole class as much as possible;Provide students with more opportunities to answer questions voluntarily;give students enough time to think after the questions are asked.(4)Choose flexible interaction modification methods to promote classroom interaction.Confirmation checks and clarification requests should be frequently used in the adjustment of teacher-student interaction.(5)Adopt positive and specific feedback methods to improve the quality of feedback.Teachers should make targeted comments or give follow-up questions when giving feedback;Guide students to correct themselves when their answers are wrong.Although the author has tried her best to complete this research,it still has many limitations.The author hopes to improve this research in the future through continuous learning.Meanwhile,it is hoped that the results and findings of this research can provide some useful implications and references for the practice of English teaching in primary and secondary schools and the study of English teacher talk in China.