Rationale
It is no doubt that language teaching is a complex process involving many interrelated factors Before 1960s, teaching methodology has been explored and an effective teaching method is tried to be found to apply for language teaching Since teaching methods don‟t play a decisive role in language classrooms, the focus has shifted from teaching methods to teachers‟ talk in classroom process Ellis (1985:143) points out: “Classroom process research, as Gaies calls the study of communication in the classroom, has taken different form The earliest was interaction analysis… An alternative approach focused only on the language used by the teacher when addressing second language learners It sought to tabulate the adjustments which occur in teacher talk.”
Teacher talk is particularly important to language teaching(Cook, 2000:144) The language that teachers use in classrooms determines to a large degree whether a class will succeed or not Teacher talk is estimated to make up around 70% of classroom language Teachers pass on knowledge and skills, organize teaching activities and help pupils practice through teacher talk Teacher talk involves many aspects, in which teacher questions have drawn much attention
In recent years, studies on the language that teachers use in language classroom has gradually drawn people‟s attention However, few researches have explored the effects of teacher talk on second language acquisition, even hardly there are many researches exploring both positive and negative influence on students‟ learning, especially in a primary school context
In addition, I am myself an English teacher in a primary school Thus, to push the situation of learning language of the student, it is necessary for me to do some researches on teacher talk which can facilitate or hinder the learning process of my own students Ultimately, I can pursue more suitable ways of teaching for the enhancement of student learning.
Aims of the study
* Exploring the characteristics of teacher‟s using language in the classroom
* Exploring the influences of teacher talk on the students‟ learning process
Research questions
In brief, these objectives can be achieved through finding tentative answers to the following research questions:
1 What pedagogical purposes does teacher talk in the observed classroom most serve?
2 To what extent does the teacher talk facilitate learner’s learning in the EFL classroom?
3 To what extent does the teacher talk hinder learner’s learning in the EFL classroom?
Scope of the study
In the context of a primary school, the research is only focusing on analyzing the critical episodes of teacher talk in the lesson which either facilitate or hinder students‟ learning In deep, I will investigate teacher talk through six lessons of three teachers from three different primary schools in Hanoi.
Significance of the study
The results of this action research will help the author as well as the Engllish teacher in primary schools can realize the current situation of teacher‟s using language in the classroom and its influences on students‟ learning opportunites Thanks to that, we can find out the reasonable ways to improve the effect of teacher talk in the classes of English language teaching.
Research methodology
The study is aimed at exploring the characteristics of teacher‟s using language in the classroom and its influence on the students‟ learning process
Thus, a qualitative classroom-based research of methodology was chosen for the study In this exploratory study, the videos of six lessons of three teachers coming from three different primary schools were collected and transcribed specificially Then the critical episodes of teacher talk from the transcribed version would be analyzed carfully to find out that the language the teaches used in the primary school class can facilitate or hinder students‟ learning.
Structure of the study
The research consists of three main parts: Part one, Part two and Part three
It consists the rationale, the research question, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, the methodology of study, the research procedure and the structure of the study
There are three chapters presented
Chapter one reviews the literature relevant to the study including definition of teacher talk, the role of teacher talk in foreign language learning, the features of teacher talk and some discussion of students‟ learning opportunities This chapter also presents some related theories such as Krashen‟s input theory, the interaction hypothesis The IRF Cycle (Initiation-Response-Feedback) with the researches relating to Interaction in the classroom and the outstanding characteristics of very young learners as well are also mentioned in the last part of this chapter
Chapter two discusses the method used in the study It presents a thorough justification for the use of qualitative research and the research‟s components
Chapter three presents the findings and discussion of the study This part is apparently important because it justifies the effectiveness of the research
It provides summary of the findings, implication, limitation and suggestions for further studies.
Literature review
Definition of teacher talk
It is no doubt that language teaching is a complex process involving many interrelated factors Before 1960s, teaching methodology has been explored and an effective teaching method is tried to be found to apply for language teaching Since teaching methods don‟t play a decisive role in language classrooms, the focus has shifted from teaching methods to teachers‟ talk in classroom process Ellis (1985:143) pointed out: “ Classroom process research, as Gaies calls the study of communication in the classroom, has taken different form: interaction analysis; teacher talk; discourse analysis”
All dimensions of classroom process, from giving instruction to questioning or disciplining students, providing the feedback, involve teacher talk Study on teacher talk has become one of the most important parts of classroom research
There are many definitions of teacher talk given by many authors For this term, Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines it as “that variety of language sometimes used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching In trying to communicate with learners, teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and other simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners” (Richards, 1992: 471) This view is similar to what Rod Ellis (1985) considered teacher talk as the special language that teachers use when addressing L2 learners in the classroom He also commented “the language that teachers address to L2 learner is treated as a register, with its own specific formal and linguistics properties” (Ellis, 1985: 145)
Consided as a general term for different types of teacher talk, Ellis (1998) stated that, teacher talk is a general term for different types of teacher talk which refer to as “special language the teacher uses when addressing second language learner in the classroom.” It can be categorized according to the linguistic aspects and functions
In another aspect, according to Poppi (n.d), teacher talk referred to the modifications in teachers‟ speech which can lead to a special type of discourse By using „teacher talk‟, teachers are trying to make themselves as easy to understand as possible by the students, and effective teacher talk may provide essential support to facilitate both language comprehension and students‟ production In the scope of this study, teacher talk referred to the kind of language used in the classroom rather than in other settings It is the oral form of teacher talk that is under this investigation.
