Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Motivation of the Study
Though English learners in China can receive large amount of input in classrooms ranging frompeer talk, blackboard notes to all kinds of materials, etc. Comprehensible input and modifiedinteraction in the classroom play a central role in English learners' language acquisition, and in theclassroom, teacher is an important source of language input. In this sense, teachers' language hasattracted more and more attention. The present study intends to investigate the variations of theteacher talk in the language classroom in the following aspects: teacher talk time, questioning types,feedback manner as well as discourse markers. In doing so, it will help us to implement andameliorate the EFL education and in Northwest China.Before making observation of TT，we should have a quick view of the Chinese foreign languagelearners. Chinese foreign language learners, both the school students and adults，are studying thelanguage of other countries, that is, foreign language. In general，they I earn and practice thelanguage in classroom，when they go out of classroom, most of the students don't have suchopportunity to learn or practice. However, in Western countries, especially in those immigrantcountries, people leam target language in target language countries. That is, besides learninglanguage in classrooms, they have more chances to get in touch with the L2 English in everydaylife. So compared with the students in foreign countries, when Chinese students leam English, theydepend more on the teachers and classrooms, in this sense the classroom teaching has vital influenceon the students. Besides, there is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored: the students in Chineseclassrooms are more timid and shy, they don't want to make their sounds listened, and when they arechosen to answer the questions, they are hesitated in making answers, for they are afraid of makingmistakes. In fact, their own interests and ideas were ignored, and their reluctance in participating inthe classroom activities can be regarded as the passive resistance. So we can assume that this kind ofproblem is widespread in other ESL classrooms. To some extent, we don't pay much attention to thelearners’ viewpoint, feelings, and beliefs, and their reasoning and experience are not chosen to play arole in the assumed context of the teacher’ communication.(Young,1992)
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1.2 A Brief Introduction to College English Curriculum Requirement
The college English curriculum requirement was issued by the Ministry of Education in 2007,which is the guidance for the English teaching in all universities in China, and the foundation forformulating syllabus in each university.The requirement puts forward that the purpose of English teaching is to cultivate students'integrated ability in using this language, especially in listening and speaking, and the requirementcan be divided into three dimensions the basic requirement, the intermediate requirement andthe advanced requirement.According to the requirement，college English is not only the language course，but also bears theresponsibility of broadening students' knowledge in foreign cultures. So it is the cultivation ofstudents' artistic appreciation and international culture that is the core of the design of the course.In the configuration of the class, the universities and the teachers should give further thought tothe students' differences and their specific properties. During the class, the teachers should care forthe students with less proficiency, besides, to those good students, there is more space for them todevelop. In this way, the students will have a solid foundation in their language, at the same time,their listening and speaking abilities will be enhanced.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1Discourse Analysis
Before we start the research, we should have a clear knowledge of what is discourse and what isdiscourse analysis.According to Foulcault (1972), discourse is not merely “the suprasentential aspect of language",but rather, "language itself is one aspect of discourse". Kress (1989) holds that discourses are sets ofstatements which are systematically-organized and can represent the meaning and values of aninstitution. James Paul Gee defines the point with more details: he divides discourse into twoaspects ‘‘Discourse’’(with a Capita! “D”）and ‘‘discourse” (with a small “d”）(Gee, 1999).“Discourse” refers to socially accepted associations including ways of using language, how thepeople think, act and interact with each other, in the ‘right” places and at the “right” times with theright objects. And ‘‘discourse，，simply refers to "language-in-use" or a stretch of language. In thissense, Gee divides discourse into two levels: linguistic level discourse, and social level Discourse.According to Kumaravadivelu, there are three aspects in constructing discourse, that is, sociallinguistic dimension, sociocultural dimension, and sociopolitical dimension. (Kumaravadivelu,1999).In conclusion, there are micro feature and macro feature of discourse. In comparison,macro-lever features pay attention to power, value systems, and social status; micro-level featuresare much more concrete, which mainly focus on language features like intonation，turn-taking,sermons, question-answer sequences and so on, so its research range is relatively narrower.
