Output file VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ A STUDY ON TEACHER TALK IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT BACKAN E[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ A STUDY ON TEACHER TALK IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT BACKAN EDUCATION COLLEGE Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ lớp dạy Tiếng Anh giáo viên Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Bắc Kạn M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 HA NOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ A STUDY ON TEACHER TALK IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT BACKAN EDUCATION COLLEGE Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ lớp dạy Tiếng Anh giáo viên Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Bắc Kạn M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 SUPERVISOR: LÊ VĂN CANH, M.ed HA NOI - 2010 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………….…………… i Abstract ………………………….………………………………………….………… …ii Table of contents …………………………………………………………… iii Lists of abbreviations …………………………………………………………………… vi Lists of tables and figures ………………………………………….…… vii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………… 1 Rationale …………….………………………………………………………………… Aims of the Study …………….…………………………….……………………… Research Questions ………….….………………… ………….…………… .2 Scope of the study………………………………………………………………… Research Method …………….…………………………….… ……………… .2 Structure of the thesis…………….………………………………………… … Summary ………………………….…………………………… …………… DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………………………….….4 CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………… The role of teacher talk in foreign language teaching………………………………… 1.1 Teacher Talk as a Tool of Classroom Management……………………………… 1.2 Teacher Talk as a Source of Target Language Input………………………… ……….4 Teacher Talk from the Second Language Acquisition Perspective…………… …… Strategies for Teachers’ Use of Target Language in the Classroom…………….……….7 Previous researches on teacher talk…………………………………………… …… 10 4.1 Descriptive Studies……………………………………………………………………11 4.2 Correlational Studies………………………………………………………… …… 11 4.3 Experimental Studies on Teacher Talk……………………………………………….12 4.4 Qualitative Studies on Teacher Talk…………………………………………… .12 Summary …………………………………………………………………………… 13 CHAPTER DATA ANALYSIS……………………………………………………… 14 iv 2.1 The Context……………………………………………………………………… .14 2.2 The Participants ……………………………………………………………… 15 2.3 The teacher talking time……………………………………………………….… 15 2.3.1 The teacher 1…………………………………………………….………………….15 2.3.2 The teacher 2……………………………………………………………………… 16 2.3.3 The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… … 16 2.4 Interview Data………………………………………………………………….…17-18 2.5 Functions of teacher talk……………………………………………… ……… .18 2.5.1 Giving instructions……………………………………………………………… 20 2.5.1.1 The teacher 1…………………………………………………………… …… 21 2.5.1.2 The teacher 2…………………………………………………………… …… 21 2.5.1.3 The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… …….22 2.5.2 Checking the students’ understanding……………………………………… 22 2.5.2.1 The teacher …………………………………………………………………….23 2.5.2.2 The teacher 2…………………………………………………………………… 23 2.5.2.3 The teacher 3……………………………………………………………….…… 24 2.5.3 Respond to a learner’s response…………………………………………… …… 24 2.5.3.1 The teacher 1……………………………………………………………….…… 24 2.5.3.2 The teacher 2……………………………………………………………….… 25 2.5.3.3 The teacher 3………………………………………………………………… .25 2.5.4 Cued elicitation……………………………………………………………… … 27 2.5.4.1 The teacher 1………………………………………………………………… .27 2.5.4.2 The teacher 2………………………………………………………………… .27 2.5.4.3 The teacher 3………………………………………………………………… .27 2.5.5 Questioning……………………………………………………………………… 28 2.5.5.1 The teacher 1………………………………………………………………… .28 2.5.5.2 The teacher 2………………………………………………………………… .28 2.5.5.3 The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… … 29 2.5.6 Recycling …………………………………………………………………… ….29 2.5.6.1 The teacher 1………………………………………………………………… .30 2.5.6.2 The teacher 2…………………………………………………………………… 30 v 2.5.6.3 The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… ……30 2.6 Summary………………………………………………………………………… …30 CHAPTER DISCUSSION AND SOME PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS……… 32 3.1 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………….32 3.1.1 Amount of teacher talk…………………………………………………………… 32 3.1.2 Functions of teacher talk …………………………………………………… 32 3.1.3 Teacher language…………………………………………………………… ……33 3.2 Some pedagogical implications…………………………………………………… 34 3.2.1 Shifting the teacher- centered classroom into student-centered classroom……… 34 3.2.2 Controlling Teacher Talking Time and focus on the quality of teacher talk…… 35 3.2.3 Using suitable language…………………………………………………………….35 3.3 Summary….………………………………………………………………………… 36 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………… ………….37 References …………………………………………………………………… ………….40 Appendices………………………………………………………………………………… I vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L1: First language L2: Second language SLA: Second Language Acquisition I: Initiating R: Response F: Feedback ESL : English as a second language EFL: English Foreign Language M.A: Master in English B.A: Bachelor in Art TTT: Teacher Talking time STT: Student Talking time vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Participants Profile Table 2: Teacher talking time per lesson (in minutes) Table 3: Number of moves regarding the functions of teacher talk Table 4: Functions of teacher talk Table 5: Functions of teacher talk INTRODUCTION RATIONALE Teacher talk in the language classroom is one of the questions in which second language methodologists