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 về việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ trong lớp dạy Tiếng Anh của 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
1. Rationale …………….………………………………………………………………… 1
2. Aims of the Study …………….…………………………….……………………… 1
3. Research Questions ………….….………………… ………….…………… 2
4. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………… 2
5. Research Method …………….…………………………….… ……………… 2
6. Structure of the thesis…………….………………………………………… … 2
7. Summary ………………………….…………………………… …………… 3
DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………………………….….4
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………… 4
1. The role of teacher talk in foreign language teaching………………………………… 4

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 3. 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


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

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.
2. 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. 2
3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.
In order to achieve the above aims, the study is set out to seek answers to the
3
Chapter 3 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.
7. 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.
and tells the students what they are expected to do, as well as to establish a good rapport by
for example, calling on students by name, etc. Furthermore, there is nothing artificial 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 helpful and reassuring way, and check the students‟ understanding.
1.2. Teacher Talk as a Source of Target Language Input.
The language teacher uses in the classroom can provide authentic listening texts for
his or her students. She or he uses the voice to read the texts, which sometimes helps
students reduce stresses of listening comprehension. Virtually, it is not always necessary to
play a recording of an account, an anecdote or a joke if the teacher can provide the real 5
thing. In addition, the teacher can often provide the best model for new language, which
helps the students understand more clearly. There is no denying that it is better for the
teacher to model the language personally than to use a recording. Most importantly, the
language used by the teacher in the classroom is genuinely communicative. By using the
target language, the teacher reacts naturally to the students, who will often pick up the
everyday words and expressions that the teacher uses in the classroom. In other words, the
students learn the target language not just from the materials but also from the target
language used by their teachers in the classroom. This point will be further discussed in the
subsequent sections.
2. Teacher Talk from the Second Language Acquisition Perspective.
One of the most relevant Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories to the
discussion of teacher talk is Krashen‟s (1983) comprehensible input hypothesis. This
hypothesis states simply that “ we acquire (not learn) language by understanding input that
is a little beyond our current level of (acquired) competence” (Krashen and Terrell
1983:32). For instance, if a learner‟s stage is 'i', then acquisition occurs when he/she is
exposed to comprehensible input that constitutes 'i + 1' level, provided that he/she
understands (read: an acquirer is focused on the meaning rather than on form) language

for communication, and seems to have comparative outcome on adults as it has on
children. Teachers talking to their students and making sure they are understood will not
only provide an ordinary language lesson but also administer a great deal of input for
acquisition. Roughly tuned input is said to be more important and advantageous from
finely tuned input. With rough tuning, we are always assured that i + 1 will be covered,
while with finely tuned exercises, we are taking a guess as to where the student is. With
roughly tuned input, we are assured of constant recycling and review. Third, roughly tuned
input will be good for more than one acquirer at a time, even when they are at slightly
different levels. Finally, roughly tuned caretaker speech in the form of teacher talk or
foreigner talk, will nearly always be more interesting than exercise that focuses just on one
grammatical point (Krashen and Terrell 1983:35). Krashen‟s (1983) comprehensible input
hypothesis can be interpreted that if the teacher uses the target language in the classroom
appropriately, i.e., at the students‟ „i+1‟ level, her or his language can be a valuable source
of input to the students to acquire the target language. This point is of particular
importance in cases where English is taught as a foreign language because in such a
context, students tend to have limited exposure to the target language. However, teacher
talk is effective to language acquisition only when it is used appropriately. Misuse of
teacher talk in the classroom may bring about reverse effect. Gower, Phillips and Walters
(1995) states that normally, the aim of most language classes is usually to get the students
using the language, therefore when the teachers talk too much the chances for the students 7
are not being given maximum opportunity to talk. Moreover, it is also likely that they will
not be listening to the students closely enough, thinking too much about what they are
going to say next. Next, if the teachers talk „for‟ students they will think the teachers do
not appreciate their efforts and will become demotivated. In addition, there will be a
danger for learners, especially at lower level, if the teachers use for explanation is more
difficult to understand than the language being learnt. The next section will discuss
appropriate strategies for teachers to use their language in the language classroom.

