本科毕业论文---改进初中英语实习教师课堂话语的行动研究.doc

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN STUDIES
SOUTH CHINA NORMAL UNIVERSITY

An Action Research of Improving a Junior English Pre-service Teacher’s Teacher Talk

改进初中英语实习教师课堂话语的行动研究

by
He Guijing

20110201139

A senior thesis submitted to School of Foreign Studies,
South China Normal University in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts

MARCH, 2015

Declaration of Authorship

I declare that this senior thesis is my own original work. I have already read the SCNU’s policy on plagiarism.

No part of this senior thesis has been or is being concurrently submitted for any other qualification at any other university.

I certify that the data collected for this senior thesis is authentic. I fully understand that falsification of data will result in the failure of the thesis.

Name: __________________
Signature: __________________
Date: __________________

An Action Research of Improving a Junior English Pre-service Teacher’s Teacher Talk
__________________________________________________________________________
ABSTRACT

Teacher talk (TT for short) is not only a tool for teachers to conduct teaching plan, but also a significant source for students’ language input. Therefore, teacher talk plays a crucial part in organizing classroom teaching and the process of language acquisition of learners. The targets for most of the researches that have been conducted on teacher talk are all about in-service English teachers, but little about pre-service teachers. It is universally acknowledged that the pre-service teachers in normal universities are not senior learners of English, but also new teachers who lack teaching experience. Therefore, the research of teacher talk on student teacher embodies great significance.
Guided by the Input Hypothesis, Output Hypothesis, Interactive Hypothesis, the present study is conducted to analyze the TT based on the author herself During four months of action research, a series of methods, like questionnaires, interview and interpreting the teacher talk and so on, are used. This thesis has great significance both in improving the teacher talk of the author herself and making preparation for the later teaching.
The result shows that 1) Task-Based Language Teaching is useful in English class teaching, which enable to incite students to take part in the classroom activities. 2) Instructional words, as one of the vital parts of TT, play an important part in connecting the exchanges in the teaching steps. By using instructional words, teacher can clearly illustrate the rules of some tasks, so students can finish those tasks without difficulty. 3) It is very important for teachers to interact with students, but not just talk to them. Therefore, it is very essential for teachers to train the way of questioning, and the questions or instruction that teachers give to students should be clear and straight to the point. 4) As a crucial part of teacher talk, appropriate teacher feedback can help students master the target language. By using the appropriate teacher feedback, teachers can stimulate students’ motivation on study. 5) The improvement of teacher talk can have positive result on the students’ scores.
The present study is only a tentative one and there are still some limitations. Some other proposals are needed to put forward so as to trigger more valuable contributions in this field．

Key words: teacher talk; action research; four principles of TT by Cheng Xiaotang

I

中文摘要

教师话语不仅是教师执行教学计划的工具，而且是学生知识输入的重要来源，因此教师话语在教师课堂组织和学生语言习得中起着至关重要的作用。以往的教师课堂话语研究大都是针对在职英语老师的课堂话语，很少涉及高校英语教育专业实习生的课堂话语。英语教育专业的实习生是特殊的英语使用者群体，既是高级阶段的英语学习者，又是新手英语教师。因此，研究英语实习教师的课堂话语具有重要意义。
本人在实习期间担任广州市长兴中学的代课老师，代课时间为四个月。本研究以本人为研究对象，以Krashen的输入假设、Swain的输出假设和Long的交互假设为理论依据，通过问卷调查、访谈和课堂录音转录等研究方法，进行为期四个月的教师话语特征的行动研究，探讨自己作为实习教师的课堂话语特征，从而改善自己的教师话语，为今后的教学做准备。
本研究得出的结论是：1）任务型教学法有利于提高教师话语，同时为学生提高真实的语境和与学生更好的互动交流。2）指令语作为教师用语非常重要的部分，是教学流程中联系师生交流的纽带。通过教师指令语的正确使用，教师可以准确无误的传达活动指令。3）在使用教师话语中，教师应该多跟学生互动，而不是自己讲，要给学生足够的时间表达自己的想法或观点。4）适当的教师反馈有利于激励学生学习，从而提高学生兴趣。5）教师话语的提高可以激发学生的学习动机，同时提高学生的学习成绩。
本研究从结果中得到的启示是：该研究仅为尝试性研究、仍存在一定的局限性，期待相关领域的学者专家的深入探讨。

