Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose of the Thesis
This thesis aims to identify characteristics of teacher talk in English classroom atsenior middle school through empirical investigations such as classroom observation,transcribed data analysis and questionnaire to students, with taking advantage of theachievement before and using the theories of the second language acquisition as guidance.The characteristics of teacher talk which the thesis would discuss include the quality andquantity of teacher talk, questioning and feedback in Classroom and so on. From theanalysis of these functional features，the study tries to figure out the relationship betweenteacher talk in English classroom and students，second language acquisition，and what theteachers do in communicating with students during the teaching process could achievewhat kind of effect. In addition to demonstrate the importance of teacher talk, the findingsof this study can inspire teachers to improve their language in classroom and reduce theirblindness on using the inappropriate words, sentence or attitude when they are talking. Atthe same time，this thesis provides some useftil advice on using teacher talk to facilitatethe effectiveness of English teaching in classroom, which would help English teachers todo their teaching reflection in a different angle of view.
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1.2 Significance of the study
As the most important foreign language in China, English has the largest learningpopulation. How to teach English in a better way is always the spotlight in Chineseeducators and teachers' researches. From the grammar-translation method used wildlysince several decades ago，we know that the traditional English teaching and learningemphasize the memories of grammar rules，words and patterns of sentences, instant ofpaying enough attention to develop the listening and speaking abilities which are bothvital for using a foreign language. However，with the development of Chinese economy,the traditional methods can not meet the demand for the people with comprehensivequality in English, which leads to the reforms in education across the whole country. New teaching methods such as communicative approach, task-based approach and contentinstruction are brought in several years ago, which applies to foster the communicationalability of foreign language and emphasize the language environment. For Englishclassroom is the most significant language environment learners can use English both inlistening and speaking, the study of English classroom becomes an element which canpromote language teaching and learning.Though language teaching involves considering teaching syllabus, teaching materials,teaching approaches and so on，all these would be useless without classroom Englishteaching. Classroom teaching is the crucible part in teaching this foreign languagebecause it is the main place of learning English in our country. In class, we can realize thelaw of language and the regular patterns of teaching and learning language. UsuallyEnglish teacher comes into class with his teaching plan, it usually contains teachingcontent，teaching method, the class atmosphere he wants to make, and the teaching resulthe hopes to get. All these would have effect on the language input, the language outputand even the mentality of the students.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Understanding Teacher Talk
Since the 1950s, there has been an increasing attempt in research on classroomlanguage teaching (West, 1955; Moskowitz, 1968; Flanders, 1970, etc). Among thosescholars who conduct extensive investigations towards teacher talk in classroom, J. M.Sinclair and D. Brazil (1982: 13) consider that “teacher talk is different from doctor talkand preacher talk and all the many other kinds of talk，，. It is the sort of language that ateacher uses in class such as telling things to students, describing and explaining things,managing the class and giving students indications, etc. Despite there is no restriction onthe use of words or structures in the language, it needs many skills to make sure the talksteacher deploys are effective to students' SLA. Ellis (1985: 304) further explains asfollows:“Teachers address classroom language learners differently from the way they addressother kinds of classroom learners. They make adjustments to both language form andlanguage function in order to facilitate communication. These adjustments are referred toas teacher talk." It is more like a register which involves the specific formal andinteractional properties by itself.
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2.2 Researches of Teacher Talk at home and abroad
The study of teacher talk is developed from the combination of the discourseanalysis and the foreign language teaching theories. To realize the previous research ofteacher talk, the study of discourse analysis is worth being reviewed.The term “discourse analysis" is firstly used in a paper named "Discourse Analysis"written by the American structural linguist Z. S. Harris in 1952. Harris points out thatlanguage is not occurring in the fragmented words or sentences, but is in the coherentdiscourse. In the 1960s，discourse analysis rises up through the achievement made by thelinguists such as D. Hymes who proposes the descriptive methods, the concept and thetheoretical framework to guide the discourse analysis and M. A. K. Halliday who devisessystematic grammar to analyze the relationship between sentences and discourse. Thereare plenty of monographs and works on discourse analysis turning up in the 1970s which leads to the emergence of the new subject on linguistics. When it comes to the eightiesand nineties, discourse analysis is adopted by the educators and teachers in the research oflanguage teaching. The development of these researches shows that discourse analysis, asa tool to describe and understand the use of language，can help to promote the quality oflanguage teaching by improving the teaching language. During these periods, discourseanalysis is applied in classroom language teaching by more and more scholars andteachers for seeking the method of advancing the second language acquisition.
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Chapter 3 Methodology .......19
3.1 Research Questions.......19
3.2 Research Subjects.......20
3.3 Research Instruments.......20
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Discussions .......22
4.1 Quality and Quantity of Teacher Talk....... 22
4.1.1 Quantity of Teacher talk....... 22
4.1.2 Quality of Teacher talk ....... 26
4.2 Questioning in Classroom....... 39
4.2.1 Types of Questions.......39
4.2.2 Wait-time....... 45
4.3 Feedback....... 47
Chapter 5 Conclusion....... 50
5.1 Findings....... 50
5.2 Implications....... 50
5.2.1 Improving the quality of teacher talk .......50
5.2.2 Promoting the strategies of questioning....... 52
5.2.3 Giving more effective feedback .......52
5.2 Limitations....... 53
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Discussions
4.1 Quality and Quantity of Teacher Talk
The quantity of teacher talk is the first aspect the researchers focus on in most of thestudies on teacher talk. It is thus clear that how much the teacher talk in classroom deeplyaffects the whole teaching process. The first thing in this paper the author wants to talkabout is also the same. In the early period of this research, every class involved in a wholeunit teaching of the four teachers is recorded and considered as the materials fordiscussion. However, the large amount of the recordings is inconvenient for analyzing.The classes on reading are chosen to be analyzed for the reason that reading class is themost important form of class for developing students' ability both on language input andoutput in senior middle school.Based on the transcripts of the classroom recordings, the statistics of the teacher talktime and students talk time will be presented on the table 4.1. There are three parts will becompared from the table --- teacher talk time, student talk time, time of other activities.Other activities refer to the activities in which no one's talk is involved, such as listening,reading in silence, and writing, etc. The whole time of every class is forty minutes，and allthe recordings are calculated in minutes.
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Conclusion
The findings from this present research conducted in senior middle school aresummarized as follows:At first，the teacher is the one of transmitter of knowledge whose talk dominates thewhole classroom. Teachers spends most of the talk time on instructions and explanations,whereas students spend most of the talk time on answering questions. Teachers couldmodify their language to improve their interaction with students in classroom.At second，the display questions are commonly used in classroom by languageteacher rather than the referential questions. And teachers prefer to use the low-levelquestions such as knowledge questions and comprehension questions than the high-levelquestions such as the questions about analysis, synthesis and evaluation.The last finding in this research is about the teacher's feedback on students'performance. The teacher prefers to give simple praise with comment, conclusion orexpansion to student's answers. And guiding students to self-repair is also one of the waysthe teacher uses in giving feedback which is valued by students.
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