and applied linguists have shown a great interest for several years As various language teaching methods have come and gone ( Howatt with Widdowson, 2004; Richards & Rodgers, 2001), perspectives on teacher talk has changed accordingly ( Brown, 2001; Gass, 2003; Doughty, 2004) For example, advocates of the Communicative Approach claim that teachers need reduce their talking time in the classroom in order for their students to have more time speaking the foreign language Furthermore, the issue raised is not quantitative between teaching and learning, who should say more than whom in the classroom, but the important thing is whether the quality and purpose of talk are useful to gain the effect in the classroom This study focuses on analyzing the role of teacher talk used in the classroom according to functions of teacher talk The concept of “teacher talk” used in this research is talk performed by teachers in the foreign language classroom The term is defined in the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics as the “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 in other simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners” ( Richards, 1992: 471) Although the above definition is helpful, it does not tell much about the functions of teacher talk I think, teacher talk is a type of input source, which is really important in input-poor learning environment like the one in Bac Kan province where the present study was conducted Therefore, for the purpose of this study, I define teacher talk as the quantity and the quality of the target language teachers use in the classroom for the sake of classroom management AIMS OF THE STUDY The purpose of this research study is to investigate how teachers talk in foreign language classrooms and the rationale behind their talk in the classroom Furthermore, this study aims to explore teachers‟ perceptions of their talk in the classroom Although teacher talk involves many aspects, this research just focused on three aspects, that is: the frequency of teacher talk in the classroom in comparison with student talk, the frequency of teacher talk in English in comparison with their talk in Vietnamese, and the way teachers talk in the classroom RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to achieve the above aims, the study is set out to seek answers to the following research questions: How often teachers talk in the classroom as compared with the students? Which language teacher use more often in the classroom: English or Vietnamese? Why teachers talk the way they in the classroom? SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study was limited to the investigation of a small number of college teachers regarding the way they use language as a pedagogical tool so that understanding of the teachers‟ perspectives on the role of teacher talk could be gained Specifically, the study was confined to the understanding of the amount of teacher talk in the classroom in comparison with that of the students, the preferred use of L1 or L2, and teachers‟ perception of the functions of their talk in the classroom Since the study was conducted on a very small number of classroom teachers of English (3 teachers) in a college of education located in a mountainous area, no generalization of the findings was intended However, the findings can be valuable to attempts to understand teacher talk as a pedagogical tool in similar educational contexts RESEARCH METHOD As the purpose of this study is to investigate the use of teacher‟s language in the foreign language classrooms at Bac Kan Education College This study is a case study research with two research instruments were employed for data collection These are (a) classroom observation, and (b) post-observation interviews with teachers and students STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS This study consists of three parts, excluding the references Part one, Introduction, consists of the rationale, the aims, the research questions, and the scope of the study, the methods, and the design of the study Part two, Development, is the heart of the study and includes three chapters: Chapter one presents the literature review relevant to the study including theoretical background of teacher talk Chapter describes in details the research method used in the study with the necessary components before supplying information about the procedures of collecting the data Then, the statistical results and the analysis of the collected data are shown Chapter discusses the findings from statistical analysis and some pedagogical implications The last part is the conclusion of the study as well as some suggestions for implications achieved from the discussion in the thesis and for further studies SUMMARY This chapter presents an overview of the study including the rationale, the purposes, the research questions, the scope of the study, as well as the structure of the thesis In addition, the research instruments which include classroom observation and interviews were also presented In the next chapter, a theoretical framework for the study will be discussed ...VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ A STUDY ON TEACHER TALK IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT BACKAN EDUCATION. .. about a situation involving the teacher praising a student or asking another to try again In addition to these, the teacher can explain something about the language that is being learned in a. .. of teacher talk in foreign language teaching Teacher talk plays a vital important role in language learning Quite a few researchers have discussed the relationship between teacher talk and language