carry out the following additional pedagogical functions.
 Repetition.
Repetition of individual learner‟s contribution is used for many different aims. For
example, to record a learner‟s response, to confirm again the learner‟s response with an
acceptable grammar, or to repeat another student‟s response for the whole class to assert
the idea of that response but not the form in which it was expressed to draw the students‟
attention to the mistakes more directly.
(1) Teacher: Can you describe the man in the picture?
Student: He‟s tall.
Teacher: He’s tall. Good, Yes. He’s tall.
(2) Teacher: Now, second question. What do you think the man‟s job is?
Student: Teacher
Teacher: a teacher. Yes, a teacher.
 Recast/ Reformulation.
Repairing a definition is expressing again the learner‟s incorrectly grammatical response to
be correct with syntactic function without changing the learner‟s idea. Many Second
Language Acquisition researchers have been interested in the role of reformulation with
the wrong syntax of learners because the opinion making comments on reformulation is
one part of English methodology, which not only heightens information but also notices
the grammar. Researchers consider the form- focused instruction as the effective language
teaching method. ( Long & Robinson, 1998). For example:
(1) Teacher: Ok. Linh?
Linh: Studying hard to en….ent….
Teacher: Enter
Linh: enter examination
Teacher: Ok. Studying hard for examination. Ok. That is a problem, yeah.
In the above paragraph, teacher has reformulated Linh‟s response twice. The first time
is to complete the student‟s sentence and the second is to repair the whole word phrases.
Normally, teachers spend most of their talking time in questioning. Many researches in
foreign countries indicate that the teacher asks two questions per minute on average
(Edwards & Mercer, 1987). Questions and answers often happen according to the I-R-F 10
model shown above. This model helps the teacher attract the student‟s participation and
confirms again a student‟s response in F-moves. However, the limitation of this model is
not to provide the student with a chance of initiating a dialogue, to reduce the ability to
think independently and the development the learner‟s speaking skill. To overcome this
disadvantage, the teacher should be flexible and base on the learner‟s response to change
the way to question.
(1) Teacher: Have you ever spoken English to a native speaker?
Student: No
Teacher: You’ve never spoken English to a native speaker. Why never?
(2) Teacher: What would you bring to the party?
Student: bread
Teacher: Right. What else?
 Recycling.
While speaking a foreign language in the classroom, the teacher should try to utilize words
and grammatical structures students have learnt to help them both remember and
consolidate again the old knowledge. This thing is vitally important in learning foreign
language in Vietnam. Thus, teachers had better choose the important and suitable unit of
vocabulary and grammatical structures to use frequently in the classroom and encourage
students to reuse them.
Teacher: Anything else? Yes?
Student: He is telling him now to be under his control.
Teacher: Now you are under my command. You have to do whatever I want
you to do.
Source: Cullen, 2002, p.121

quantitative research methods utilized then was the correlation (associational) research
method. Tollefson (1988), for example, explores the degree of association between
teachers‟ question types and students‟ response patterns in ESL (English as a second
language) classes. Teachers‟ question types were divided in to (1) display questions, which
aim at testing students‟ target- language knowledge (e.g., “Are you a student?” “What day
is today?”), and (2) referential questions, which intend to gain real information from
students (e.g., “What would you like for lunch?” “Has anyone seen the eraser?”). The
results show that teachers‟ referential questions have a strong correlation with students‟
creative responses, which often lead to further teacher- student interactions. On the other
hand, teachers‟ display questions were apt to have a strong association with students‟
imitative responses, which usually do not lead to or facilitate further teacher- student
interactions. 12
4.3. Experimental Studies on Teacher Talk.
Experimental studies, which can examine/establish causal relationships between variables,
were relatively rare in the early 1980s. However, more articles about experimental teacher
talk studies appeared in second language acquisition journals in the late 1980s. In the late
1990s and early 2000s, they became a mainstream research methodology for teacher talk
research. Chaudron & Richards (1986), for example, conducted their experimental study to
investigate the effects of discourse markers in teacher talk on students‟ comprehension.
The discourse markers included two different types: (1) “macro-markers”, which signal the
macro- structure of a lecture and (2) “micro-markers”, which indicate links between
sentences within the lecture or function as fillers. Discourse markers, such as “What I‟m
going to talk about today?” and “let‟s go back to the beginning…” are categorized as
macro- markers while discourse markers, such as “well”, “now”, “so” and “you see”, are
micro- markers. Subjects had significantly better comprehension on the macro- marker
version of the spoken lecture information than the baseline version. In contrast, the micro-
marker version did not produce significantly better comprehension scores than the baseline

contribution to the understanding of the issue in the context of a college of education in a
mountainous area. In the next chapter, I will present the context in which the present study
was conducted as well as the research methods that were employed for the purpose of the
study.

