Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1Background of the Study
In the research of foreign language instruction, teacher talk has been graduallyattracting attention of linguists and foreign language educators (Sinclair &Coulthard, 1975; Long, 1983; Brock, 1986; Chaudron, 1988; Ellis, 1990) at homeand abroad ever since. According to Nunan (1991), teacher talk was the teachers’implementing tool for teaching plans, which was also an important source of language input for learners. Krashen (1985) also pointed that the comprehensiblelanguage input is an important condition in second language acquisition.Cook (2000) further pointed out that teacher talk plays an irreplaceable role inthe foreign language classroom. If it is used properly, teacher talk not only canpromote the interaction between teachers and students but also can provide moreopportunities for learning and stimulating students’ interest in classroom activity. Inorder to improve the efficiency of classroom interaction and students’ secondlanguage acquisition, teachers must modify their speech to be more comprehensible,give more opportunities for students to talk, choose suitable questioning methodand content-based feedback. Therefore, teachers should consciously improve theirability in organizing the classroom talk.Realizing the importance of teacher talk in foreign language class, manyscholars made efforts in studying the following aspects about teacher talk: thequantity and quality of teacher talk, the questioning method, interaction betweenteachers and students, and teacher’s feedback in the classroom. Scholars at homealso have done large number of investigations about teacher talk, and most of theinvestigations focus on the in-service teachers’ talk in classroom.
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1.2Questions of the Study
It is clear that teacher talk plays an important role in L2 acquisition. In order topromote the English teaching quality, it is paramount important to do research onthe teacher talk. Lots of studies at home and abroad focus on the in-service teachertalk and few focuses on the pre-service teacher, let alone study on the comparativeanalysis on pre-service teacher talk in student-teaching classroom before and aftertheir teaching practicum. Micro teaching classes and teaching practicum classesplay an important role in the process of pre-service teacher’s professionaldevelopment. Micro teaching classes provide them chances to get familiar with theprocedure, principle of teaching and try to imitate an English teacher. And duringthe teaching practicum, pre-service teachers’ professional development needpedagogical theory in the teaching classroom, and they transform their “publicknowledge” into “personal knowledge” (Ye Lan, 2001; Jiang Yong, 2004) throughteaching practicum. Their classroom teacher talk may display different features inthese two types of classes, which will bring about different effects to students’target language improvement.For the reasons noted earlier, the researcher tries to make an investigation onthe different features of pre-service teacher talk in Micro teaching classroom and inteaching practicum from these four aspects: quantity of teacher talk, teacher’schoice of language, teacher’s question and feedback, aiming at providing a windowfor student teachers to see whether special teacher talk in the Micro teaching classroom also adapt to the teaching practicum classroom and make someadjustment.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Pre-service Teacher
Pre-service teachers are pre-employment or prospective teachers who willgraduate from normal universities, and then begin a teaching career soon. They area special population of English users. On the one hand, they are advanced Englishlearners. On the other hand, they are novice teachers in the teaching environmentand implement teaching in the teaching practicum (Liu Xuehui, 2006). In thenormal college or university, English is their major and they have received a threeor four full-year education program. Upon graduation, they directly become Englishteachers in junior or senior schools. In college, they develop their 4 skills in Englishlistening, speaking, reading and writing, have courses on education, teachingpedagogy, psychology, and take part in Micro teaching. Usually, Micro teachingwill last for one semester. In micro teaching classroom, pre-service teachers havechances to develop teaching skills. Each of them has 15 minutes to be a teacher insuch a simulated teaching environment. Besides, four to six-week student teachingpracticum will be scheduled when they are seniors, which plays a crucial part inpre-service teacher’s professional development. According to Guo Xinjie & WangQiang (2009), it is the teaching practicum that is the initial phase of teacherprofessional development. Undoubtedly, it plays an important part in pre-serviceteachers’ professional development. During this period, pre-service teachers’professional development need pedagogical theory in the teaching classroom, andthey transform their “public knowledge” into “personal knowledge” (Ye Lan, 2001;Jiang Yong, 2004) through teaching practicum. With all of these education andpractices, it is expected that students are well equipped with theoretical andpractical knowledge, and are qualified to be English teachers in the near future.