The role of teacher talk in foreign language learning
Teacher talk is considered as a special communicative activity to communicate with students and develops students‟ foreign language proficiency Teacher talk is used in class when teachers are conducting instructions, cultivating their intellectual ability and managing classroom activities (Feng Qican, 1999: 23) Teachers make use of the target language to promote their communication with learners In this way, learners practice the language by responding to what their teacher says As the result, the communication between learners and teachers is encouraged Therefore we can say teacher talk is a kind of communication-based or interaction-based talk
By the way, talk makes up around 70% of classroom language (Cook,
2000; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao Xiaohong, 1998) As Nunan (1991) points out:
“Teacher talk as discussed by (Cook, 2000:144), teacher talk is particularly important to language teaching According to pedagogical theory, the language that teachers use in classrooms determines to a larger degree whether a class will succeed or not Many scholars found teacher is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of acquisition It is important for the organization and management of the classroom because it is through language that teachers either succeed or fail in implementing their teaching plans In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive.” Teachers pass on knowledge and skills, organize teaching activities and help students practice through teacher talk In English classrooms, teachers‟ language is not only the object of the course, but also the medium to achieve teaching objective Both the organization of the classroom and the goal of teaching are achieved through teacher talk Thanks to Stern with his teaching-learning model which reveals the important role of the language teacher and teacher talk during the process of language learning
Figure 1 A teaching-learning model (Stern, 1983: 500)
Besides, there is a range of authors like Richards( 2015: 113) Ellis
(2005) believed that teacher talk is affected by language proficiency Teachers with a high level of target language proficiency are to be more competent in providing extensive input for learners, which, as states, is a key principle for successful instructed language learning The same idea with Kim and Elder
(2008), Freeman et al., (2015) maintain that the relationship between teachers‟ target language proficiency, their classroom teaching and student learning is really complex With the scope of this research, this relationship will be discussed concentratively on the teacher‟s ability to use language ( even mother tongue through the oral form of talk) to support student learning in the L2 classroom.
The features of teacher talk
Basing on the definitions, we can see that teacher talk in English classrooms is regarded as one special variety of the English language with its own specific features as well as special style In the researches of some scholars (Hu Xuewen, 2003; Dai Weidong & Li Ming, 1998), teacher talk is discussed in double features The first one refers to the form of teacher talk, such as the speed, pause, repetition, modifications of teacher talk The second one, which refers to the features of the language that teachers use to organize and control classes, includes the following aspects: the quality and quantity of teacher talk; the questions teachers use; interactional modifications and teachers‟ feedback In this study, these features are going to be discovered in the English teachers‟ talk in the primary schools.
Students‟ learning opportunities
There is no learning without input that is used to describe the way in which learning opportunities are created in the L2 learning environments It is defined as a consequence of participation and use (Van Lier, 2014: 92) or
“Where language use and pedagogic purpose coincide, learning opportunities are facilitated; conversely, where there is a significant deviation between language use and teaching goal at a given moment in a lesson, opportunities for learning and acquisition are, I would suggest, missed.” stated by Wale(
2002:5) He also presented the features of teachers‟ classroom language use that can facilitate learning include direct error correction, content feedback, checking for confir- mation, extended wait-time, and scaffolding In addition, from a conversation analysis perspective, Wong and Waring (2010: 278) suggest teachers to be highly alert and deeply reflective about their instructional practices so as not to shut down opportunities for student participation with their language use
As Musumeci (1996: 314) suggests: „teachers speak more, more often, control the topic of conversation, rarely ask questions for which they do not have answers, and appear to understand absolutely everything the students say, sometimes before they even say it!‟
The work of Musumeci and others (see also Love (1991)) has clear relevance to the EFL classroom where the ability by learners to formulate, re- formulate, clarify and seek clarification are important indicators not only that language acquisition has taken (or is taking) place but also that something is being understood and eventually learnt By „filling in the gaps‟, teachers may facilitate a coherent and flowing discourse, but they may be denying their learners opportunities to get to grips with the subject matter and to identify potential problems in understanding In the words of Scott Thornbury (2000:
28): “Moreover, language classrooms are language classrooms and for the teacher to monopolise control of the discourse – through, for example, asking only display questions – while possibly appropriate to the culture of geography or maths classes, would seem to deny language learners access to what they most need – opportunities for real language use.”
Related theories
Input plays a critical role in language learning There is no learning without input The language used by the teacher affects the language produced by the learners, the interaction generated, and hence the kind of learning that takes place The problem is what type and how much of input is appropriate and useful for language learners in classrooms
In Krashen‟s view, learning only takes place by means of a learner‟s access to comprehensible input “Humans acquire language in only one way by understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input Learning will occur when unknown items are only just beyond the learner‟s level It is explained in detail “i+1”structure “i” stands for the learners‟ current linguistic competence, and “1” stands for the items the learners intend to learn The Input Theory also has two corollaries (Krashen, 1985: 2):
Corollary 1: Speaking is a result of acquisition, not its cause; it emerges as result of building competence via comprehensible input
Corollary 2: If input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is automatically provided The language teacher need not attempt deliberately to teach the next structure along the natural order it will be provided in just the right quantities and automatically reviews if the student receives a sufficient amount of comprehensible input
By examining the idea of comprehensible input and the two corollaries, one can find that comprehensive and right quantity input is the central concern with which learners are able to learn language It is the foundation or premise of the occurrence of learning This provides implications for language teaching: teacher talk should be comprehensible in different forms and in right quantities But how could teachers know whether their input is enough or not?
