2.3 Related studies at home
Zhao Xiaohong is the first person that starts empirical study on teacher talk in China. In 1998, she published an article entitled An Investigation and Analysis of English Teacher Talk in Reading Class of University in Foreign Lanent nearly one month investigating quantity and quality of teacher talk in college English classes through classroom recordings and interviews. The result is rather disappointing; teacher talk takes up 60% to 90% of the 45-minute class, and it is difficult to meet the need of students’ comprehensible input.
1.2 Purpose of the study (1) To help teachers get a better understanding of the roles and functions of teacher talk in English classroom (2) To help teachers make efficient use of teacher talk to promote classroom language teaching.
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Xian Xiubin and Sun Xiaoli (2007) further point out that it is teacher’s pedagogical belief instead of textbook that decides the features of teacher talk and that the teacher talk in student-centered classes is not the same as natural conversations. • Wang Meilin and Zhang Qiaoyi (2013) discuss teacher talk from teacher’s greetings, instructions and questioning based on Speech Act Theory, through which they propose teacher's speech act should be in consistent with teaching content and suitable for students’ physiological and psychological features.
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Long (1996) argues that negative feedback enables learners to find problems in their interlingua, gain opportunities to adjust their output and thus promote language acquisition. • According to Johnson (1998: 219), when giving feedback, teachers should give priority to praise and encouragement in order to help students establish selfconfidence and keep good learning attitudes. • Cook (2001:163) holds that if the combination of target language and native language in second language classroom is prevented, it will severely limit the teaching effect. • Tumbull (2001: 533) indicates that skillful use of native language enables students to better absorb newly learned knowledge.
2.2 Related studies abroad
• In 1970s,Gaies (1979) and Henzl (1979) began their studies on teacher talk which are comparatively limited to the analysis and comparison of various categories of teacher talk. Sinclair and Coulthard (1975:84) set up a mode for describing teacher's and student's discourse based on the hierarchical structure of discourse unit. Brock (1986) mainly studies the influence of teacher's questioning types on teacher-student interaction. Long (1983), Chaudron (1988) and Nunan (1991) also do researches on teacher talk. However, they spare more efforts on teacher talk in teacher-centered second language classrooms with attention to teacher’s talking time and features of teacher talk. Pica (1987) and Anton (1999) focus more on adjustment and negotiation of discourse meaning in traditional teacher-centered classes.
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Zhou Xing and Zhou Yun (2002) studied on teacher talk in college English classes using student-centered teaching mode in Zhejiang University. They had deeper and more careful research into teacher talk, and they found if teachers gave students more opportunities to use target language and two-way communication, it would greatly improve students’ ability of language acquisition. • Xian Xiubin and Sun Xiaoli (2007) analyze teacher talk in classroom video recordings of six excellent college English teachers from Shandong province and reach a conclusion that different characteristics exist in excellent teachers’ classroom talk via data analysis in teacher talking time, teacher’s questioning, interaction modification, teacher feedback and IRF (initiation- response- feedback) discourse chains.
Introduction Literature review Theoretical framework Research design Conclusion References Appendix
1. Introduction
1.1 Significance of the study
An in-depth study on teacher talk like the present one may enable teachers themselves to better understand about the current situation and existing problems of English teacher talk. It will activate teachers to use language creatively for teaching and learning and to promote adjustment and standardization of teacher talk. It also helps teachers enhance their professional language consciousness, realize high-efficiency teacherstudent interaction and improve classroom teaching efficiency.