关键词：教师课堂话语；行动研究；程晓堂教师话语分析四原则

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT I
中文摘要 II
Chapter One Introduction 1
1.1 Research Background 1
1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research 1
1.3 Organization of the Thesis 2
Chapter Two Literature Review 3
2.1 Teacher Talk 3
2.2 Studies on TT Abroad 5
2.3 Studies on TT At Home 5
2.4 Summary 6
2.5 Comprehensible Input Hypothesis 7
2.6 The Comprehensible Output Hypothesis 8
2.7 The Interactive Hypothesis 8
2.8 Summary 9
Chapter Three Research Design 10
3.1 Action Research 10
3.2 Participants 10
3.3 Procedures 10
Chapter Four Implementation and Data Analysis 12
4.1 Putting Forward of Problem 12
4.2 Implementation and Data Analysis 13
Chapter Five Result and Discussion 20
5.1 Measures That Are Carried Out to Improve TT 20
5.2 Practice Makes Perfect 20
5.3 Motivation 21
Chapter Six Conclusion 22
6.1 Major Findings 22
6.2 Limitations of the Study and Future Direction of the Topic 23
Appendix I 24
Appendix II 27
References 29
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 31

III

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
English curriculum standard for compulsory education showed that, English, as the one of the widely spoken language around the world, has been a very important tool for international connection and communication of technology and culture (The ministry of education, 2003). Meanwhile, opening English course in the stage of compulsory education has a great significance to the future development of teenagers. As the main tool for students to learn English, English class plays an important part in students’ English learning. They spend most of time learning English in class. Therefore, we cast a great demand for teachers’ teaching, as well as teacher talk, as it is the main way for teachers to impart his knowledge to students.
In English class, English is not only the target language that students have to learn, but also as a crucial tool in teacher’s teaching, thus teacher talk in the limited time of junior English teaching is very important for learner’s English learning.
Teacher controls what goes on in the classrooms primarily through their use of language. Using language properly in teaching, for example, being authentic, interactive, logic and normative in teacher talk can attract and influence students, making the class atmosphere become very active and improve the learning interest of students. At the same time, if teachers use target language to provide language input, they can foster their students the ability of using language. The study on teacher talk boomed in western countries in the 1980s, while in China, the related research began relatively late, which is from about 1998.
1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research
Why should the author conduct a research on teacher talk of hers? First of all, when the author had her internship at Changxin middle school in Guangzhou, she found that she had difficulty in making herself understood. She tried hard to use English to explain for students, but she found that student didn’t really understand what she said. This situation confuses her, so she wants to find out the reason why students can’t understand her and how she can improve her teacher talk. Secondly, student teachers are new resources who are going to teach their students. They are not experienced enough in teaching. They may have some trouble in their teacher talk, for example, their authenticity, interaction, logic and normalization are not good enough compared to those qualified teacher. Therefore, if they can improve their teacher talk, they can make preparation for their career. Last but not least, in the researches about teacher talk that have been conducted, most of the researchers’ target are in-service teachers, only few of them focus on pre-service teachers, and none of the pre-service teachers take themselves as the target. Therefore, by conducting this action research, the author intends to make improvement for the research of teacher talk, meanwhile add something new to fill the research gap.
If teachers are able to teach students and organize classes with accurate and brief language，they can be more successful in their teaching career．Teacher talk is a way to study how to improve foreign language teaching．Teachers train the students how to communicate with others in foreign languages. They can achieve this goal by improving their own teacher talk so as to be understood.
The English class in junior high school is the crucial place for teachers to cultivate students’ comprehensive ability of using English, which set a foundational stage for senior high school learning. therefore it plays an especially important role．"Not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the process of second language acquisition．It is important for the organization and management of the class because it is through speech that teachers either succeed or fail to implement their teaching plans．In terms of acquisition，teachers’ speech acts are important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive”(Nunan 1991：189)．
1.3 Organization of the Thesis
The present study consists of six parts. It starts with an introduction as the first
chapter, which is about the background knowledge, and the purpose and the significance of the study. Chapter two will focus on literature review. Key conceptions will be defined and previous studies are to be included, as well as studies on teacher talk and basic theories like the Input Hypothesis, the Output Hypothesis, and Interaction Hypothesis. Chapter three is research design, which includes the research questions, research subjects, methods of the study, as well as research procedures. Discussion and analysis of the data in detail will come in Chapter four，which is the main part of the whole study, where the author will carry out the action research and analyze the result. Chapter five is discussion, analyzing the factors that influenced the improvement of TT. The thesis will come to an end in the last chapter, where conclusions are obtained while illustrating the limitations of the present study and providing suggestions for future research.