How could they make their input comprehensible? Krashen describes two ways: the linguistic resources are insufficient for immediate decoding
Simplified input can be made available to the learner through one-way or two- way interaction, with the former including listening to a lecture, watching television and reading, and the latter occurring in conversations Krashen stresses that two-way interaction is a particularly good way of providing comprehensible input because it enables the learner to obtain additional contextual information and optimally adjusted input when meaning has to be negotiated because of communication problems
In Krashen‟s view, acquisition takes place by means of a learner‟s access to comprehensible input He comments that the input, which is totally incomprehensible to learners, is not likely to cause learning to tack place
Teacher talk, actually serves as main sources of input of language exposure as well as the opportunities for students to take part in the lesson, then achieve new knowledge by themselves in classroom learning, is more important for foreign language learning So teachers should make their input comprehensible and in right quantities
The Interaction Hypothesis claims that it is in the interaction process that acquisition occurs: learners acquire through talking with others (Johnson, 2002: 95) In recent years, a great deal of researches (Allwright, 1984; Ellis 1990; Long, 1983; 32; Swain, 1985) in the field of L2 acquisition reveals to a great extent the importance of classroom interaction that involves both input and output According to Allwright and Ellis, classroom teaching should be treated as interaction Now, it is clear that the language used in classroom affects the nature of the interaction, which in turn affects the opportunities available for learning, the study of interaction is therefore critical to the study of language classroom learning Van Lier (1988) pointed out that if the keys to learning are exposure to input and meaningful interaction with other speakers, we must find out what input and interaction the classroom can provide… we must study in detail the use of language in the classroom in order to see if and how learning comes about through the different ways of interaction in the classroom He also pointed out that interaction is essential for language learning which occurs in and through participation in speech events, that is, talking to others, or making conversation (Van Lier, 1988:77-78)
Ellis (1985) pointed out: classroom instruction, both in the form of meaningful interaction, and in the form of linguistic rules, may influence the rate of acquisition Teachers can influence the kind of interaction that occurs in their own classrooms In another word, teachers use the language to encourage the communication between learners and themselves Therefore we can say teacher talk is a kind of communication – based or interaction – based talk Successful outcomes may depend on the type of language used by the teacher and the type of interactions occurring in the classroom We can say how a lesson progresses and whether it is successful largely depend on the interaction between the students and the teacher
Thus in order to improve students learning outcomes, it is necessary to engage students in meaningful interactions with teachers and other students
When learners are given opportunities to take part in conversational interaction, they have to “negotiate for meaning” This term refers to those modifications, which speakers make during the interaction in order to be understood or to understand each other This process of negotiation is thought to lead to L2 development specifically communicative abilities The result of the negotiation of meaning is that particular types of input and interaction result (Ellis, 1985:142) Teachers carry out all his teaching tasks by teacher talk, an understanding of the aspects of teacher talk and their functions in the classroom interaction is, therefore, very important.
Teacher talk and learner learning
As mentioned above, this paper is based on the theory of Interaction hypothesis Therefore, in this section, I will discuss the most common feature of teacher-student interaction which is found in the classroom and often mentioned in research on classroom interaction (e.g., Macbeth, 2000; Walsh, 2011): Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) Next, the outstanding characteristics of very young learners who are at the age of primary school will be made clear in this interaction
Firstly, the IRF Cycle(Initiation-Response-Feedback) in language teaching which is first described by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)is the familiar sequence of teacher-student-teacher turn-taking in the classroom In the “initiation” (I) phase the teacher usually asks a question, to which the student responds (R) Then, it is followed by some sort of feedback by the teacher In other words, the role of teachers in IRF is asking students known- answer questions (Heritage, 2005; Hosoda, 2014; Lerner, 1995; Schegloff,
2007), to which students respond, and teachers give feedback based on the accuracy of the student's response IRFs are an important feature of classroom discourse As discussed by Van Lier(2001: 94), three factors in the cycle have great influences on each other, in detail, “depending which questions are asked, the initiation stage may „…require students merely to recite previously learned items.” On the contrary, he goes on to say: “ At the most demanding end of IRF, students must be articulate and precise; they are pushed by successive probing questions, to clarify, substantiate, or illustrate a point that they made previously.” While the IRF format may not be inherently ineffective, it could be considered restrictive, in that students aren‟t able to initiate themselves (Van Lier, 95) The IRF sequences have been blamed for constraining the development of authentic discourse in classrooms For example, van Lier (1996: 151) states,
At times the IRF structure makes it unattractive and unmotivating for students to participate in classroom interaction, since their responses may be evaluated or examined publicly, rather than accepted and appreciated as part of a joint conversation
However, Van Lier uses „at times‟ meaning for many teachers, eliciting is heavily ritualised, and virtually the only way they know how to talk to learners It might be possible to conclude, therefore, that this form of interaction could be viewed as more pedagogically sound if the teacher were to ask more referential questions vs display questions, which would give IRF the purpose of scaffolding, as Van Lier (2001: 96) suggests: „The initiation- response-feedback exchange, at least when it moves beyond mere recitation and display, can be regarded as a way of scaffolding instruction, a way of developing cognitive structures in the zone of proximal development, or a way of assisting learners to express themselves with maximum clarity.‟
Perhaps he is advocating that we design our questions with consideration to Vygotsky‟s (1978: cited in Van Lier, 2001: 96) “zone of proximal development.”
