A Study Of Effects Of Teacher Talk On Senior High School Students’ Agentic Engagement With English Learning

In recent years,the new curriculum reform emphasizes the dominant position of students in education.Therefore,English teachers should encourage students to participate in the whole process of teaching and learning and help them to improve their agentic engagement.The influencing factors of students’ agentic engagement have gradually become hot topics for many scholars.In China,due to the lack of English learning environment,most students have to rely on the classroom to learn English.During the class,through teacher talk,English teachers can provide comprehensible input,complete teaching objectives and interact with students.Therefore,teacher talk has a great impact on students’ English learning.Then,will English teacher talk have an effect on students’ agentic engagement with English learning? This research focuses on the English teaching in senior high school.Through questionnaires,interviews and classroom observation,this study attempts to answer the following three questions:1.What is the current situation of English teacher talk in senior high schools?2.What is the current situation of students’ agentic engagement with English learning in senior high schools?3.Can English teacher talk have an effect on the students’ agentic engagement? If yes,what are the most effective characteristics?This study adopts the mixed method.A high school in Baoji,Shaanxi was selected as the research subject,198 high school students’ questionnaires were collected,and 10 students and 3 teachers were interviewed,so as to investigate the current situation of English teacher talk and students’ agentic engagement,and analyze their correlation.At the same time,the English classroom in three grades was also observed,which further explored the effect of English teacher talk.The findings of the study are:1.The overall quality of senior high school English teacher talk is high,with which students are satisfied,since in the questionnaire,the mean scores of discourse features,discourse functions and interactive features are all around 4.However,there are still many problems,such as lack of normativity,inefficient feedback and insufficient classroom interaction.2.The students’ agentic engagement with English learning still need to be improved,especially the aspect of helping teachers in teaching.3.English teacher talk has a significant impact on students’ agentic engagement.Among all characteristics of teacher talk,normativity,repetitiveness,teaching function and negotiation between teachers and students are the most influential.English teacher talk can improve students’ interest in English learning,help students understand the teaching content,develop students’ positive learning attitudes and teach students learning methods,so that the initiative and autonomy of senior high school students in English learning can be improved.Based on the findings mentioned above,the study can offer some teaching suggestions for senior high school English teachers.At the same time,this research also has many limitations,including not being representative enough,lacking empirical researches,and ignoring the influence of other factors.