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2.2 Definition of Teacher Talk
There are plenty of different definitions about teacher talk. LongmanDictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistic (ed. Richards et al. 2000)gives the definition of teacher talk, which presents that teacher talk is a “variety oflanguage sometimes used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching”.With its own special formal and interactional characteristics, teachers address it toL2 learners and treat it as a register (Rod Ellis, 1985). Ellis (1994:726) furtherpointed out: “Teachers address classroom language learners differently from theway they address other kinds of classroom learners. They make adjustment arereferred to as teacher talk”. Xu Xiao-hui (2010: 47) pointed out that, in order tofacilitate communication, they (refers to teachers) make changes in language formand language function. That is to say, teacher talk is the special language thatteacher addresses to students in the classroom with special formal and interactionalcharacteristics.Furthermore, Cook (2000) presented that teacher talk plays an irreplaceablepart in the foreign language classroom. In English classes, teacher talk is the wordsspoken by English teacher, an instrument of teaching plan, and also the main sourceof target language for students, which plays a paramount important role in students’target language acquisition. If it is used properly, teacher talk not only can promotethe interaction between teachers and students, but also can provide moreopportunities for learning and stimulating students’ interest in language activity.
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework .........16
3.1 Input Hypothesis .........16
3.2 Interaction Hypothesis.........19
Chapter 4 Research Design......... 21
4.1 Research Method.........21
4.2 Research Subject.........22
4.3 Data collection.........23
4.3.1 In the Micro Teaching Class .........23
4.3.2 In the Teaching Practicum Class.........24
Chapter 5 Data Analysis.........25
5.1 Comparative Analysis of the Quantity of Teacher Talk.........26
5.2 Comparative Analysis of the Choice of Language......... 32
5.3 Comparative Analysis of the Types of Questions.........39
5.4 Comparative Analysis of the Feedback.........44
Chapter 5 Data Analysis
This chapter presents the analysis of data. In accordance with the researchquestions, the data were collected from the video-recording and interview withthese three subjects, which mainly focused on the four categories: quantity ofteacher talk, choice of language, types of questions and teacher’s feedback.As Miles and Huberman (1994) point out, qualitative data comes in the formof words rather than numbers. The issue, then, is how we move from these words todata analysis. That is to say, words contribute more qualitative data. Based on thequalitative research, researchers pay much attention to analyzing the characteristicsof teacher talk. They suggest that data analysis consists of three concurrent flows ofactivity: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/ verification (Miles &Huberman, 1994).1. Data reduction: it involves making decisions about which data chunks willprovide initial focus of this research. Based on this principle, researcher transcribesthe classroom recordings into transcription in details. Through comparative analysis,the researcher finds some different characteristics of pre-service teacher talk inMicro teaching classroom and in teaching practicum.2. Data display: it involves assembling your data into display such as matrices,graphs, networks and charts, which clarify the main direction. In this period, theresearcher chooses some useful materials from the transcription. These materialspresent the main differences of pre-service teacher talk on these following aspects:the quantity of teacher talk, questioning method, usage of L1 and feedback. All theimportant data are ordered according to these four aspects.3. Conclusion drawing means “ beginning to decide what things mean, notingregularities, patterns, explanations, possible configurations, causal flows andpropositions” (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Based on this principle, the collecteduseful data can present the different features of pre-service teacher talk.
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Conclusion
After the data have been analyzed and the results obtained, the last phase ofthe research process is to summarize the results, interpret them, and then to reportthe research to the relevant audiences. Based on the input theory, especially thecomprehensive input hypothesis, the researcher of this study does a case study withthree pre-service teachers, aiming at making a comparative analysis of the inputfeatures of pre-service teacher talk before and after their teaching practicum. Thischapter includes the following parts: first, major findings are stated; second, somepedagogical implications are proposed; third, limitations of this study are presented;forth, some suggestions for the future research are given. This thesis provides detailed and descriptive analysis of pre-service teachertalk in 3 Micro teaching classes and 3 teaching practicum classes from thefollowing aspects: quantity of teacher talk, teacher’s choice of language, teacher’squestions and teacher’s feedback.In general, the pre-service teachers investigated in this study talk excessivelyin both Micro teaching class and teaching practicum class. The pre-service teachersmainly use English to teach in Micro teaching classes and teaching practicumclasses. This can provide students enough target language input, except for oneteaching practicum class. Besides, the student teachers use more display questionsthan referential questions. As for the feedback, all the pre-service teachersfrequently use positive feedback to stimulate students’ interests in learning English.However, through comparative analysis, we can discover that pre-service teacherstalk too much, use much Chinese, use more display questions and negativefeedback in the teaching practicum classes than that in the Micro teaching classes.
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References (omitted)