According to Walsh (2011), the IRF exchange structure is "the most commonly occurring discourse structure to be found in classrooms all over the world" (p 23) Ohta (1999) examined instances of IRF sequences in teacher-student interaction, and student-student interaction in Japanese language classrooms and reported that the IRF sequences have power in the language socialization of classroom interaction (p 1495) Similarly, in another study Ohta (2001) reported that “ne-marked” assessments (i.e assessments followed by the word “ne” which is used to show agreement or emphasis a prior word or sentence) in the third turn of IRF sequences were frequent and explicitly worked as an agreement token to the ongoing interaction, or an affiliation to the talk the student is producing Nassaji and Wells (2000) argue that the IRF structure has several functions and can take various forms This paper investigates how IRF sequences are performed in a team-teaching context involving a native-and non-native speaking English teacher” It also examines the different forms that the IRF can take, detailing exactly what happens before and after as well as between each of the turns in the IRF sequence In classroom interaction the teacher often controls the topic and the amount of attention that each student receives, and allocates turns (Erickson, 2004) On occasions where a teacher proceeds with the interaction without providing feedback, Seedhouse (2004) argues that the lack of the F turn (i.e., the feedback part of IRF) implies a positive assessment even though one is not explicitly given Sometimes sequence closing thirds, words such as
"oh" and "okay," which minimally expand the preceding adjacency pair, occupy the F position in the IRF sequence (Schegloff, 2007) However, minimal responses in classroom interaction sometimes work as feedback and demonstrate the convergence of pedagogical goals (Walsh, 2012) Beach
(1993) points 178 Jeffrie Butterfield and Baikuntha Bhatta out that "okay" can signal an activity shift This paper describes not only how IRF sequences are co-constructed between teachers, but also what happens at and after the F position, and how teachers close the sequence or begin a sequence closing sequence It also explicates how sequence closing sequences are dependent on the nature and goal of the activity
Most of the researches of the sequence of interaction in the classroom are commonly applied on adult learners In the paper, I will discuss in deep this aspect in the context of primary school; in another words the interaction between teacher and very young learners who have special characteristics in learning as well as dealing with teachers in the classroom In the following part, these features related to the interaction process will be made clear
Piaget( 1970) pointed out that children are active learners and thinkers
Except for through their own individual actions and exploration, They construct knowledge from actively interacting with the physical environment in developmental stages and learn through social interaction This view is similar to what Vygotsky (1962) stated that children construct knowledge through other people, through interaction with adults Adults/teachers work actively with children in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) = difference between the child's capacity to solve problems on his own and his capacity to solve them with assistance Children learn effectively through scaffolding by adults (Bruner, 1983) The adult‟s role is very important in a child‟s learning process Like Vygotsky, Bruner focused on the importance of language in a child‟s cognitive development He shows how the adult uses “scaffolding” to guide a child‟s language learning through finely-tuned talk (Cameron, 2001) Effective Scaffolding (Bruner, 1983) includes the following conditions: creating interest in the task; broking the task down into smaller steps; keeping child
“on task” by reminding him of the purpose or goal; pointing out the important parts of the task; controlling the child‟s frustration during the task; modeling the task, including different ways to do the task It is obviously that all of them belong to the circle IRF, especially in the first stage where teacher talk happens the most
Adopting the position that maximizing learner involvement is conducive to second language acquisition, Walsh (2002) examined the ways in which teachers, through their choice of language, construct or obstruct learner participation in face-to-face classroom communication
Walsh concluded that teachers‟ ability to control their use of language is at least as important as their ability to select appropriate methodologies, because teacher talk can either facilitate and optimize or obstruct learner contributions has implications for both teacher education and classroom practices According to Walsh,
Where [teachers‟] language use and pedagogic purpose conincide, learning opportunities are facilitated; conversely, where there is a significant deviation between language use and teaching goal at a given moment in a lesson, opportunities for learning and acquisition are, I would suggest, missed
In the literature, teacher talk is used for the following pedagogical functions:
Presenting, clarifying, checking, modeling new or revised language;
Setting up activities or giving instructions and feedback;
(Gower et., 1995: 33) While the relationship between teacher talk and learner learning has been a concern to language educators and researcher for many years (Walsh,
2002), not much of classroom-based research on this issue has been reported in the context of Vietnamese primary school This study is an attempt to occupy the research void.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology
In order to achieve the aims of the study, a qualitative approach will be employed in the research According to Steven J Taylor, Robert Bogdan, Marjorie (2015), qualitative methodology refers in the broadest sense to research that produces descriptive data - people‟s own written or spoken words and observable behavior As Ray Rist ( 1977) pointed out, it is more than a set of data- gathering technique It is the way of approaching the empirical world
Bogdan,& Biklen (1992) presented five main features of qualitative:
- Naturalistic Coming to a particular setting with either pad and pencil, or video/audio recording equipment, researchers feel that action can be understood when it is observed in the setting in which it occurs Each act, word and gesture is considered significant
- Descriptive data The data in qualitative research takes the form of words or pictures rather than numbers Data can include: transcript, field notes, photographs, video recordings, audio recording, personal document and memos Researchers notice gestures, jokes, tone of voice, verbiage, descor, style of dress, response time, body language and a multitude of other details of their studies
- Concern with process Qualitative researchers are concerned with process rather than simple outcomes
- Inductive: Qualitative researchers analyze their data inductively They do not set out to find data to prove or disprove hypotheses that they have prior to their study
- Meaning: The data can be shown in the form of transcripts and recorded material to the informants to make sure the interpretations of what the informants said/did is accurate/true
These features were reflected in the study First, the aims of the research is to explore the characteristics of teacher‟s using language in the classroom and the influences of teacher talk on the students‟ learning process
Thus, the research was applying basing on the real classes of English that the researcher observed Second, the data in this paper was taken from the video recordings which were transcribed fully and clearly including the notices of gestures, response time, the modes of speech…Third, the data was taken from
2400 minutes of six periods of three different teachers in six classes from three primary schools Therefore, this concerned with long process of teacher talk in her real classes Finally, this study was not carried out to prove or not prove any theories, just to explore teacher talk and its influences on students‟ learning opportunities in a primary school context
In conclusion, qualitative research is a good choice for this study on account of suitability in target, design and characteristics of the study.
Data Collection Instruments
The major instrument of data collection used in this study is non- participant observation Among a range of the instruments in qualitative research such as interview, focus groups, case study and narrative, observation was selected as the technique to collect data in this study As a means of gathering information for research observation is defined as perceiving data through the senses: sight, tastes, touch and smell The data collection method is applied due to the following purposes:
- To enable the researcher to gather empirical data which are difficult to obtain by other means
- To enable the researcher to gather sufficient data to supplement or verify information gathered by other means
- To enable the researcher to gather information or data needed to describe the aspect of a variable being studied which cannot described accurately without observation
- To enable the researcher to gather directly primary data or first-hand information for his study for a more accurate description and interpretation
- To enable the researcher to gather data from the laboratory or elsewhere through experimentation
There are a variety of types of observational research, each of which has both strengths and weaknesses However, I would like to refer to naturalistic (nonparticipant observation) which was used as data collection instrument in the scope of this paper It has no intervention by a researcher It is simply studying behaviors that occur naturally in natural contexts, unlike the artificial environment of a controlled laboratory setting Importantly, in naturalistic observation, there is no attempt to manipulate variables It permits measuring what behavior is really like
In the current study, the teaching-learning process in the completed periods were recorded by the cameras so that the data are not biased Video recordings are, in many ways, the easiest means of capturing not only spoken interaction but also gestures, descor, the mode of response, body language and a multitude of other details in classrooms Using mechanical recorders increases analysis time because researchers may observe events while recording and then repeatedly observe them while processing, coding, and analyzing data later
With the aims of investigating the characteristics of teacher‟s using language in the classrooms observation can give the researcher in depth information with detailed descriptions of participants‟ activities, behaviors, actions and the full range of interpersonal interactions and organizational processes that are part of observable human experience, which help in the exploration of the situation.