14
CHAPTER 2. DATA ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the findings of the study. Qualitative data were analysed with
reference to this study‟s research questions. Since the goal of interpretive research is tp
“understand the inner perspectives and meanings of actions and events of those being
studied” (Anderson and Burns, 1989, p. 67) and words not numbers are considered the
primary source of data (Dörnyei, 2007), data were collected through semi structured

Three teachers agreed to participate in this study. Teacher 1 is a female teacher
with over 7 years teaching experience and she has a M.A. degree. She is teaching non-
major English students with elementary level, there are 57 students in the classroom in
which there are17 male students and 21 female students. Their ages are from 18 to 21.
Teacher 2 is a female teacher with over 8 years teaching experience and she has a B.A.
degree. She is teaching non-major English students with elementary level, there are 49
students in the classroom in which there are 12 male students and 37 female students. Their
ages are from 18 to 21. The third teacher is a female teacher with over 6 years teaching
experience and she has a B.A. degree. She is Tay person. She is teaching non-major
English students with elementary level, there are 41 students in the classroom in which
there are 4 male students and 39 female students. Their ages are from 18 to 21. Table 1
presents the information about the participants.

Teacher 1
Teacher 2
Teacher 3
Gender
Female
Female
female
Qualifications
M.A
B.A
B.A
Teaching experience
7 years
8 years
6 years

Table 1: Participants Profile

between the students.
2.3.2. Teacher 2.
The teacher 2 talked too much in the period, her talking time occupied 37 minutes whereas
the students‟ talking time only got 8 minutes. The students prepared the task in 2 minutes
then answered the questions in the book. The teacher called the student one by one. Each
student talked from 6 seconds to 14 seconds depended on the students‟ ability. They could
answer right or wrong. The extract below is illustrated.
Extract 2.
[R] S1: she likes her job
[F] T: she likes her job. (repetition) Not /dop/ You! What is your name?
(Question)
[R] S1: job
The teacher talked all the time in the period, even when she let the students discuss in
group, she also intervened some questions or instructions which she said before asking the
students to do the task.
2.3.3. Teacher 3.
In the period, the teacher 3 talked for 31 minutes and left 14 minutes for the students to
speak and discuss. The student has much chance to speak English or answer the
requirement in the exercise in the book. They worked individually and got from 5 seconds
to 14 seconds for each student. The teacher spent about 3 or nearly 4 minutes for the
students preparing the task. Most of the students had opportunities to speak English, but 17
the task was repeated a lot, which made the students bored and they did not attention to the
teacher and other students‟ activity.
2.4. Interview Data.
In order to gain insights into teachers‟ thinking about the way they used either L1 or L2 in
the classroom, I carried out post-observations with them. The interviews were non-
structured to capture the variation in the way teachers talked in the classroom. For

cover the steps in the period. In short, we need to practice a lot in order to achieve the
effective teaching period.
2.5. Functions of teacher talk.
The following table represents the „F-move‟ of three teachers from three classes that were
investigated. The functions are listed first, followed by three teachers‟ moves in one
period.
Period 1.
There is a common pattern regarding the functions of teacher talk across all three cases.
For example, the teachers questioned extensively in the classroom with the number of
moves being 63-25. The number of questions asked by Teacher 1 and Teacher 3 was
exactly the same whereas Teacher 2 asked questions less than half. Similarly, Teacher 1
and Teacher 2 made almost the same moves in giving instructions while the number of
moves in giving instructions by Teacher 3 was approximately half. It is indicated from
Table 3 that recast/reformulation was very rare in the classroom with just one move in the
case of Teacher 1 and Teacher 3 while Teacher 2 did not reformulate the students‟
language. It is obvious that recast/ reformulation was rarely used as a technique of
corrective feedback in the lessons taught by these teachers. Functions
Teacher 1
Teacher 2
Teacher 3
1. Giving instructions
39
30
17
2.Checking students‟ understanding
4
19

6. Recycling
0
0
0