31

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Teacher Talk
2.1.1 Definition of Teacher Talk
Teacher talk is a language typically used by foreign language teachers in the process of teaching. In Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, teacher talk is defined as:
The variety of language is 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, 2002: 471).
All-Wright and Bailey claimed that “talk is one of the major ways that teachers convey information to learners, and it is also one of the primary means of controlling learners’ behavior.”(1991:139)
As for Cook (2000), he thinks that it refers to the amount of speech supplied by teachers rather than students. Cook demonstrated that English teacher’s teacher talk involves two different aspects: one, as the tool of organizing and controlling class teaching; two, as the target language of English class teaching, and thus be distinguished from other teacher talk of other subject.
The definitions of teacher talk are different from one to another, but there is something in common: they are all the discourse spoken by the teachers in class. From the discussion above, the author comes to the conclusion that teacher talk is a special communicative activity and a kind of communication-based or interaction-based talk which has its own specific genre and features.
2.1.2 Feature of Teacher Talk
Walsh (2006) considered TT has four features: (1) the paradigm of controlling communication (the content and means and so forth of the communication in the class); (2) instruction (teachers use all kinds of ways like questioning to instruct students to speak); (3) correction (teachers correct the speech of students); (4) adjustment (teachers adjust the ways of speaking to students in terms of his own situation).
Zhang Zhengju and Li Shufen(1996) classified TT in another point of view. They thought that the features of TT are as following :( 1) TT has a double function of teaching and demonstrating ;( 2) Acceptability and comprehensibility. It is suggested that teacher adjusts his own language according to the level of students, so as to help students understand and accept. (3) Repetitiveness. The repetition of TT is to arouse students’ attention to some important points and difficult points. (4) Teacher’s characteristics. Different teachers have different TT because of their characteristics; it depends on teacher’s professional skills, the ability of mastering the language and the understanding of the TT.
Cheng Xiaotang(2009) divided TT into four aspects:(1) authenticity(real use of language, scene and communication); (2)interaction(for the purpose of improving the degree of participation in class and the construction of knowledge; to help language input of students and organize class activities);(3)logicality(have logic in presenting and explain language point; coherence and cohesion in every section of teaching );(4)normalization.(the English teacher used should be accurate and clear, and to be understood by students)
In this thesis, the author mainly uses the feature of Cheng Xiaotang as the bases of her research.
2.1.3 Function of TT
Nunan (1991) stated that “TT is quiet important for the organization of class teaching and students’ language acquisition. That is not just because that the teaching content can only reach a ideal teaching effect through perfect organization of and impartment, but because the TT itself play a model part of target language, which is an essential ways for students’ language input.”
Lu Yanfen(2007) had a discussion about the function of TT. Her opinions are as following:
(1) Teaching. In foreign language teaching, language is not only for the purpose of learning, but a tool for teaching, while the first important tool is imparting knowledge. TT is the carrier of knowledge.
(2) Demonstration. Teachers’ dominant teaching language will produce a recessive impact on students. Such subtle influence is the main basis for students to imitate.
(3) Questioning. On one hand, teacher can use questioning to interact and communicate with students. On the other hand, through questioning, teacher checks students understanding and maintain their attention.
(4) Interaction. TT builds a bridge of intera