Context and Participants
The study is conducted at three different primary schools in Hanoi city ( one school in the urban and two others in the suburban area) The urban school is a quite big school with about 600 students and 24 teachers of all subjects
The students in the school have many chances to take part in the extra classes of English in the center or are guided by their own parents who have intellectual level quite high A suburban school consists nearly 1200 students with 38 teachers of all subjects but there is only one teacher who is responsible for teaching English The students coming from the gifted classes also have quite good background of English for most of them took part in the English classes out of the school while in the common classes, the number of the students does like that is not big There is also one teacher of English in the rest primary school which has 450 students and 27 teachers in total This school is quite far from the center of the district, so there are mot much students being familiar with English before classes Although the quantity of students and teachers, these schools has the same context that English is an elective subject from Grade 3 to Grade 5 for two 35-minute periods per week As the regulation of Hanoi Department Education and Training, to the primary school which has under 25 classes, there is only one teacher of English who is in the regular staff
Therefore, these three teachers are representative to three schools, three distinctive contexts of teaching English for mainstream primary students
Tieng Anh 3, 4, 5 which are approved by the Ministry of Education and Training in August, 2010 are the course books used commonly in the state- owned primary schools in Vietnam in general and in these school in particular The book follows a systematic, cyclical and them-based syllabus with twenty units of familiar topics Each unit consists of three lessons each of which provides materials for two periods of class contact In the other words, the seri of books is designed for 6 periods/units and 4 periods/week
However, in the fact of the three primary school, there are two periods introduced every week for each class The structure in detail of one unit in the textbook series is presented in Appendix 1
The participants of the study are selected conveniently, including three teachers (Teacher1, 2, 3) and six classes with approximately 50 mainstream students/class (Class 4.1, 4.2; Class 4, 3 and Class 5.1, 5.2 respectively) The attempt to observe three teachers and three classrooms is not to make a comparative study but rather to have a more comprehensive idea about the language used by teachers and learning process of learners in the context of the study
All of three teachers selected in the study appeared to be representative to the population of Vietnamese primary school teachers of English working in state-own schools in many aspects Interestingly, they graduated from Hanoi teacher training college to teach English to junior secondary school students (grades 6-9) After graduation, while teacher 1 has had no more course; teacher 2 selected to continue her study for Bachelor‟s degree at Hanoi national university of education and now she is taking part in the MA course of English teaching methodology in university of languages and international studies and teacher 3 also has the qualification of Bachelor‟s degree by Hanoi national university of education N o 2 However, when this study was conducted, all of them had been teaching English in a Hanoi-based state-own primary school for at least 5 years Now teacher 1 has 12 periods per week for 6 classes, teacher 2 is teaching12 classes with 24 periods per week and teacher 3 is in charge of teaching for 8 classes with16 periods per week All of them reached level 4 on the National Target Language Proficiency Scales (equivalent to B2 on the CEFR) as the requirement for the teacher of English at the primary schools They were married and had one or two small children to look after These are the typical cases of Vietnamese primary school teachers of English who are young, married females, aged 25-
32, and had a similar professional training background.
Data Collection and Data Analysis
Before observing and audio-taping each lesson, I had some informal meeting with the teachers to talk about my intention and ask them for their permission The aim of the study was stated clearly and the teachers were explained that the results of class observation and interview were used for scientific purpose only, not related to their work at school Both of the actions were in order to persuade them to agree to be observed and help them not have a feeling of being assessed during the observed lesson However, I am sure that they can not do their teaching task as in the normal periods they used to do everyday when I sit on their classes and observe them carefully
Because I have ever been in the same situation in another research, which made me run the lesson less natural than I used to teach Thus, I decided not to come to their classes, let them ask some one in their schools to record their lessons and send me later I also noticed them to focus on teacher talk and students‟ respond rather than the others All the recordings then were transcribed and made ready for the next phase – data analysis and interpretation
Flanders (1970) explained that “techniques for analyzing classroom interaction are based on the notion that these reciprocal contacts can be perceived as a series of events which occurs one after another” (Flanders,
1970 as cited in Tarricone &Fatherston, 2002) It is a system to code spontaneous verbal communication in classroom (Tarricone & Fetherston,
2002) Data was analyzed according to the pedagogic purposes of teacher talk (Gower et al., 1995) and then interpreted according to Walsh‟s (2002) suggestions on the matches between teacher talk and the pedagogic purposes.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Questioning strategies
According to Jack C.Richard & Charles Lockhart (2000), questioning is one of the most common techniques used by teachers and serves as the principal way in which teachers control the classroom interaction There are many ways to identify the types of questions With the growth in concern for communication in language classrooms, Long and Sato (1983).has made a further distinction between “display” and “referential” questions In Long and Sato‟s terms, display questions refer to those that teachers already know the answers, while referential questions are ones to which the teachers asks for information he or she does not know It is clear that demands are similar to questions in its nature - requesting students to do or say something Basing on the data in the present research, the form of demands is different to questions, they are still counted and classified into appropriate groups of questions as presented in the following chart
Teachers used questions frequently in the lessons and they used different types of questioning strategies These are illustrated in Table 3.1 below
Table 3.1 Frequency of question types teachers used per lesson Teachers Classes Display questions Referential questions
As can be seen from Table 3 1, while teachers asked a great number of questions in each lesson, they tended to used display questions more often than referential questions This pattern was observed in all six lessons during the research time Teacher 2 was teaching grade 3 students, who was just beginning to learn English This is the reason why she did not ask any referential question, which may be too challenging to these students
Obviously, teacher 3 is the person who used less RQ than two other It seems that she only concerned on letting students practice the vocabulary and structures mentioned in the lesson although the topic in her both periods is about jobs, a familiar topic for students Two periods which RQs were used most are a review lesson – no more new knowledge introduced and a lesson of daily activities that is not too difficult for teacher to give questions and make students share their own experiences
All three teachers used DPs to elicit the students This was most frequently observed while the teachers were teaching Part I (Look-Listen and Repeat), which introduces the content of the whole lesson in the textbook
Below is one example from the observed data
T: yes.ok.now.Look at in your book and answer me.What can you see in this picture?