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2.2 Teacher Talk
As one of the branch of the emerging realm of discourse, classroom discourse is carefullyexamined, especially, teacher talk in the language classroom. The famous linguist Nunan contendsthat "teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom but also forthe processes of L2 acquisition. It is important for the organization and management of theclassroom because it is through speech that teachers either succeed or fail to implement theirteaching plans. In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably the majorsource of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive" (Nunan, 1991; 189).Coder，Krashen and other scholars regard the classroom as the setting where language can beacquired from the teacher talk. Teachers control the classroom activities through their talk, andteacher talk is a way to give instruction, comments, feedback and organize the class . Belleck and hiscolleagues once give the language of classroom a metaphor that they think it as a game with implicitand explicit rules and the object of which is to realize the subject matter. The teacher is the creatorand the most active player of the game, they play the role as the solicitor while students act as therespondents. Sinclair (1982) also proposes that teachers use language to realize the classroomobjective.
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework.........25
3.1 Krashen's Input Hypothesis......... 25
3.2 Long's Interaction Theory......... 26
3.3 Swain's Output Hypothesis......... 27
Chapter Four Research Design .........29
4.1 Research Design ......... 29
4.2 Research Questions......... 30
4.3 Participants......... 30
4.4 Instruments......... 30
4.5 Data Collection......... 32
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion......... 33
5.1 Results and Discussions for the TTT......... 33
5.2 Results and Discussions for the Teacher Questions......... 34
5.3 Results and Discussions for Teacher Feedback......... 40
5.4 Results and Discussions for the Discourse Markers......... 46
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion
This chapter mainly focuses on the detailed analysis of the results of the present study, which iscomposed by the four components: the descriptions of TTT, questioning types, teachers feedbackand discourse markers. The objective of this part is to spare no efforts to arrive at the authenticpictures of teacher talk. To make the analysis more reliable some statistics and the extracts of teachertalk are also applied here to illustrate as well.This chapter starts with the description of teacher talk time, because in a typical English class，the English teacher is regarded as the instructor and source of knowledge. They do the most of thetalking, so the quantity of TT is an important part of the research. From the data, what is most impressing is that TTT of all teachers take up more than one half ofthe class time, which means that there is enough comprehensible input in the classroom, but one theother hand, it's not very beneficial to learners to acquire the target language, for there are nosufficient opportunities for the students to participate and express their ideas. Among the teachers,the TTT of T7 is on the top, it is 43.06 minutes, and the percentage is 95.7%. In a 45-minute class,the TTT is so long that there are only 2 minutes left for the students to discuss or reflect. Besides, theTTT of T3, T6 and T8 are all more than 37 minutes. What we can conclude is that, enoughcomprehensible input is beneficial for the students, but if this kind input is more than enough, itactually will result in negative effects.
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Conclusion
In the study, the model classes are chosen as the subject, for they usually have the intensiveinfluence on the teaching in the universities all over the country and the problems they bear havesome common and representative characteristics. Though teachers in the model classes are excellentin organizing the class, transmitting knowledge and realizing the teaching aims, their teachingconcepts are too obsolete and can't keep up with the change of the society and the students'anticipation. Judging from this perspective, the model classes loose its original instructional meaning,so the improvement approaches used here may be popularized in the practical teaching process.As shown in the research design, the present paper studied teacher talk time, teacher questions,teacher feedback and discourse markers. Thus, conclusions are drawn from such four dimensions.In terms of teacher talk time, it is in the dominant position. Some of the TTT take up more thanhalf or even three quarters of the whole class time. In this sense, we should reduce the amount ofTTT, but at the same time, provide more useful and comprehensible input.According to teacher questions, the eight teachers all raise exceedingly more display questionsthan referential questions. And in the further study, the teachers don't usually employ the questionsinvolving the words like think, imagine，opinion and idea, which in fact will stimulate students'language performance and make them to explain their ideas more complicatedly and naturally. Onthe contrary, the numbers of questions begin with “wh-“or yes-no question are quite large. So fromthe proportion of different questions in this study, we should have a change in these aspects. Besides,the teachers used more comprehension check than confirmation check and clarification requestwhich is rare in our daily conversation.#p#分页标题#e#
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Reference (omitted)
