A Case Study Of Teacher Talk Of A Superfine English Teacher In Senior High School

In English class,teacher talk is not only an effective way to spread teaching content and teaching strategies,but also the main source of students’ language input and the conscious or unconscious imitation object in the process of language development.High-quality teacher talk can improve the effectiveness of students’ language learning,and generate positive effect on their learning psychology and emotion.It can be seen that the study of teacher talk in the process of language teaching is of great significance.At present,there have been studies on teacher talk from different perspectives,but there are relatively few studies on teacher talk of senior high school English teachers,especially those superfine English teachers.(1)Based on Krashen’s Input Hypothesis,Long’s Negotiated Interaction Hypothesis and Swain’s Output Hypothesis,a case study is used to investigate a superfine English teacher in a senior high school in Zhejiang Province for a period of three months through classroom observation,students’ questionnaire,and teacher’s interview in order to answer the following four questions:(1)What is the amount of teacher talk of a superfine teacher in English classes?(2)What are the features of a superfine teacher’s questioning in terms of types of questions,questioning direction and waiting time?(3)What interactive adjustment strategies does the superfine teacher usually use?(4)How does the superfine teacher respond to students’ answers?Through date collection and analysis,this thesis draws the following conclusions:(1)The average amount of teacher talk is about 23 minutes,accounting for 56.4% of the total class time.The main reasons are the differences in students’ current English proficiency,sentence length used by the teacher and students,and teaching objectives and lesson types;(2)The questions proposed by the teacher are mostly display questions,but teacher will also put forward referential questions to increase students’ language output,especially in reading classes.As for questioning direction,the amount of “chorus-answering” and “teacher-self answering” accounts for the largest proportion,followed by “volunteering” and “nominating”.After questioning,the waiting time provided is usually within 1-3 seconds,but for difficult questions and students with poor English proficiency,it will be extended appropriately;(3)In terms of interactive adjustment,when communication barriers occur,the frequency of comprehension check is the highest,followed by confirmation check,while the frequency of clarification request is the lowest;(4)Teacher’s feedback to students is mainly positive.Among the three positive feedback methods,“praise followed by repetition” accounts for the largest proportion,“praise followed by comments” takes the second place,while “simple praise” accounts for the smallest proportion.When students make mistakes in their answers,the teacher usually guides students to self-correction or use direct correction.Based on the above findings,this study offers advice for teachers and schools respectively.For teachers:(1)Teachers should reasonably control the amount of teacher talk and put students at the centre of learning;(2)Teachers should improve questioning skills and reduce students’ emotional anxiety;(3)Teachers should strike a balance between different ways of interactive adjustment and create opportunities for interaction and meaning negotiation;(4)Teachers should use different types of feedback properly and strengthen the pertinence of feedback language;(5)Teachers should constantly reflect and summarize their own teacher talk in teaching practice,and improve the awareness of teacher talk.For schools:(1)Schools should organize specialized training for teachers to improve the theoretical level of teacher talk;(2)Schools should establish a teacher talk evaluation system that combines individual evaluation with group evaluation;(3)Schools should actively organize and participate in the exhibition and evaluation activities of high school English quality courses inside and outside the school.