Ss: (silent) T: you can see some students Yes or no?
Ss: Yes T: Yes.Can you guess.Where are they?
Ss: (silent) T: Where are they? Who can? NL?
S: They are…(smiling) (some ss say the answer) T: ……in the?
Ss: They are in the gym (not correct in pronunciation) T: in the?
T: gym.Ok Today we will listen what they are talking about? Every one, you will listen one time
T: Ok Sit down please Now, open your book please, pg 36 And you look at part
1 please Listen and number OK, now First, you look at the picture on the TV and tell me who‟s this? … Who‟s this?
SS: Mai T: And Who are they?
Ss: Mai‟s father ( Some say) Mai‟s mother (Some say) T: Yes, Mai‟s parents: her mother and her father And Who‟s this?
T: her brother So Where are they? Where are they?
SS: family,…house… ( many ideas) T: Ok They are in the living room So can you guess what day? what day?
T: good job [Vậy ai cho cô biết hôm nay chúng mình học về nội dung gì?
T: [ chính xác.Còn gì nữa nào?]
Ss:[ Ss2: Ôn lại mẫu câu hỏi về tuổi ạ!]
T: [đúng rồi.Vậy về nhà các con hãy tìm thêm thật nhiều từ có chứa âm /s/ và /f/ và hỏi tuổi những người xung quanh bằng Tiếng Anh nhé!]
As the result, the students did not have to do much brainstorming They just told the teacher what they saw or remember previous lessons
In addition to elicitation, teachers used questions for many different purposes such as paraphrasing, simplifying, etc Table 3.2 shows the frequency of teachers asking questions for those purposes
Table 3.2 Frequency of teacher questioning for different pedagogical purposes
Classes Paraphrasing Simplification Repetition Decomposition Probing
Questions were repeated at least once For primary school students, repetition is necessary to make sure that the students understand the question before answering it Observed data shows that teachers sometimes repeated the whole questions, sometimes they just repeated the key part of the questions depending on the complexity of the question The following lesson extracts show these purposes
T: yes, writer writes stories for children And the next picture Who is he? Who is he? oh, yes, Tr….?
S: I think he is pilot ( Class 5.1 – Teacher 3)
T: can you guess where is it? Where? Can you?
Ss: Sword Lake ( In Vietnamese) ( Class 4 – Teacher 1)
T: Good What‟s it in Vietnamese, “ taking photos”? Đ, taking photos ( including miming the correlative activity) What‟s it in
S: taking photos means“ chụp ảnh ”
It was also observed that normally teachers asked their questions to all the pupils in the class and asked for a response in four ways: 1) nominating;
2) chorus – answering; 3) volunteering; 4) teacher self – answering There were about over ten students in each class who were good at English volunteering to answer the questions, the rest of the class usually kept silence
As the result, teachers always prefer calling or nominating the students to involve all students in learning Nevertheless, students would be made more passive with too much nominating In order to save time, teachers sometimes answered the questions by themselves in the form of rhetorical questions, which might have made the students less pro-active in answering the questions
All three teachers always used Wh-questions “Who ?”, “ What ?”,
“Where ?”, “ When ?” to elicit the students Nonetheless, the ways they dealt with the model were different For teacher 1 and 3, they gave the questions directly and waited for the answers from students or gave the begining of the answer for them to continue
T: yes.Now you look at this and tell me( point to the picture on the big screen).(Who are they?)(Who are they?)…T
T: (point to each character) Quan and Nam So now tell me “Where are they?”…
Ss: (some say) canteen T: ah.they are in the canteen with food and drinks
( Class 4.1 – Teacher 1) With the similar purpose but when the students were stuck, teacher 2 used some Yes- No questions to ask them as the suggestions to lead them to the correct answers
T: Ok so now whole class look at screen Who are they?
S: They are Linda, Phong and Tony
(T points to each characters mentioned at the same time.)
T: Linda, Phong, Tony And one more?
S: (Another student) Mai T: Oh, yes Mai
S: So, Linda, Phong, Tony, Mai (Point to each Ss) Where are they? Are they at home?
Ss: No T: Are they at school?
T: Ah! Good They are at super music club
Encouraging expanded answers
It was found that a part from transferring the language focus in each lesson, the teachers also tried their best to expand the knowledge relating to the lesson for students in different aspects
All three teachers also used questions to encourage students to speak more
T: fly the plane Very good And doctor doctor? Where does doctor work? Tr?
S: they work in the hospital T: yes they work in the hospital And architect? who has the father or mother is an architect?
Ss: (silent) T: no? so you know architect means? In Vietnamese P?
S: thưa cô là kỹ sư ạ!
T: Kỹ sư hoặc là kiến trúc sư đúng không ạ?who design the house, the building.Right?
In the extract, from the word “ doctor ”, teacher 3 lead the students to find out the place of works or for the word “ architect”, student can link with their own father or mother‟s job and understand what an architect do as well
For the review lesson with the topic of Tet, an interesting issue for children, teacher 1 supplied some useful information of culture aspect
In detail, through playing lucky money game, teacher 1 helped students understand more some special features in traditional Tet of Vietnam such as when they can see dragon dance, the differences between dragon dance in North and South Vietnam and when is Tet…
To sum up, each teacher exploited and expand the lesson in different aspects but the result was that the students can get more new knowledge relating the lesson, made the lesson more exciting Thus, the teacher should do it as much as possible to make what students can catch more and more the aim given of each lesson.
Giving feedback
Lyster and Ranta (1997) categorized feedback into six types: explicit corrections, recasts, clarification requests, metalinguistic feedback, elicitations and repetitions The result of analyzing the transcripts of the class observation showed that the most frequently used feedback type is explicit corrections which refer to teachers‟ provision of a well-formed utterance in response to students‟ ill-formed speech production
S: Because Tony likes to fly the plan ( pronunciation is not correct) T: Because (correct the student‟s mistake) Ok.Very good
( Class 4 – Teacher 2) The preference of explicit corrections seemed to be in accordance with the optimal conditions for the effective use of corrective feedback First, the teacher‟s feedback types were salient, because the teacher highlighted the students‟ errors by using explicit corrections As a matter of fact, she preferred a more straightforward treatment to correct students‟ errors by the use of explicit corrections Third, for the linguistic competence of primary students, explicit correction was believed to be the best way to save time for corrective feedback With the three optimal conditions, the students were expected to be able to notice the corrective feedback as negative evidence and to repair their ill-form utterances
In addition, the teacher‟s explicit corrections alerted students to noticing their errors in pronunciation, grammar, information and vocabulary, which are also sub-types of the teacher‟s explicit corrections As the particular characteristic of teaching English in primary school, pronunciation was also paid more attention and used mainly
S: What‟s your hobby?( pronunciation is not correct) T: “hobby” again
S: parent (not really correct) T: parents
By pointing out the problematic expressions, she expected students to fine-tune their utterances Thus, the ubiquitous use of explicit corrections in her class was the direct evidence that correcting pronunciation mistake is always the foremost requirement in the class of language.
Elicitation
In classroom interaction, eliciting techniques is considered as an effective technique used by teachers in which students as centre of the class and the teacher as a guide Wajnryb (1992:94) argues that there are at least eleven reasons why eliciting techniques are effective in the classroom
(1) to set students thinking in a certain direction, (2) to steer the students toward a certain topic, (3) to create a context in learning process (4) to warm up the class, (5) to generate peer interaction/correction, (6) to lead into an activity, (7) to attract and focus attention, (8) to increase student talking time, (9) to allow the teacher to assess what is already known about a particular topic, structure or area of vocabulary, (10) to draw out passive knowledge,
(11) to tap into the students as a learning resource and engage them in learning process
Basing on these issues, when the students did not find the answer immediately teacher 2 made some Yes- No questions for students to have more time to find the answer as well as step by step find out the correct answer from these suggestions
These eliciting played the role as a preparing stage to let student get ready to deal with the task Beside, teacher 3 used this teachnique in steering the students toward the topic of the lesson and assessing what is already known about the vocabulary of new topic
T: ok.we will talk about the jobs Do you like jobs?
Ss: yes T: yes and tell me some jobs you know H?
Ss: uhm teacher T: Teacher( raise her voice).Ok and, NA?
With the simple question like that, it was seen that only the good students who had chances to learn in the extra English class could respond exactly
Despite there were some limitation in elictiting students of these teachers, the purposes of eliciting techniques which are to give the students a chance to participate in the learning process especially in classroom interaction by letting them express their knowledge, to enhance their language abilities by adding their background knowledge, and to reveal students basic knowledge in the topic given as (Darn, 2008) discussed were reached in some ways
Repetition
Repetition is a common definition in teaching English for young learners
Talking about repetition , It is usually thought of a process that the students repeat what they can hear from the tapes or teacher in order to drill the elements of vocabulary or grammar mechanically But in this paper, we will discuss deeply this definition in the aspect of teacher talk That is, teacher‟s repetition in the classroom will be analyzed particularly in this part Teacher tended to repeat their utterances to make sure that the students understood what they said
T: yes, writer writes stories for children And the next picture … who is he? who is he?? oh, yes, Tr….?
This type of repetition is common to all three teachers, especially when they gave instructions, questions or checked students‟ understanding It is quite necessary to help all the students in a class at different levels be able to pay more attention to the prior get what teacher said, the follow it exactly
Moreover, it was also the effective way to give students enough wait-time before responding to teachers‟ requirements
As the teacher tended to interact with one individual student, and the student often spoke so softly while the class is large, she echoed what the student said to help the rest of the class could heard of the student Below is an example:
T: It‟s a nurse Everyone, can you guess what does the nurse do? what does the nurse do? yes,H…
S: She look after the patients T: yes , She look after the patients And where patients stay? A?
T: yes They stay in hospital
As the extract above, it can be said that the repetition as participation, which helps develop the conversation It is used not only to emphasize what the students said were correct and made other memorize the knowledge but also give students the chance to continue their thinking and make the conversation longer
Last but foremost, repetition was used as a effective types of corrective feedback in the class of teacher 2
T: one…two…three ( ask ss to repeat the question) Ss: What‟s your hobby?
T: you say( point to one student) S: what your hobby?
T: what your hobby? Yes or no?
Ss: No T: What or What‟s?
Ss: What‟s T: (to the student that has made the mistake) Say again S: what‟s your hobby?
With the repetition of teacher including the changes of intonation, the students can realize that there was something wrong with their utterances
Then they can correct their own mistake If the teacher had let students find their mistake by themselves and then correct it, the students would have had more chances to remember in deep the new structure in the lesson However, by the situation, we can see the outstanding effect that repetition brings to correction process It had emphasized in the results of the studies by Lyster and Ranta‟s (1997) andTsang (2004) in which repetition was one of the feedback types that led to more uptake moves compared with the other feedback Thus, teacher should notice and use this technique more in giving feedback to create more chances for students‟ learning opportunity.
Code – switching
The term code-switching is defined as the alternate use of two or more linguistic varieties within the same utterance (Wardhaugh, 2010) or during the same conversation (Myers, 1990; Wardhaugh, 2010) Codeswitching can be intra-sentential or inter-sentential In intra-sentential code-switching, speakers alternate from one language to the other one within a sentence, whereas in inter-sentential code-switching, conversational participants code-switch between sentences (Myers, 1990; Wardhaugh, 2010) Both of the types can be seen from the data but the inter- sentential one seems to be used more often, mostly in two main cases The first was took place following teacher‟s intention before In other words, the teacher forecasted that her students were not be able to understand what she want to talk in English, so she switched it into English actively to ensure them to catch her signification, then follow it up easily
When the teachers found it too difficult for the students to understand the message, they used Vietnamese to explain difficult information Sometimes, they used Vietnamese to convey the whole message, sometimes they used intra-sentential or inter-sentential code switching
T:[à múa rồng,múa lân là gì?]
T: Ok dragon dance…dragon dance or lion dance yes [Múa lân,múa rồng thường thì ở miền bắc,chúng ta thường múa vào dịp gì?]
T: [à lễ hội đúng không?Ví dụ ngày mai chắc chắn chúng ta được xem múa rồng rồi (ngày mai địa phương mở hội)]
T: [còn ở trong Nam ý thì vào dịp Tết người ta múa rồng như thế nào ở ngoài đường rất nhiều.Ngoài chúng ta thì không đúng không?Chúng ta nhớ nhé ]dragon dance or lion dance.Thank you.Now,next.you! When‟s Tet?When?
Ss: (discusing) T: in the spring.summer,Autumn or winter?
S: (silent) T: ah,it‟s in the spring [Tet của chúng ta là vào mùa mùa xuân.]Ok very good
T: So now, you move to pg 49 Listen and number
Các con đã nói rất tốt thói quen của các bạn Và bây giờ chúng mình nghe xem sở thích của những người bạn khác có tốt không nhé! Ready? So move to “ IV”, you will……
Ss: Listen and number T: ready?
T: OK So now, we listen
(Ss listen to the tape and number)
T: Vietnam (raise her voice).Yeah and 3 point for you thank you everyone
[Rồi cô giáo thấy rằng các bạn về nhà đã học bài cũ.Bây giờ ngày hôm nay chúng ta hãy cùng nhau chuyển sang bài mới, vẫn trong chủ đề “job”.Đó là hỏi về nguyên nhân, lý do tại sao ]
Now everyone open your book, pg 32, 32
As the result, it was not waste time for complex explanations in English while the students could understand what the teacher meant clearly and respond it rapidly
Another happened directly in the lesson caused by the spontaneous situations without preparation from the teacher before In this case, the teacher had talked in English already but it was likely that the students were embarrassed by misunderstanding what teacher said Therefore, she had to switch in mother tongue:
Ok So, who has 4 correct answers?
Ss: ( someone is embarrassed) T: [Ah! Ai có 4 câu trả lời đúng?] ( do the action of raise the hand) Ss: ( hand up 100%)
T: Very good Clap your hand, please
To sum up, the purpose of code switching of the teachers that was to make the lesson happen smoothly and fluently as well was reached in general Code switching or using first language in ESL class is unavoidable, especially for young learners in the suburb primary school However, sometimes, it is not necessary to code switch Teacher can make her own signification more short and simple in different ways, even using body language to support She should believe more on her student‟s ability and challenge her own capability of using language in the class to let English used as much as possible in order to create more chances for students to soak in English
The second type- intra-sentential code-switching appeared not much in the classes, even once:
T: [ah,hãy tưởng tượng ra 1 nghề nghiệp mà mình yêu thích và lý do tại sao mình lựa chọn nghề nghiệp đó được không nào? Cô giáo xin mời team 1, các bạn sẽ là team đi trước Nào.Hỏi bạn muốn làm nghề gì đó? ]
( Class 5.1 – Teacher 3) Using two language alternately seems to be a common habit of bilingual speakers, particularly for those who speak the second language frequency For teacher of English in primary school, they do not have the habit like that
Their partners are only the little students and the language they often use is only in classroom context Thus, there is no too much challenging for them to speak simple English what they always speak day by day, year by year The code switching in the piece comes from the fact that there are a lot of English words which are used too much as if they are Vietnamese
In every second language classroom, one of the learners‟ ultimate objectives is being able to use the target language In order to achieve that goal, learners should not only be exposed to the language (input) but also have opportunities to produce output In the classroom context, especially in primary school context, it is interaction creating by teacher talk can fulfill the above requirements Therefore, investigation into teacher talk is of significance to explore factors which facilitate and hinder students‟ learning opportunities
As mentioned above, after analyzing process, teacher talk was used to serve different pedagogical functions: Question strategies; Encouraging expanded answering; Giving feedback ; Elicitation; Repetition and Code switching Basically, the teacher talk as indicated in the observational data shows that it matches the pedagogical functions to some extent The observed teachers were aware of the importance of the repeated encounters of input to the young children‟ learning, and they tended to repeat the basic linguistic patterns to the students They also tried to elicit as much as possible the students in an attempt to provide them with more opportunities to use English in their own way However, there were not many instances of this pedagogical purpose that were observed What is really concerned is teachers rarely used their talk to provide comprehensible input to the students If primary school students, who just begin to learn English in the input-poor settings like the Vietnamese primary schools, need to be exposed substantially to comprehensible input, which is largely from teacher talk, teachers need to be better aware of this Particularly, while code-switching is natural in the bilingual environment, it seems that teachers used Vietnamese unnecessarily excessive, thus limiting the students‟ exposure to input for learning
Although the current study does not aim at contrasting teacher talk among teachers, There are a number of outstanding differences could be found Firstly, both teacher 1 and 3 had a habit of using full sentences in giving instruction an feedback as well while teacher 2 preferred short and simple way Secondly, teacher 3 always tried to use lots of English in her classes but code switching was not really suitable where the students could still be able to understand even in English
To sum up, it must be admitted that teacher talk plays an important role in creating opportunities for students‟ learning However, in the study, the three teachers have not made the role outstanding yet Therefore, in my opinions, the teachers in particular and the managers of education should make plans to improve the quanlity of teacher talk for English teachers in primary schools through the short – term course teacher traning every years
It also should be paid attention on courses for the students of teacher training institutes
LIMITATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
It is of importance to acknowledge some limitations in the present study Firstly, because of limitation of time and conditions, I have not had chances to investigate the teacher talk in different kind of lessons and in the context of more teachers